The Labor Department (DOL) is appealing an OSHA review commission ruling that struck down a citation against a ship repair company for failing to conduct a hazard assessment to determine whether employee respirator use is “necessary,” a move that underscores the agency's long-standing effort to expand enforcement oversight of employee chemical exposures.
September 17, 2026
Officials in the Agriculture Department’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) are defending its proposed swine slaughter rule from Democrats' and labor groups' charges that the measure's plan to increase line speeds and ease inspections jeopardizes workers' safety in an already high-risk industry.
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Labor and food safety advocates are urging the Agriculture Department’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) to drop its proposed rule that seeks to ease regulations and alter inspection procedures at swine processing facilities, charging the measure would increase risk of contamination and worker injuries and is likely unlawful.
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The Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) recent guidance calling for product labels to warn of acute inhalation hazards of paint strippers containing methylene chloride could give EPA an alternative to calls for a first-time ban on some uses of the substance, such as industry calls to promote risk management options.
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The Trump administration has moved several Obama-era initiatives that it had previously shelved back onto OSHA's regulatory priorities list, including measures aimed at limiting harms to healthcare workers, first responders, and tree and landscape workers, as well as a chemical hazard communication standard.
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Amid lobbying by families of consumers and workers killed from exposure to the paint-stripper chemical methylene chloride, EPA has reversed course, saying it now intends to soon finalize an Obama-era rule expected to ban certain uses of the substance, though environmentalists are cautioning that the final rule should preserve the proposed ban.
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Congress has approved a first-time Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution repealing a years-old agency guidance, a measure that appears likely to bolster efforts by deregulatory opponents, who are currently seeking a precedent-setting court ruling that would allow them to enforce the law's mandate that agencies submit such documents to Congress for approval or disapproval.
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The Trump administration's upcoming defense of EPA rules implementing the recently revised toxics law will mark one of the first substantive tests for how well new regulations will withstand legal scrutiny after the agency suffered a series of early court losses as they sought to defend other regulatory delays and officials are scrambling to correct perceived flaws in several draft rules.
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Despite allowing its advisory committee on whistleblower protections to become defunct, OSHA is planning a series of public meetings to seek public input on protecting whistleblowers, with the first meeting on whistleblower protections in the railroad and trucking sectors scheduled for next month.
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Anticipating procedural challenges from EPA, environmentalists are making the case that an appellate court should consider the merits of their litigation challenging the agency's framework for reviewing new chemicals, charging the policy has the effect of a legislative rule, was issued without following proper rulemaking procedure, and should be vacated.
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The Teamsters union is suing several pharmacy benefit managers, drug manufacturers and distributors over excess use of opioids, alleging they marketed the drugs for chronic pain treatment to treat workplace and other injuries despite their limited long-term effectiveness and addictive qualities, which resulted in increased costs for the union's benefits programs and further worsened workplace safety.
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Reversing an earlier guidance, OSHA is now requiring employers in the 26 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands that operate under OSHA-approved state plans to submit injury and illness data as required under the 2016 Obama-era recordkeeping update rule by July 1, even if the employer is covered by a state plan that has not yet adopted an equivalent state rule.
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A key labor union is offering a tepid response to OSHA's settlement with industry groups that would narrow aspects of the Obama-era beryllium rule's general industry requirements, but is expressing concerns about future deals that may seek a broader rollback of the rule's requirements for maritime and shipyard industries.
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OSHA has agreed with several industry petitioners to clarify language regarding the ancillary provisions of its Obama-era beryllium rule for general industry and further delay the rule's compliance dates, according to a just-filed proposed settlement, but the rulemaking faces a steep deadline to begin amending the regulation before a May 11 compliance deadline.
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AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is warning OSHA nominee Scott Mugno that the labor movement will be “monitoring his every step,” and that they will organize if he attempts to “move backwards” on worker protections, increasing pressure on the nominee to break from the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda.
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A coalition of local safety and health groups say that an uptick in worker deaths in 2016 should prompt the Trump administration to boost OSHA funding for inspections, arguing that increased resources for workplace safety and health programs and more robust agency follow-up enforcement would help prevent worker deaths.
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The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) says that a process safety management (PSM) system like the one required under OSHA's PSM rule could have prevented a fatal February 2017 explosion at a Louisiana paper mill, putting new pressure on the Trump administration to revive an Obama-era effort to strengthen OSHA's regulation.
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Breaking from efforts to reverse various of the previous administration's initiatives, the Trump OSHA appears to be retaining on its website an annotated occupational chemical exposure limit table and stringent guidance language that was a product of an Obama-era effort to bolster the agency's chemical oversight.
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Faced with labor shortages that are preventing many jobs from being filled, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta signaled a “step back” in the Trump administration's strict zero tolerance approach on drug use in the workplace, opening the door to a possible softening in OSHA's plans to roll back an Obama-era rule that precludes company policies, such as drug testing, if they deter injury reporting.
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Two leading senators plan to renew efforts to pass a bill that aims to lock into state law Obama-era federal environmental and worker safety standards, sources say, after the measure stalled last year in the Assembly amid charges by industry groups that it is illegal and would trigger a wave of new litigation against the state.
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