Industry attorneys say the incoming Trump EPA will likely try to reverse a host of the Biden administration’s TSCA actions including chemical-specific rules and risk evaluations that aim to limit workplace chemical exposures, but could struggle to overcome legal barriers to quick rollbacks as well as a potential wave of court challenges to its efforts.
A California roads authority is claiming that a Trump-era OSHA memo easing implementation of its scaffolding safety rule raised costs and introduced regulatory uncertainty for the state’s construction projects even though it is not directly bound by the policy, after the Biden administration argued that it lacks standing to challenge the letter in court.
California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) and state prison officials plan to propose indoor heat safety rules specific to correctional institutions, after the state exempted those facilities from its first-time heat standards covering all other employers shortly before they took effect in July.
OSHA has sent for White House review a draft final rule based on its proposal to mandate that construction employers ensure workers have properly fitting personal protective equipment (PPE), though even if the agency manages to enact the policy before the end of the Biden administration it faces uncertain prospects under President-elect Donald Trump.
Three chemical-sector groups are pressing EPA not to prioritize hydrogen fluoride (HF) -- used as a catalyst in oil refineries and other industrial contexts -- for risk evaluation under TSCA despite renewed calls from the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), saying OSHA standards and other rules already provide “comprehensive” protections.
OSHA is touting recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showing decreases in nonfatal injury and illness rates in 2023 as well as its own findings of a decline in fatal injuries that year as evidence its enforcement programs and collaboration with labor and industry are succeeding -- even as the incoming Trump administration could soon upend those policies.
After almost a decade of delay, OSHA has sent its proposed infectious disease standard for health care facilities and other “high-risk” environments to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review, teeing up its release just ahead of the transition to President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration.
Attorneys for both the chemical sector and environmentalists say the incoming Trump administration could shift evaluation and regulation of workplace chemical exposures under the reformed TSCA from EPA to OSHA -- a move one source says would deal a “crippling blow” to the toxics program.
A federal district judge has rejected a chemical manufacturer’s request to intervene in litigation setting deadlines for EPA to complete 20 overdue TSCA risk evaluations, ending the firm’s bid to block an imminent settlement that would require its final formaldehyde review by the end of December -- a timeline that industry has warned will improperly tie the incoming Trump administration to a flawed review and potentially force strict workplace limits.
The Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) will launch audits of OSHA’s oft-criticized COVID-19 pandemic response oversight program and its efforts to prevent workplace violence in the coming months, according to a newly released audit plan for fiscal year 2025.
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, the direction of federal labor and safety policy faces a major upheaval, as he has pledged to sharply roll back a host of Biden-era regulations and would likely scale back OSHA’s work as he did during his first term.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had tough questions for both sides in high-profile arguments Nov. 4 as the panel reconsiders its original ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the case the Supreme Court used to overrule Chevron deference earlier this year.
Two industry groups are seeking to bolster allegations from the chemical sector that EPA’s TSCA rule for the solvent methylene chloride is unlawful, arguing that the agency’s claim of broad discretion to limit or ban chemical uses in order to protect workers is at odds with the Constitution and ignores Congress’s intended role for OSHA.
The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for EPA to target hydrogen fluoride (HF) -- a highly toxic catalyst involved in several releases or near-misses in industrial accidents in recent years -- for possible regulation under TSCA, as the agency weighs candidates for its next “prioritization” cycle.
The Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (MSHRC) is declining to participate in a pair of D.C. Circuit appeals where both the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and mining companies hope to overturn its decisions that the agency lacks “unfettered” authority to drop already-issued citations in favor of settlement agreements.
A three-judge 5th Circuit panel is letting stand automakers’ amicus brief opposing EPA’s landmark TSCA rule for chrysotile asbestos that EPA and public-health advocates attacked as improperly adding a host of new legal questions to the case, teeing up what could be complex arguments over which of the group’s claims are properly before the court.
OSHA is arguing that California highway regulators responsible for the Golden Gate Bridge cannot continue to challenge its Trump-era guidance letter that eased implementation of a long-standing scaffolding safety standard, because officials in the state are not directly bound by the policy and thus have suffered no “injury” from it.
The fabricated stone manufacturing industry is making final pleas for California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to scale back its proposed final permanent rules to protect workers from exposure to crystalline silica, warning that dozens of onerous new requirements and poor enforcement will penalize businesses that are adequately protecting employees.
Chemical-sector groups are urging EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ease the strict workplace exposure standard that the agency proposed in its TSCA rule for trichloroethylene (TCE), by either easing the final regulation or allowing for greater flexibility on enforcement.
OSHA has replaced its long-standing enforcement guidance for poultry facilities with one that covers all animal slaughtering and meat processing sites -- a move it says will tighten its oversight of the sector in order to better target disproportionately high injury and illness rates for workers.