The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) is urging OSHA and other agencies to harmonize respiratory standards in healthcare to protect against future airborne disease outbreaks, but appears to sidestep the past debate between OSHA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on proper guidance for using certain reusable respirators.
November 15, 2026
Citing risks of climate change, Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) is crafting a bill for introduction in the next Congress that would require OSHA to develop “federal heat protection standards” for workers and require employers to provide safe workplaces with water, rest, and shade, a measure that supporters say may be the most viable means of requiring such a standard.
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Lawmakers negotiating a new five-year Farm Bill have agreed to Democrats' demands to drop language originally included in the House version of the bill that aimed to codify a permanent waiver from OSHA's process safety management (PSM) standards for retail facilities, Capitol Hill sources say.
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OSHA and other Labor Department (DOL) officials are agreeing with Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls to bolster a suite of protections to prevent injury and illness among child laborers in agriculture and other sectors, strengthening Democrats' efforts to scrutinize Trump administration plans to ease child-labor rules for teens in the healthcare sector.
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The Labor Department’s Inspector General (OIG) is slated to release in fiscal year 2019 a broad series of inquiries into OSHA enforcement and regulatory practices, reviews that could aid Democrats who will control the House next year and are already planning significant oversight of the Trump administration's worker safety programs.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is backing OSHA's policy that allows the agency to cite “controlling employers” for hazards to other employers' workers on a job site, backing, for the first time in this appellate circuit, the use of Chevron deference to uphold OSHA's OSH Act authority to address multi-employer sites.
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A coalition convened by NIOSH is calling for a review of existing ergonomic guidelines to ensure they are appropriate for current work environments, opening the door to a debate on whether current policies are adequate to protect against harms in food processing and other sectors.
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The Labor Department's (DOL) Office of Inspector General (IG) is reiterating calls for OSHA to ensure employers report workers' injuries and abate workplace hazards, highlighting an ongoing dispute with the Trump administration's top OSHA official, who has argued that employers are not required prove they have abated workplace hazards.
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OSHA has sent for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review a proposed rule seeking to revise an Obama-era rule strengthening the agency's beryllium standards, changes that are part of a settlement with industry groups that calls for clarifying ancillary provisions of the Obama-era rule's general industry standard.
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House Democrats have introduced a bill that would compel OSHA to follow through on an Obama-era commitment to issue an enforceable standard requiring that employers in the healthcare and social services sectors craft plans for preventing workplace violence, arguing that the Trump administration is slow-walking the rule.
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