The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is asking the D.C. Circuit to review two enforcement cases where administrative law judges (ALJs) rejected that agency’s claims that it has “unfettered” authority to drop already-issued citations in favor of settlement agreements, teeing up what could be precedent-setting decisions on the scope of its enforcement discretion.
November 15, 2026
Deputy OSHA chief James Frederick told members of the National Advisory Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) that the agency plans to complete the realignment of its regional offices announced in May by the start of fiscal year 2025 on Oct. 1, amid concerns from both federal officials and panelists over continued impacts of funding cuts on federal and state safety work.
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OSHA chief Doug Parker is urging workers and safety advocates to use public comments on the agency’s proposed heat-illness standard to tell “stories” of dangers they and their co-workers have faced from excessive heat and how businesses have successfully addressed them, in order to illustrate the potential benefits of new safety measures.
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An attorney for the free-market Center for Individual Rights (CIR) says the landmark Supreme Court decision that opened OSHA and other agencies’ long-standing rules to new legal challenges will likely produce a host of circuit splits requiring officials to apply different legal frameworks or even separate regulations in different regions of the country.
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Employer groups are sharply attacking OSHA’s first substantive defense of its controversial rule allowing “third-party” employee representatives to take part in inspection walkarounds, arguing that the agency is refusing to acknowledge likely harms from the new policy while adopting a “baffling” reading of the OSH Act.
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OSHA is seeking to dismiss South Carolina’s suit challenging an Obama-era rule directing states to match federal OSH Act penalty levels, renewing its charge that the state missed a statutory deadline and that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling easing some statutes of limitations has no bearing on this case because it could have sued at any time in that window.
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The AFL-CIO and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) are urging EPA to strengthen its proposed TSCA rule for n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) by banning more uses of the solvent and imposing tighter restrictions on continuing applications, saying the current version sidesteps the hierarchy of controls and will not adequately protect workers.
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EPA has unveiled its long-awaited and controversial Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) formaldehyde assessment -- a pivotal factor in a pending TSCA evaluation of the chemical -- that generally retains conservative risk values that employers have long feared will lead to strict limits on workplace exposures.
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A federal appellate court has for a second time denied the AFL-CIO’s petition to intervene in litigation over TSCA limits on methylene chloride to defend the rule against industry challenges, appearing to guarantee that no environmental or labor group will be able to step in if the next administration stops defending the case or seeks to settle it.
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The AFL-CIO is again seeking approval to intervene in litigation over EPA’s TSCA rule for methylene chloride to defend the policy, saying the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has set a “quite low” bar for the step by granting a parallel bid from industry, even after it also denied the union’s first request earlier this month.
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