OSHA has unveiled a new version of its “Severe Violator Enforcement Program” (SVEP) targeting employers that “willfully or repeatedly” violate safety standards or refuse to correct violations, broadening a key part of the program to cover all rules rather than only “high emphasis hazards” in a move employer attorneys say could expand its reach “exponentially.”
November 15, 2026
Top OSHA officials told advisory panels this week that the agency is poised to advance several long-awaited rules on heat illness, protective gear and more after it completes its permanent COVID-19 safety standard for the healthcare sector, saying the staffing demands of that project have sidelined even major priorities for the Biden administration.
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The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is stepping up attacks on the peer review of EPA’s draft formaldehyde risk assessment, charging that the National Academy of Science (NAS) is unlawfully concealing key information on its review process amid a long-running battle over the ubiquitous chemical’s risks to workers.
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The discount retail chain Dollar General is telling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit it will oppose OSHA’s bid to have the court enforce an “informal settlement agreement” the two sides negotiated over a $145,000 citation for allegedly unsafe conditions at an Ohio store.
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OSHA has sent for White House review a long-delayed proposed rulemaking that the agency says is designed to “clarify the requirements” for fitting workers with personal protective equipment (PPE) in the construction sector, over three years after it first announced it was working on the changes.
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Federal judges considering a rare suit under the OSH Act provision allowing workers to sue OSHA for failing to take action over an “imminent danger” raised doubts at oral argument on whether they can still provide any relief to the plaintiffs more than two years into the case, among an array of other questions on the results both sides are seeking in the appeal.
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The Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is launching a new study of the worker-safety impacts of raising line-speed caps at meat and poultry slaughterhouses, potentially reshaping long-pending suits by unions and others over prior speed waivers that a district judge scrapped for failing to consider safety issues.
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The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has crafted first-time guidance for its 2020 accidental-release reporting rule that it says “clarifies” requirements for facilities to notify the board of releases that cause injury, death or “substantial” property damage, just a month after publishing data from the rule’s first two years of reports.
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OSHA is ordering Wells Fargo to pay $22 million in damages to a former senior manager who was terminated from the banking giant in 2019 after “repeatedly” raising concerns over alleged misconduct apparently linked to its account-fraud scandal -- years after an internal investigation found the agency mishandled similar claims.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit is set to hear oral argument next week in a suit brought by workers at a Pennsylvania meat plant challenging the Trump OSHA’s refusal to take enforcement action over what they say was an “imminent danger” of COVID-19 infection at their workplace, in a test of one of the OSH Act’s few private rights of action.
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