The Department of Labor (DOL) is suing a New York healthcare center over allegations that it fired a whistleblower who raised alarms over potential COVID-19 exposures at the business -- the first time it has announced opening a lawsuit over whistleblower claims related to the pandemic.
November 15, 2026
OSHA has named five new members to its Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH) and renewed another 10 for new two-year terms, including an official with North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) who will serve as chair, in the Biden administration’s first round of appointments to an agency panel.
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The White House is proposing a $64 million boost to OSHA’s budget including 362 new full-time equivalent (FTE) staff positions, in what would be an across-the-board boost to the agency’s capacity for rulemaking, enforcement and outreach that the Biden administration says is needed to “reassert its position” in national safety policy.
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OSHA and four companies that sued over the Obama-era beryllium exposure regulation have reached a settlement to expand the list of “abrasive blasting materials” the agency says in guidance are subject to the rule, potentially resolving a long-running conflict among industry on which materials the policy should cover.
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Republicans on the Senate labor committee are calling on Doug Parker, President Joe Biden’s nominee as the next OSHA chief, to withdraw the agency’s planned COVID-19 standard (ETS), telling Parker during his May 27 confirmation hearing that vaccinations have eliminated the need for a pandemic worker safety rule.
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OSHA has released four new regulatory interpretation letters that aim to clarify several recordkeeping and reporting requirements, including new guidance for workers’ newly discovered chemical sensitivities, accidents during a commute, injuries related to both on- and off-the-job activity, and mandatory training at a third-party site.
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OSHA is walking back its guidance for employers to treat adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccination as “work-related” for recordkeeping and reporting purposes if the vaccine was “required” for workers, promising not to enforce that mandate until at least 2022 in order to avoid “any appearance of discouraging” vaccination.
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Democratic and Republican leaders on the House Energy & Commerce Committee are questioning the lone member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Assessment Board (CSB) on a range of issues, from the “quorum of one” to possible conflicts of interest among staff, that the lawmakers say “may be undermining” the board’s work.
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Industry groups are urging OSHA to loosen its proposed labeling rule for hazardous chemicals and other substances, arguing that key provisions conflict with EPA policy and require companies to gather “vast” new data on risks posed by downstream chemical uses, while California says the agency should scrap the rulemaking altogether.
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OSHA is proposing a second set of revisions to its 2016 fall-prevention standard to address what it says were unclear provisions and typographical errors in the Obama-era rule governing elevated “walking-working surfaces,” including a formatting mistake that left out key language on guardrails for staircases.
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