The Senate voted Dec. 7 to approve a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would nullify OSHA’s emergency COVID-19 vaccination rule with two Democrats joining the chamber’s Republicans to back it, marking a symbolic win for the GOP even though it faces long odds in the House and a certain veto if it does pass there.
November 15, 2026
OSHA is pushing back two major deadlines for public input until early 2022 -- extending both the public comment period for its call for comments to inform a long-awaited heat illness standard, and the nomination deadline for new members to its Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH).
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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is backing a Republican-led effort to repeal OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccines, all but guaranteeing it will pass the 50-50 Senate while House Republicans are hoping to secure support from Democratic moderates that would allow them to force a vote in the lower chamber.
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Two OSHA-related nominees won key Senate votes Dec. 2, as lawmakers voted to confirm Larry Turner as the Department of Labor’s (DOL) new Inspector General (IG) just hours after members of the labor committee backed Susan Harthill’s nomination to join the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
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The Biden administration is expanding its efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 following the emergence of the novel and potentially immunity-avoiding “Omicron” variant, including a fresh push for employers to adopt vaccination-or-test requirements even after a court stayed OSHA’s rule that would make that policy mandatory.
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A group of congressional Republicans is threatening to block a stop-gap government funding bill unless it blocks OSHA’s and other agencies’ COVID-19 vaccine policies, potentially undermining a newly announced bipartisan spending agreement and all but guaranteeing another clash on the subject at the next deadline.
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OSHA is extending by 45 days the deadline for public comment on its COVID-19 vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard (ETS), as stakeholders await a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on whether it will lift an injunction blocking the rule’s implementation.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) will review a case that could set a new precedent for how it deals with situations where an employer “disregards” deadlines to participate in an appeal, while the Senate labor committee is poised to vote on President Joe Biden’s nominee to the panel as soon as Dec. 2.
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Washington state is forging ahead with rulemaking based on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination and testing despite a court order blocking implementation of the federal rule, as officials there say they “are not delaying” work on their vaccine rule while other delegated states are weighing next steps.
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The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) says workplace safety and health ranks as one of the department’s top “management challenges,” citing a decline in OSHA enforcement, mounting whistleblower investigations, and silica protections as key subjects where the agency must improve.
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