President Donald Trump has signed a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution revoking an Obama administration policy requiring federal agencies to consider workplace safety and other labor law violations in procurement decisions, part of an ongoing White House push to roll back regulations, officials say.
September 17, 2026
OSHA has taken another step toward pulling back the Obama administration's worker injury and illness reporting rule, asking federal courts in Oklahoma and Texas to delay industry litigation challenging the rule to allow incoming Trump Labor Department officials time to consider the case.
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The Labor Department (DOL) is defending the Obama OSHA's final rule strengthening limits for worker exposure to silica, claiming extreme deference in interpreting scientific data supporting the rule, though President Donald Trump's nominee to head the agency one day earlier declined a Democratic senator's call to defend the rule against expected rollback.
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Alexander Acosta, President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next labor secretary, is balking at requests from Senate Democrats to preserve Obama-era OSHA rules strengthening silica standards due to the administration's deregulatory orders, but he backed the need to adequately fund safety inspections even in the face of budget cuts.
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Top Senate environment committee Republicans are hedging on whether a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to rescind EPA's chemical facility safety rule will reach the Senate floor, raising fresh doubts about the measure's prospects even as EPA is said to be concerned about its administrative reconsideration of the regulation.
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The Trump administration has, for the second time, delayed the effective date of the Obama OSHA's final beryllium rule, agreeing to examine concerns raised by an industry group and its congressional backers over the rule's coverage of the construction and shipyard sectors, though the agency has rebuffed, for now, industry calls for a longer delay.
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A coalition of GOP states is petitioning EPA to delay by an additional 15 months the effective date of the Obama administration's final rule updating the agency's facility accident prevention program, saying more time is needed beyond the current delayed June deadline for EPA to weigh whether to revise or outright repeal the regulation.
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Worker safety programs at OSHA and elsewhere across the federal government are facing massive cuts under President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2018 budget blueprint, which calls for a 21 percent cut to the Labor Department (DOL), which funds OSHA, and elimination of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).
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EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to reconsider the Obama administration's final rule overhauling the agency's facility accident prevention program hinged on federal investigators' ruling that arson caused the West, TX, fire driving the rulemaking, backing industry assertions that the finding is a threshold issue that undermines the need for the rule.
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The industry petition that prompted the Trump administration to agree to reconsider the Obama-era overhaul of EPA's risk management plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program tees up numerous issues on which the agency may seek public input, including the threshold question of whether the finding that arson caused the fire that drove the rulemaking undermines the need for the final rule.
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The Trump administration has narrowed OSHA's legal push to preserve the agency's authority to expand an inspection beyond the circumstances of an employee's injury, arguing inspectors had “reasonable suspicion” to check for some additional hazards, while dropping, for now, Obama-era arguments that OSHA could conduct an even broader review.
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Industry and labor groups are offering competing arguments in lawsuits challenging the Obama OSHA's landmark final rule overhauling limits for workers' exposures to silica dusts, with unions faulting industry assertions that the prior limits adequately protected workers and industry rebuffing union calls for stronger protections and medical surveillance.
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Grover Norquist, the influential leader of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), is urging House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to quickly advance a pending Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution to repeal the Obama EPA's overhaul of its industrial facility accident prevention program.
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A broad coalition of petrochemical, power and other industry groups is petitioning EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to “reconsider and rescind” the Obama administration's final rule overhauling the agency's industrial facility accident prevention program even as the groups prepare to file litigation that they hope will lead to the rule's elimination.
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Pro-regulatory groups are weighing first-time lawsuits on the scope of Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions the GOP and President Donald Trump are using to undo 11th-hour Obama administration rules, including several worker safety policies, hoping to narrow the CRA's bar on issuing “substantially similar” rules, or even invalidate the law.
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The Trump administration has proposed delaying, for the second time, the effective date of the Obama OSHA's beryllium rule to allow for further review pursuant to a recent White House memo, even as an industry lawsuit challenging the rule advanced in federal court.
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Backed by the chemical industry, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution to repeal the controversial Obama-era revisions to EPA's facility safety program, a companion to one introduced in the House last month.
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Two labor union groups are seeking to intervene in litigation brought by a coalition of fuel, manufacturing and other groups challenging the Obama OSHA's worker injury and illness reporting rule, saying there is no guarantee the Trump administration will continue to defend the rule forcefully.
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Even as the House has voted to repeal the Obama OSHA's final rule clarifying that employers face a “continuing obligation” to record employee injuries and illnesses, businesses will continue pushing back against the measure, either in litigation or lobbying the Trump OSHA for a new rule, because of uncertainty over the fate of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution, an industry attorney says.
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A coalition of community and environmental justice groups is urging congressional leaders to preserve EPA's risk management plan (RMP) facility safety management rule that the Obama administration finalized shortly before leaving office, an attempt to counter a pending House resolution that aims to eliminate the regulation.
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