Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su used a Jan. 26 event to back Democrats’ latest iteration of a bill that would set a strict deadline for OSHA to enact its long-delayed workplace violence standard for the healthcare sector, despite the agency’s failure to even set a target for a proposal some eight years after beginning the rulemaking process.
November 15, 2026
Lawmakers and industry groups that support the lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program are warning that states could create a “patchwork” of substitutes for the federal initiative following introduction of one such bill in Nebraska, adding urgency to their steady calls for Congress to pass a reauthorization.
Date:
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has sent its final rule updating the 50-year-old standards for respirable crystalline silica (RCS) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review, advancing a long-delayed rulemaking process and teeing up a last round of debate on the policy.
Date:
Attorneys and former officials say the Senate’s failure to confirm a second member to the Occupational Safety and Health Association Review Commission (OSHRC) threatens short- and long-term complications for OSHA enforcement, including a backlog of cases and prolonged uncertainty on whether employers will be penalized for failing to abate alleged violations.
Date:
OSHA has announced its annual inflation adjustments to minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties for violations cited in the coming year, raising both figures by about 3.2 percent and triggering a regulatory mandate for state plans to apply a matching adjustment to their own penalties, amid continuing litigation over whether than requirement is lawful.
Date:
A coalition of labor and environmental groups is urging OSHA to formally propose its long-delayed heat-danger standard before the start of summer, and to prioritize what they say are key elements for the eventual rule such as requiring employers to craft mandatory written safety programs and allow flexibility only within “careful” limits.
Date:
A top official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says her team is refocusing their facility-safety resources on the voluntary ChemLock initiative after Congress allowed the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program to expire, but underlined that it “is not a substitute in any way” for binding regulation.
Date:
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is again urging OSHA to either extend current safety standards to oil and gas drilling operations or craft a new rule for the sector in its report on a fatal 2020 blowout at a Texas oil well.
Date:
Industry figures say enough lawmakers are signaling support for reauthorizing the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program that they expect “opportunities” for a renewal in the new year -- though still with some uncertainty over whether that support will be enough to push a bill across the finish line.
Date:
The court hearing South Carolina's challenge to the OSHA mandate for states to match inflation adjustments in federal OSH Act penalties is staying the case pending a Supreme Court decision on the Administrative Procedure Act's (APA) statute of limitations, rejecting arguments from the agency that legal issues in the two are largely unrelated.
Date: