A worker advocacy group is urging the Senate to vigorously investigate the health and safety record of Andrew Puzder, the fast-food magnate President Donald Trump has nominated to head the Labor Department, arguing that Puzder fails to acknowledge the role of regulation in protecting workers, and hailing the Obama OSHA's record of strong enforcement.
September 17, 2026
Industry officials expect the Trump administration will prioritize for rollback anti-retaliation provisions of OSHA's worker injury and illness reporting rule, curtailing the rule through new guidance and limited enforcement, as well as an Obama-era policy allowing union officials to join OSHA inspectors at non-union sites, among others.
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A top House Republican says lawmakers will likely target an Obama administration policy requiring consideration of safety and other labor law violations in federal procurement decisions as one of several regulations that lawmakers plan to repeal under the Congress Review Act (CRA).
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An industry attorney is arguing that the Obama OSHA's granting of nursing and labor groups' petition for a federal standard for preventing workplace violence in the healthcare and social service sectors sought to give advocates a legal pathway to sue the agency to force a rule in the likely event that the Trump administration declines to pursue a standard.
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Beryllium producers have filed a federal lawsuit challenging OSHA's recently-issued final rule strengthening limits for workers' exposure to the substance, and are arguing in meetings with agency staff that changes from a proposed version make the final regulation “unworkable,” and undermine an industry-union partnership that informed the rule.
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Industry representatives are seeking to expand the reach of a Trump White House directive aimed at blocking agencies from implementing a host of OSHA and other health and safety rules issued in the waning months of the Obama administration, saying that regulatory milestones in some already-effective rules could also be targets.
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As Obama administration officials left office, they asked federal courts in Texas and Washington, DC, to dismiss separate suits challenging OSHA rules setting new silica standards and anti-retaliation requirements ahead of the incoming Trump administration, which is expected to seek to roll the measures back.
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OSHA is receiving conflicting comments on part of a proposed rule that seeks to expand when the agency's safety standard applies to power equipment that is shut off during repair work, with industry groups arguing the change fails to follow proper procedure and labor advocates charging it is needed to restore the intent of the rule and protect workers.
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Nanomaterial producers are eyeing a strategy for challenging EPA's reporting rule that is expected to inform future EPA and OSHA policies governing their products, claiming that EPA failed to seek public input on certain information in the final rule, and that the Trump administration could scale it back if a federal court agrees that the new data should have been issued for comment.
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OSHA has bolstered language in a recently-issued guide for protecting whistleblowers from employer retaliation after OSHA advisors faulted the agency's 2015 draft version, putting greater emphasis on assertions that company programs for preventing retaliation against employees who raise safety concerns benefit employers.
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A recent federal appeals court decision backing industry arguments that OSHA is limited to a six-month statute of limitations for issuing certain citations could prompt EPA to take on a greater role in enforcing industrial facility process safety, usurping OSHA's traditional lead role in such enforcement and increasing fines, an industry attorney says.
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Industry attorneys expect that the Trump administration will likely scale back many Obama-era OSHA policies and focus on compliance assistance rather than the current “all-out” focus on enforcement, but they suggest a wholesale rollback of regulation is neither likely nor ideal for companies, which need some consistency for planning.
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The Obama administration has issued a long-awaited rule requiring manufacturers and processors of certain nanomaterials to report some data on the materials to the government, reporting that is expected to yield data to inform future regulatory and other policies of OSHA, EPA and other agencies.
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OSHA has granted a petition from nursing and other labor groups seeking a federal standard for preventing workplace violence in the healthcare and social service sectors, and agency officials are expressing optimism that recent progress toward a standard will likely continue into the Trump administration.
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Groups representing various industries are weighing options for reversing EPA's recent revisions to its Risk Management Program (RMP) facility safety rule, including a possible push for lawmakers to undo the changes through a Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution or through a legal challenge to the final rule.
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OSHA has issued a final rule strengthening limits for workers' exposure to beryllium and expanding proposed protections for general industry to also cover the shipyard and construction sectors as consumer and health advocates requested, though the final rule also includes a new provision to give employers flexibility in assessing exposures.
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Environmental justice advocates are pushing back against expectations that the incoming Trump administration will seek to roll back EPA's recently-announced final rule overhauling the agency's facility safety program with new hazard analysis and auditing requirements, but acknowledge that the rule's industry opponents have various tools to undercut it.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has backed a controversial 2012 ruling that many industry attorneys believe limited the statute of limitations for certain OSHA citations, a move that will likely complicate the agency's defense of its recent rule that sought to tag certain record-keeping violations as “continuing” and subject to a much longer limitation.
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The Obama administration is asking a federal appellate court to reverse a lower court ruling that blocked OSHA and other agencies from implementing an executive order requiring consideration of safety and other labor law violations in federal procurement decisions and suggested that the policy may rest on shaky legal ground.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has denied OSHA’s requests to rehear its recent ruling vacating the agency's 2015 policy narrowing an exemption from its process safety management (PSM) standard for retailers, a ruling that industry officials have said may have far-reaching consequences for agency enforcement.
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