OSHA is formally publishing its heat safety standard for indoor and outdoor work, over a month after first unveiling text for the long-awaited regulation, beginning a 120-day public comment period that would close just weeks before President Joe Biden’s term ends -- and thus leaves further work on the rulemaking to the next administration.
September 16, 2026
Top Democrats on the House workforce committee are calling on OSHA to investigate recent reports that claim officials with California and South Carolina’s state plan agencies have been “tipping off” employers on upcoming agency inspections targeting not only safety issues but child-labor violations and potential trafficking.
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Members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s (NASEM) standing toxicology committee are calling for new approaches to testing the dangers of human exposure to micro- and nano-plastics, particularly in aging veterans -- tests they say could lead to first-time occupational exposure limits for the materials.
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Two employer attorneys say an administrative law judge’s (ALJ) recent decision partly scrapping an OSHA citation based on whether a worker killed in a 2020 accident had been standing in a recognized “danger zone” underlines the burden the agency faces to show specific evidence of industry practice to support such claims.
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United Airlines is asking the 7th Circuit to review an OSHA enforcement case where it has argued that its agreements with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its staff union limit its duty to implement certain hazard-prevention requirements under the OSH Act -- a claim an administrative law judge (ALJ) rejected earlier this year.
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The California government district that owns and manages the Golden Gate Bridge is suing OSHA over a Trump-era guidance letter that loosened its safety standard for scaffolding, calling it an “illegal and unjustified attempt to reduce the factor of safety for temporary scaffolding designs,” that contradicts the regulatory text.
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Several state-level sheriffs’ associations are warning OSHA that its proposed health and safety standard for “emergency responders” did not properly consider the costs it would impose, particularly for smaller search and rescue (SAR) organizations, echoing objections that a host of local firefighting companies has raised against the rule.
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OSHA is asking a federal district court to dismiss employer and trade associations’ challenge to its controversial rule allowing employee representatives to participate in enforcement “walkarounds” outside of their own work sites, arguing that the plaintiffs have shown no concrete harm from the new policy in addition to defending its legality.
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Lawmakers on the House workforce protection subcommittee used a recent hearing to express competing arguments about OSHA’s recent slate of regulatory actions including its controversial final rule on worker representatives in enforcement walkarounds and pending proposed safety standards for heat danger and emergency-response workers.
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South Carolina is preparing to resume its challenge to OSHA’s mandate for state plans to match federal OSH Act penalty levels, after the Supreme Court eased the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) six-year deadline for suits against the federal government that the agency previously touted in a bid to dismiss the case.
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