House Republicans are stepping up their efforts to slow down OSHA's regulatory and policy agendas by attaching riders to their version of the fiscal 2012 Labor Department spending bill that would block the agency from: issuing an injury and illness prevention program (I2P2) rule; adding a column for musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) to OSHA recordkeeping logs; and implementing a new, stricter residential fall protection policy.
September 16, 2026
California worker advocates are pushing a bill likely to be debated in next year's legislative session that would change the Cal/OSHA process of setting permissible exposure limits (PELs) by requiring that the limit be based on the most protective health based-exposure level, but the state's business community strongly opposes the measure. The bill was introduced earlier this year but will be considered as a two-year bill, and is not likely to come up for consideration until next year. The effort comes as federal OSHA also wrestles with the issue of outdated federal PELs.
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State public health epidemiologists have developed a framework for state health officials to start referring potential workplace safety and health hazards to federal OSHA, delving into numerous legal and protocol issues that states might have to navigate if forming such agreements with the agency. The document, obtained by Inside OSHA Online, envisions either memoranda of understanding (MOU) between states and the feds, or less formal arrangements -- and points out the pros and cons of either approach.
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Safety engineers have come out against OSHA's proposal to beef up its recordkeeping and reporting rules, citing resource burdens on both the agency and employers. The American Society of Safety Engineers raised the concerns shortly before the agency decided to reopen the comment period on the proposal in response to other stakeholders' concerns about the data used in a separate part of the rulemaking that deals with industry exemptions.
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Advocates for tighter workplace protections against crystalline silica exposure are pressuring the White House to advance OSHA's rulemaking effort, with a key public interest group saying it has a petition with more than 5,500 signatures on the issue that it will soon file with the Office of Management and Budget. Meanwhile a safety organization, which has not taken a position on the planned rule, is urging OMB to let the public process move forward, and industry sources continue to argue that OSHA has yet to justify the proposal.
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The Environmental Protection Agency has released for public comment and external peer review an updated version of its year-old draft assessment of the common contaminant 1,4-dioxane, including in the document new studies used to derive first-time risk limits for inhaling the chemical. The move comes as OSHA struggles with how to update years-old permissible exposure limits for a long list of chemicals.
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Congressional investigators met recently with a public interest group that closely follows occupational safety and health issues to gather input on OSHA's effectiveness, with the group suggesting legislative and administrative reforms are necessary to fix what it views as a broken regulatory system, a source with the group told Inside OSHA Online. The group pointed investigators to three specific regulatory hurdles: 1. The decades-old Supreme Court benzene decision that requires OSHA show its standards address a “significant” risk; 2.
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A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a new bill to reform the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) governing how OSHA and other agencies craft their rules, which activists fear would create a cost-benefit analysis “super-mandate” that overrides statutes limiting economic considerations in developing regulations.
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Several key industry groups with a stake in OSHA's silica controls recently met privately with White House officials to raise concerns with the agency's plan to tighten its silica exposure standard, with the industrial sand industry suggesting OSHA instead step up monitoring of workers under the current permissible exposure limit, which the group said is frequently not met. But organized labor decried the industry push and continues to criticize what it views as the Office of Management and Budget's lengthy review of OSHA's draft proposal.
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OSHA's effort to enforce whistleblower provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) could test in the Ninth Circuit the agency's stance on back pay and reinstatement of complainants pending final court order, legal issues on which the Labor Department has already suffered losses in three other circuits, a legal source told Inside OSHA Online.
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OSHA's recent high-profile activity to enforce anti-retaliation provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) are being praised by whistleblower advocates who say the agency is showing anecdotal signs of ramped-up enforcement as it takes administrative steps to restructure its whistleblower program. Further, they say OSHA appears to be welcoming the advice of outside experts on ways to better train whistleblower investigators.
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GOP and Democratic members of the House panel with jurisdiction over OSHA issues both have asked Congress' investigative arm to assess the agency's effectiveness, but from different standpoints -- Republicans want the Government Accountability Office to weigh the effectiveness of OSHA's enforcement program using the same criteria the agency has applied to scrutinize state plans, and Democrats want GAO to gauge OSHA's effectiveness in issuing health and safety standards. Congressional sources confirmed that GAO has begun studies in response to lawmaker requests from both sides.
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Business interests are concerned about the broad scope of OSHA's newly issued directive that calls for reliance on the OSH Act's general duty clause to enforce workplace violence protections, arguing that it is still unclear what measures employers must take to fully comply. They also cite unresolved legal issues surrounding the actions of third parties outside an employer's control. But OSHA and organized labor say a broad policy is needed because of the rampant nature of violence across many industries.
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OSHA is making two key changes to inspections under its Site-Specific Targeting (SST) program, one of which effectively puts a stronger emphasis on inspecting smaller workplaces in high-hazard industries. Only workplaces in the selected industries with 40 or more employees were subject to SST inspections under last year's plan; that number is reduced to 20 or more under the newly issued plan.
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OSHA revised an earlier version of its newly issued workplace violence directive just days after state plans expressed concerns about the federal agency's bid to require that states carry out the instruction using the general duty clause, a state source told Inside OSHA Online. The concerns expressed to OSHA, and the agency's subsequent change in stance, are the latest developments in a longstanding tug-of-war over the imposition of federal requirements on the states.
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NIOSH faces intense pressure from a cluster of lawmakers from New York – as well as several groups representing first responders and survivors – to look into covering cancers as the agency administers the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, designed to provide medical treatment to those suffering health effects from the 9/11 attacks. A source who supports such coverage said one possible difficulty in addressing the issue is the length of time, possibly decades, that it takes for the epidemiological science to provide enough data for the agency.
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Job-related fatalities last calendar year remained close to the numbers from the prior year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said, and that points in some experts' views to a statistical plateau with respect to injury and illness data.
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Environmentalists fear the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) recent approval of a Department of Energy (DOE) plan to relax storage requirements at the country's only nuclear waste repository could ultimately lead to commercial power plant waste coming to the New Mexico facility, which is currently only permitted to accept defense-related waste.
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A public interest group involved in health and safety issues has petitioned OSHA to draft a permanent standard to protect workers from heat illness, as well as an emergency temporary standard to offer immediate protections as the permanent rule is drafted. But sources say it is unclear whether the agency has the resources to undertake such an intensive rulemaking at this time, given its limited standard-setting resources.
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Industry attorneys are expressing concern about several aspects of OSHA's recently issued revisions to its policy on reaching corporate-wide settlement agreements (CSAs), especially a provision that mandates a sunset of such arrangements within two years of the final order date. But worker safety advocates say the previous policy was outdated and that OSHA staff needs new direction on settlement talks to keep up with newer regulatory requirements.
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