Escalation in public feuding among board members and top staffers at the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) -- culminating in a dispute over who has administrative and governing control, along with the interim removal of two key officials -- has safety and health stakeholders concerned over the micro-agency's ability to continue issuing OSHA recommendations and carrying out investigatory functions to prevent chemical disasters.
September 17, 2026
OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency have issued a new "alert" backing voluntary use of inherently safer technologies (IST) to reduce risks and improve safety at chemical plants, but advocates say the non-binding alert highlights the need for EPA to quickly issue a rule that would mandate the use of IST.
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California's state OSHA program has settled a long-running dispute with farm workers' groups over enforcement of the state's heat standards, just as new regulations become effective aimed at addressing many of the concerns borne out by the protracted litigation.
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Environmental officials in recently released guidance claim "broad authority" to protect workers from indoor air contamination, arguing that OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency each have distinct responsibilities for ensuring worker health and safety and rejecting arguments from some federal agencies and industry that EPA is trying to encroach on OSHA's authority.
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California' state OSHA program is making a renewed push for heat illness prevention as temperatures are projected to soar in the southern region of the state, coming as OSHA simultaneously doubles down on its perennial campaign to inform employers and workers of measures to prevent heat exhaustion and stroke.
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OSHA recently issued an update to its whistleblower enforcement manual providing further depth of information to field staff on how to approach two major issues -- the awarding of punitive damages and determination of emotional distress as a result of retaliation -- as well as detailing other policies such when to award front pay instead of reinstatement in rare cases where returning to the job would be impossible or unbearable.
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Employer advocates are voicing concern over a recently issued enforcement memorandum by OSHA that they say appears to contain a requirement with respect to calculating levels of allowed accumulation of combustible dust in facilities, based on a mathematical formula, with industry worried that OSHA could use the policy in place of notice and comment rulemaking on the complex issue.
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The House Energy & Commerce Committee has approved bipartisan legislation to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a package of reforms that partly could affect how impacts on worker populations are considered in regulating chemicals, but members punted on how to resolve Democrats' emerging push to narrow the bill's preemption of state chemicals programs, an issue that has frustrated previous TSCA reform bills and risks doing so again.
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OSHA fully expects before the Obama administration ends to finalize and enact new regulations aimed at reducing workplace hazards from crystalline silica dust, OSHA's top non-career deputy told safety and health activists at a Maryland conference Wednesday (June 3).
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Protective measures in poultry handling operations are paramount in stopping potential transmission of a newly identified bird flu strain to workers through exposure to raw meat, NIOSH officials warn, as new highly pathogenic avian viruses emerge in numerous states, though none is known to have infected any people or caused human disease to date.
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OSHA has opened a new policy front, possibly leading to clashes with some employers, by advising businesses to provide equal workplace protections for transgender employees by ensuring access to restrooms designated for their identified gender under the OSHA sanitation standard.
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An environmental and worker rights advocacy group is urging OSHA to ramp up enforcement against health hazards, and has produced a new online database to help users track data on OSHA air sampling at sites around the country that could help pinpoint specific exposure risks.
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OSHA has teamed up with the Wage & Hour Division to address rampant concerns about chemical exposure and other hazards in nail salons, as well as pay and overtime deficiencies -- marking a relatively unusual joint effort among OSHA and other Labor Department agencies to tackle a specific industry on a broad array of compliance issues.
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OSHA has adopted a new enforcement policy to provide manufacturers and importers leeway to move any containers in existing stock that have already been labeled in compliance with the 1994 hazard communication rule and are prepared for shipment -- a move timed just as a key deadline for following the agency's 2012 update to labeling and data sheet requirements for hazardous chemicals took effect Monday.
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Republican lawmakers blasted the Obama administration for rolling out a proposed Labor Department policy to screen employers for OSHA and other labor law citations and use the data as a basis for contracting decisions, charging the guidance to effectively “blacklist” employers is redundant with existing policies and unworkable, while worker safety and health activists lauded the department's move as long overdue.
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Administration officials have signaled that an OSHA proposed rule clamping down on worker exposures to beryllium may be coming very soon, a knowledgeable Washington source tells Inside OSHA Online, despite OSHA acknowledging in a new regulatory blueprint that the rule has been pushed back several months.
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A key building industry group in Texas is suing the Labor Department over provisions of OSHA's recently finalized rule aimed at reducing confined space risks in construction activities, potentially putting up a legal roadblock to full implementation of the rule.
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OSHA may be only four months away from publishing a long-promised and highly controversial rule to compel employers to submit electronic records of work-related injuries and illnesses, with the September date for the rule inked in the latest regulatory agenda only a month slip from the agency's earlier target, leaving observers to speculate the Obama administration is determined to finish the rule but needs to iron out final technical details before publishing it.
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NIOSH has launched a joint effort with academia to study the potential safety and health impacts on workers from the rapidly growing nanotechnology industry, with one of its goals to eventually produce guidance that companies can use to reduce risks from exposure to engineered microscopic particles.
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The Environmental Protection Agency is strengthening guidance and training for its regional staff in overseeing state enforcement of federal pesticide rules including the agency's farm worker protection standards (WPS) following an Inspector General (IG) report faulting inadequate oversight, though the agency disagrees with the IG that it is not holding states accountable.
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