California lawmakers are advancing a narrowed, labor-backed bill to bar employers from relying on automated decision-making systems (ADS) to make certain employment decisions -- including those aimed at aiding worker safety -- without human oversight, despite ongoing opposition by employer and tech organizations.
September 16, 2026
Legal experts are warning that a recent 7th Circuit decision upholding criminal convictions of two grain mill supervisors that stemmed from falsifying health and safety records illustrates the significant risks of failing to comply with OSHA requirements, though the Trump administration is seeking to limit such enforcement.
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Labor unions and employer-focused attorneys are raising concerns about the effects of massive staffing cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) on OSHA’s effort to develop a national heat standard, noting the current lack of neutral expertise NIOSH has traditionally provided for OSHA rulemakings.
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EPA’s final TSCA risk evaluation of the solvent-ingredient 1,1-dichloroethane (1,1-DCA) finds fewer unreasonable risks to workers than a Biden-era draft version of the document, narrowing the categories of affected workers that may win protections from seven to three, and drops unreasonable risk findings for the general population or the environment.
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Industry groups and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) have begun discussions about a possible settlement of consolidated litigation challenging the Biden-era silica dust rule following the Trump administration’s pause on enforcing the rule and a federal appeals court’s stay of the rule’s compliance deadlines.
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OSHA attorneys are reiterating their calls for a federal court to dismiss North Dakota’s suit challenging an agency investigation into alleged whistleblower retaliation by the state’s environment department, arguing that a federal court lacks jurisdiction and the state has no sovereign immunity from its enforcement action.
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The Trump EPA’s plan to rewrite the Biden-era TSCA phaseout of chrysotile asbestos to limit workplace exposures and further delay litigation over the measure is raising questions over whether the agency will continue to enforce the existing rule as it expects it will take 30 months -- much of the administration’s remaining term -- to redo the rule.
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Small business advocates are urging OSHA to withdraw the Biden-era proposed heat standard and start over, pointing to the proposal’s failure to address multiple issues raised by a federal review panel, though they say if the agency decides to propose a new rule, it should use performance-based outcomes rather than prescriptive mandates.
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As the Trump administration prepares to hear stakeholder views on a Biden-era OSHA rule setting heat-protection standards, groups in California are weighing a Cal/OSHA plan to strengthen the state’s heat illness-prevention standards as required by a 2022 law, which was prompted by fears of the potential impacts of hotter temperatures caused by climate change.
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David Keeling, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead OSHA, is suggesting the Trump administration may be able to fill data gaps as a result of its plans to slash the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) by using data from “private entities” and “professional groups,” though he acknowledged that it may not be easy to do so.
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A former Trump administration official is hoping that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit helps define the threshold “unreasonable risk” standard EPA must use when regulating chemicals to protect workers and others under TSCA given Congress’ and the agency’s failure so far to define the term.
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California lawmakers are advancing bills to ban employers from preventing workers from wearing masks or respirators, place new restrictions and certification requirements on stone fabrication shops to protect workers from crystalline silica, and require an academic study and new advisory panel on understaffing and vacancies at Cal/OSHA.
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Environmental and labor groups are expected to reiterate their strong support for the Biden-era proposed heat illness and injury standard during an upcoming public hearing while urging OSHA to make additional changes to the regulation that they argue will strengthen it and prevent even more deaths as extreme heat becomes more common.
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Employer attorneys are generally praising recently published guidance documents by New York’s Department of Labor (NYDOL) for companies to comply with the state’s new retail worker violence-prevention rules, but some say questions remain over several key provisions including training requirements related to active-shooter drills.
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Employer attorneys are seeing mixed results in key revisions to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) draft workplace violence-prevention rules, welcoming the removal of language barring employers from requiring employees to confront individuals suspected of committing a crime while criticizing an updated definition of “workplace violence hazards.”
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A New Jersey steel fabricator is seeking summary judgment in its lawsuit claiming that Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) review of enforcement actions is unconstitutional, an early test for Trump officials on whether federal courts must review enforcement actions or the panel’s administrative law judges (ALJs).
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A panel of 5th Circuit judges appears skeptical of EPA’s TSCA authority to regulate workplace exposures, as well as its threshold risk finding of methylene chloride, raising the prospect that any ruling in the potentially precedent-setting case could again undercut agency efforts to regulate chemicals as the circuit did in a 1991 asbestos case.
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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups are urging OSHA to shift the Biden-era proposed heat safety standard from a one-size-fits-all prescription to a performance-based standard, similar to recent Nevada requirements, a message they are expected to deliver at an upcoming hearing on the proposal.
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The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for OSHA to amend its Process Safety Management (PSM) regulation in response to an incident at a Louisiana chemical facility, an action the Trump administration is almost certainly not going to take.
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Top Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are pressing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. to provide details on the department’s staffing and program cuts -- including a study of cancer rates in firefighters -- questioning the department’s authority to make such changes.
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