Lawmakers will likely reintroduce broad legislation to overhaul the OSH Act, which failed to gain traction earlier in Congress, with most provisions of the earlier bill intact, a source familiar with the issue tells Inside OSHA Online.
September 16, 2026
Officials with the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) were on Capitol Hill in early February trying to persuade members of Congress to maintain steady funding levels for OSHA and NIOSH in the face of the current budget crisis.
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The Labor Department estimates that roughly 1,200 fewer programmed OSHA inspections would take place if the government-wide budget sequester kicks in March 1, and warns that state plans would also take an inspection hit.
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A joint study by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) and Cal/OSHA raises concerns about pipe corrosion leading to worker safety hazards in the petrochemical industry.
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Arizona officials are bucking federal OSHA's call for the state to revise its fall protection standards for residential construction, leaving up in the air what next steps the federal agency may take.
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The grain industry has reached a favorable outcome following talks with OSHA over the agency's controversial interpretation of its safety policies for the use of sweep augers in grain bins, clearing up longstanding confusion surrounding the issue through a settlement with the agency.
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OSHA chief David Michaels indicated at a closed-door meeting with OSHA staff that he will stay in the agency's top post, ending weeks of speculation about whether he would continue leading the agency or return to his professor role at George Washington University. Michaels is the first assistant secretary at OSHA to serve into a president's second term. Michaels also reiterated his resolve to continue pushing injury and illness prevention programs (I2P2) as a key rulemaking initiative.
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The White House warned Friday (Feb. 8) that a budget sequester would cause deep cuts to OSHA and force the agency to pull its inspectors off the job “for some period of time.” The spending cuts, if allowed to kick in March 1, would lead to roughly 1,200 fewer inspections of the nation’s most dangerous workplaces, the administration says in a fact sheet highlighting the potential harmful effects of a sequester.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee leadership has created a new subcommittee charged with oversight of federal agencies, including rulemaking and adjudication, as well as third-party enforcement of federal rights and weeding out government waste and abuse.
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OSHA is seeking public input on proposed interim policies for its Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL) program in the face of calls from congressional investigators that the accrediting process for testing labs be streamlined.
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President Obama's call Tuesday (Feb. 5) for Congress to again temporarily delay the budget sequester set to kick in next month by passing a package of spending cuts and revenue raisers is scant on specifics, but the president said the mini-package should draw from the fiscal cliff offer he put on the table in December. With the situation still unresolved it's unclear how the potential cuts could affect OSHA.
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A Republican senator has filed legislation for the second year in a row that if passed would effectively force federal agencies to take further action to comply with an executive order from earlier in the Obama administration to weed out burdensome or duplicative regulations. The measure filed last year gained support from all Senate Republicans but no Democrats, according to a spokeswoman for bill sponsor Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS).
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The Environmental Protection Agency is considering dropping its plan to consider arsenic's inhalation risks as part of its pending assessment of the metalloid's ingestion risks because the congressionally mandated National Research Council (NRC) panel peer-reviewing the analysis is tasked only with reviewing EPA's ingestion analysis and lacks expertise to review the inhalation data. Arsenic has come up as a key chemical of concern as OSHA explores updating workplace permissible exposure limits.
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OSHA chief David Michaels says incentive programs to keep reported injuries low at work sites -- including employers using so-called rate-based incentives that reward workers depending on low reporting figures -- is a key concern for the agency as it continues efforts to better enforce whistleblower protection statutes. The agency previously detailed a controversial policy suggesting that such rate-based programs can effectively undermine workers' rights to voice concerns about workplace hazards.
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Senate labor committee chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) did not specifically mention OSHA issues among the items he hopes to tackle before retiring from the Senate in 2014, but sources note that the 40-year congressional veteran has signaled concerns about the Obama administration's slow movement on rules that are high priorities for worker advocates. Last spring Harkin chaired a hearing that delved into the length of time it takes OSHA to issue new rules, and OSHA advocates are hopeful the longtime senator will spend time on health and safety issues in his final two years in the Senate.
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OSHA is urging employers to protect their workers from carbon monoxide poisoning as the winter months pose increasing hazards from fuel-burning equipment and tools in buildings or semi-enclosed spaces, citing a recent New England case in which several warehouse workers became sick from exposure to carbon monoxide. A worker safety advocate says the alert could help OSHA establish employer recognition of the hazard, which in turn could bolster legal efforts by the agency to address the issue.
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A key safety agency has found gaps in OSHA's process safety management (PSM) standard, suggesting a deadly blast in 2011 during a fireworks disposal project in Hawaii may have partly been a result of the standard not requiring a safety review of the work procedures. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) notes in an official report that the PSM standard lacks a mandate to review fireworks disposal, but does not directly make formal a recommendation to OSHA.
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OSHA is demanding that Arizona follow federal policy regarding fall protection or risk facing disapproval of its state plan, agreeing with a complaint by safety engineers that a new state law laying out fall protection enforcement requirements fails to meet federal OSHA's more stringent requirements.
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The Environmental Protection Agency is weighing last-minute changes to its draft guidance for assessing and remediating vapor intrusion at petroleum-contaminated sites after a panel of experts unanimously urged the agency to revert to less conservative criteria for screening out sites for continued investigation.
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The contentious issue of whether health care workers should be required to receive influenza shots is shaping up to be even more of a lightning rod now that an early and severe flu season has kicked in, with reports of workers who refused the shots being fired or forced to wear surgical masks prompting new calls from union officials to put a stop to mandatory flu shot efforts.
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