OSHA recently posted a slew of new regulatory interpretation letters offering responses to employers’ and industry professionals’ questions on matters such as the categories of chemicals considered “associated with” formaldehyde gas, occupational noise exposure standards, shipment of hazardous materials and silica dust exposure control methods.
November 15, 2026
OSHA has unveiled its final rule re-establishing electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates for many employers, largely standing behind the 2022 proposal while narrowing several sector-specific exclusions that unions and their allies criticized in public comments.
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OSHA has announced a new, three-year national emphasis program (NEP) aiming to ramp up inspections and enforcement at warehouses, processing facilities, distribution centers and high-risk retail establishments, following what the agency says is a dramatic increase in their injury rates since 2013.
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OSHA has sent a final rule expected to re-establish Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates to the Federal Register for publication, appearing to cut off long-stayed litigation over the Trump administration’s rollback of those requirements while setting the stage for a potential court challenge from employers.
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Republican leaders on the House homeland security committee are backing a bill to reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program into 2025, just weeks ahead of its expiration on July 27, even as a bipartisan Senate coalition is seeking a five-year extension instead.
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The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) will publish its long-awaited proposed update to its 50-year-old standards for silica dust in the July 13 Federal Register, starting a 45-day public comment period and setting dates for two in-person public hearings.
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The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has issued a new report urging OSHA to craft a “comprehensive outreach plan” to improve employers’ handling of explosive chemicals and reactive hazards, as well as renewing long-standing calls to tighten safety standards for those substances, following a 2020 explosion that killed a worker.
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President Joe Biden has nominated former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) member Amanda Wood Laihow to return to the board, months after she quietly stepped down in April at the conclusion of her first term -- leaving OSHRC with just a single Senate-confirmed member, short of the two-person quorum it needs to do business.
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The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has proposed a long-awaited update to its 50-year-old standards for silica dust, advancing a rulemaking process that has been in progress for many years but hit repeated delays over the intervening years, despite OSHA enacting a parallel update to its own silica rules in 2016.
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EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) says the former chair of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), who was the board’s only member for over a year, violated spending rules, potentially bolstering Biden appointees’ rollback of policies she enacted giving the CSB chair new unilateral authority including on certain spending decisions.
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