A House appropriations subcommittee has declined to include binding legislative language sought by farm groups in its just-issued draft spending bill which would block OSHA from enforcing its controversial 2015 policy narrowing a long-standing exemption from its process safety management (PSM) standard for retailers, leaving industry hoping for non-binding report language opposing enforcement.
September 17, 2026
OSHA's small business advisors appear split on whether overlap between OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) facility accident prevention rules adds significant compliance burdens, with some saying efforts to comply with one program also satisfy the other, and others saying unnecessary steps are required.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pushing back on labor unions' effort to block the business group from intervening in litigation challenging OSHA's final rule strengthening its silica standards, calling labors' claim that the Chamber will raise new issues “speculation,” and not an adequate basis for precluding the companies' involvement.
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Public health advocates are urging OSHA to significantly strengthen its policies and practices for settling enforcement actions as a companion to the agency's just-issued rule raising penalties for violations, saying such actions are needed to help overcome the agency's legal and resource limits that Congress imposes that restrict its ability to address new and emerging hazards and enforce existing standards.
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Small business officials from the explosives and agricultural sectors are resisting OSHA suggestions to add ammonium nitrate, a common ingredient in fertilizer and explosives, to a list of hazardous chemicals covered under its Process Safety Management (PSM) program, arguing the rule is inappropriate for a substance that is safe when stored properly.
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Key Democratic senators and public health advocates are calling for the creation of a regulatory watchdog to speed OSHA and other agencies' rulemakings, warning that such a position is needed to overcome agencies' “regulatory capture” by industry groups and the bias that results.
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The Justice Department's (DOJ) top environmental official is touting new training for OSHA inspectors to spot environmental violations during workplace investigations and report them to EPA for enforcement, and pointing to two ongoing environment cases as proof of the new system's effectiveness.
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Labor groups are opposing a pair of industry motions seeking to intervene in a legal challenge to OSHA's final rule strengthening its silica standards, arguing that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and cement and concrete producers could have filed their own lawsuits and should not be allowed to expand the scope of the litigation underway if they are allowed to intervene on behalf of industry petitioners.
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The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is again reviewing OSHA's final rule to protect workers from slips, trips and falls at work-sites -- one of the leading causes of workplace injuries -- a measure that industry officials had not expected to see released this year before OSHA Chief David Michaels said recently that he hopes it will be issued soon.
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President Obama has signed the bipartisan Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) overhaul into law, shifting focus to how EPA will implement the extensive new authorities under the law for addressing the safety of chemicals -- with at least one Senate proponent of the law vowing to closely track the agency's implementation.
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Small business representatives advising a federal panel weighing possible changes to OSHA's process safety management (PSM) facility safety rule are arguing a major overhaul of the program is unnecessary and could bring adverse consequences, including high costs, burdens to farmers and increased dangers from transporting chemicals long distances.
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As EPA prepares to issue a final rule strengthening its facility accident prevention program, producers of small-batch chemicals are defending the safety of their operations in a bid to resist EPA and OSHA suggestions that production of their products is less safe than manufacture of chemicals in large batch continuous processing.
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A federal panel weighing how potential changes to OSHA's Process Safety Management (PSM) facility accident prevention program will affect small businesses is requesting data on the cost of complying with the agency's controversial 2015 policy narrowing a PSM exemption for retailers, suggesting the costs are “modest” given facilities already comply with a similar Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule.
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An attorney who has represented major industry groups is urging a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel advising OSHA to limit calls for any additional illness and injury reporting and record-keeping mandates on employers, arguing that current rules adequately identify risks and that federal officials should better use existing data to assess the causes of common injuries and work with employers to prevent those incidents.
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OSHA is seeking to bolster its tracking of employee injury and illness reporting to prevent workplace accidents, with steps including the sponsorship of a new National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study on improving surveillance of worker injuries, and possibly looking at ways to increase the role of workers' compensation insurers in accident prevention.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is seeking to intervene in support of a brick industry lawsuit challenging OSHA's recently-issued final rule overhauling its silica standards, arguing that the regulation will impose more than $1 billion in compliance costs each year and affect dozens of industries.
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Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) -- a key figure in crafting the final Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill and also a top Democrat on the Senate appropriations panel that oversees EPA -- says the agency's current funding is adequate to start implementing the overhaul, and that it is unlikely to get a budget boost in upcoming spending legislation.
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EPA is aligning its hazard classification system for industrial facilities' reporting of hazardous chemicals under the agency's emergency planning rule with categories OSHA adopted in a 2012 update to its Hazard Communication Standard (HCS).
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Senate appropriators have advanced a fiscal year 2017 spending bill that continues an effort begun last year to block OSHA implementation of controversial policy interpretations that expand the agency's process safety management (PSM) standards until they are codified in rulemakings, raising doubts about the policies' continued implementation.
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Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) is touting regulatory certainty for chemical manufacturers and other proponents of chemical safety reform as a major win in the final legislation to overhaul the decades old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which the Senate approved June 7 and sent to President Obama for his expected signature.
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