NIOSH plans sometime this calendar year to introduce a new recommended exposure limit (REL) for the controversial chemical diacetyl, an agency official tells Inside OSHA Online, and at the same time is working on advisories for employers to control use of the chemical as well as substitutes used in food flavorings that have been deemed nearly or equally hazardous to worker health.
September 17, 2026
OSHA's recent decision to place the DuPont chemical company in its controversial Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) and slap the employer with new fines following a deadly leak last fall in Texas shows the agency's determination to use its chemical safety emphasis program to continually cite employers accused of widespread and potentially ongoing hazards.
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A newly issued OSHA update to its enforcement guidelines for stopping the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in health care settings provides inspectors with new tools, including an expansion of what types of facilities are covered, to prevent the disease and further strengthens the agency's recently announced inspection emphasis in the hospital and residential care industries, one focus of which is heading off TB transmission.
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The Labor Department says it will extend by 15 days the comment period on a hotly contested guidance aimed at carrying out a presidential order to screen potential government contractors for alleged labor law violations, including OSHA citation histories.
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California's OSHA program will continue beefing up staffing levels and increasing overall inspection numbers, leveraging a 10 percent enforcement funding spike in the state's newly passed budget, in what Cal/OSHA chief Juliann Sum suggests could ameliorate concerns at the federal level about the state agency's pace of investigations.
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OSHA has decided to delay full enforcement of the agency's recently issued confined spaces in construction rule, giving employers that are making “good faith” compliance efforts an extra 60 days before citing them under the new standard, in a partial accommodation of industry's request for more time to comply.
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White House regulatory officials approved OSHA moving ahead with a proposed rule to reduce worker exposures to beryllium, returning the package of planned new regulations to the agency Tuesday (July 7).
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OSHA's long-planned rule to reduce workplace silica dust exposures faces tough new opposition from Republican appropriators on Capitol Hill trying to derail the contentious rule through appropriations, though a new round of budget gridlock similar to recent years would likely prevent such provisions from becoming law, congressional observers say.
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Ergonomics concerns at inpatient health care facilities will almost certainly get mentioned in at least some of next year's Democratic presidential platforms on safety and health, worker advocates say -- with candidates likely to call for mandates on hospitals to install mechanical lifting in place of manually moving patients.
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OSHA has reached a milestone settlement with a corporate health care provider that gives the agency a foothold to proactively address workplace violence risks, using its negotiating powers to take on an issue that officials signal will increasingly become a federal enforcement priority in health care.
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OSHA is asking the White House for the go-ahead to finish a final rule aimed at heading off workplace hazards from slips, trips and falls, taking a crucial step in a 25-year regulatory effort -- and moving ahead on a rule the Obama administration has made clear it wants to issue this year despite a string of delays.
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House and Senate appropriators point to a pending human health risk assessment of formaldehyde to reiterate long-standing concerns about the Environmental Protection Agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), calling in fiscal year 2016 appropriations bill report language for increased scrutiny of a controversial study underpinning the assessment.
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A recent enforcement policy by OSHA detailing the mandate to use recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices (RAGAGEP) raises new industry concerns that inspectors will find many companies' engineering practices less stringent than general industry's.
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OSHA's newly rolled-out areas of emphasis for compliance officers conducting hospital and nursing home inspections -- focused intently on ergonomic issues, bloodborne pathogens, workplace violence, tuberculosis and slips, trips and falls -- comes after lengthy and intense pressure by health care worker advocates, particularly the nurses' lobby, on the agency to increase inspectors' concentration on inpatient facilities, Washington sources say.
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NIOSH says researchers have found that attaching a regular shop vacuum to a dust-collecting circular saw can provide a “simple, low cost solution” to reduce exposure to hazardous dust when construction workers cut fiber-cement siding -- findings that come as OSHA works intently to finalize a controversial rule to reduce exposures to crystalline silica dust, which is a major concern in dealing with that type of construction material.
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Broad bipartisan reform of federal chemical safety law has made it through the House, but a related Senate bill -- which specifically names workers as among the categories of populations vulnerable to toxic substances -- has yet to advance, and questions remain on how to handle a bicameral conference to resolve gaps between the two measures.
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Two of the three remaining members of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) used a procedural tactic Wednesday (June 24) to push through a series of changes to the agency's governing rules that the third member, who wasn't in attendance, had sought to hold for further consideration, allowing the modifications to go through in the waning hours of one of the official's term.
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Worker safety and health activists, led by a high-profile worker rights group in Massachusetts, are sounding alarm over the incidence of severe injuries as well as illness following exposure to toxic chemicals as a result of working in the robust and fast-growing garbage recycling industry -- possibly leading to an increase in pressure on OSHA to address the complex problem.
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Advocates of stricter protections for agricultural workers are closely watching an ongoing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) review of the Environmental Protection Agency's draft rule revising worker protection standards (WPS), after an earlier review prompted the agency to weaken a first-time minimum age requirement for pesticide handlers.
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OSHA has crafted a new enforcement policy applicable to citations against employers for allegedly failing to adhere to recognized and generally accepted good engineering practices (RAGAGEP), an issue that has emerged as a legal concern in recent years with employers contending they have the legal flexibility under OSHA regulations to effectively devise their own interpretations of what constitutes good practices under the process safety management (PSM) standard, which is designed to prevent chemical accidents.
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