The Agriculture Department (USDA) is optimistic that its proposals to increase processing speeds at poultry and pork slaughterhouses will be upheld in court, pointing to a 2025 Supreme Court ruling that it says eliminated the need to consider worker safety, which is not part of USDA’s authority.
September 16, 2026
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for OSHA to amend its process safety management (PSM) standard to address reactive hazards, saying that implementing such requirements could have prevented a fatal accident at a caramel coloring manufacturing plant in Kentucky.
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OSHA has scheduled a series of informal public hearings for August on a host of deregulatory proposals unveiled last year, including a plan to eliminate medical evaluation requirements for certain respirators that the agency’s construction advisory panel has recommended OSHA drop.
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Texas produce groups are pushing back on OSHA’s efforts to dismiss the groups’ constitutional challenge to the OSH Act, arguing the agency is failing to address the merits of their arguments and instead is raising various procedural defenses that are flawed.
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A Texas oil field equipment supplier has dropped without comment its legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), which it originally filed after receiving OSHA citations related to the death of a subcontractor’s employee.
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The Labor Department (DOL) is not making any adjustments to civil money penalties in 2026 -- including for OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) -- because the lapse in federal funding last fall prevented the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) from producing the data necessary for any such adjustments.
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OSHA’s construction-sector advisory panel is backing the agency’s long-discussed plan to develop a tree care standard, noting state and industry standards that could serve as a model for a national standard and highlighting areas where construction activities overlap with actions that could be considered tree care.
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OSHA’s construction-sector advisory panel is providing a mixed response to the agency’s proposals to streamline and provide compliance flexibility for chemical-specific respirator standards -- backing some, opposing others and deadlocking on two -- after previously narrowly opposing other aspects of OSHA’s deregulatory package.
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EPA and petroleum refiners are renewing their efforts to dismiss a suit challenging the agency’s denial of a petition seeking stricter regulation of hydrogen fluoride (HF) to prevent accidental chemical releases that could harm workers or residents, charging the case is doomed because it relies on uncertain worst-case scenarios.
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New analysis from a coal miners’ advocacy group, using data collected by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), finds that 20 percent of surface and underground mines sampled for silica exposure in 2025 had levels of silica dust above the standard set in a now-paused Biden-era MSHA rule.
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