Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is backing a Republican-led effort to repeal OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccines, all but guaranteeing it will pass the 50-50 Senate while House Republicans are hoping to secure support from Democratic moderates that would allow them to force a vote in the lower chamber.
On Dec. 2, Manchin joined all 50 Senate Republicans to become the 51st co-sponsor of a pending Congressional Review Act (CRA) measure to overturn OSHA’s vaccine ETS.
Two OSHA-related nominees won key Senate votes Dec. 2, as lawmakers voted to confirm Larry Turner as the Department of Labor’s (DOL) new Inspector General (IG) just hours after members of the labor committee backed Susan Harthill’s nomination to join the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
The Biden administration is expanding its efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 following the emergence of the novel and potentially immunity-avoiding “Omicron” variant, including a fresh push for employers to adopt vaccination-or-test requirements even after a court stayed OSHA’s rule that would make that policy mandatory.
A group of congressional Republicans is threatening to block a stop-gap government funding bill unless it blocks OSHA’s and other agencies’ COVID-19 vaccine policies, potentially undermining a newly announced bipartisan spending agreement and all but guaranteeing another clash on the subject at the next deadline.
OSHA is extending by 45 days the deadline for public comment on its COVID-19 vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard (ETS), as stakeholders await a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on whether it will lift an injunction blocking the rule’s implementation.
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) will review a case that could set a new precedent for how it deals with situations where an employer “disregards” deadlines to participate in an appeal, while the Senate labor committee is poised to vote on President Joe Biden’s nominee to the panel as soon as Dec. 2.
Washington state is forging ahead with rulemaking based on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination and testing despite a court order blocking implementation of the federal rule, as officials there say they “are not delaying” work on their vaccine rule while other delegated states are weighing next steps.
“We are not delaying the work to develop our rule, which we expect to largely mirror OSHA’s, while we monitor the court cases,” Dina Lorraine, a communications consultant with the Washington State Department of Labor told Inside OSHA Nov. 24.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) says workplace safety and health ranks as one of the department’s top “management challenges,” citing a decline in OSHA enforcement, mounting whistleblower investigations, and silica protections as key subjects where the agency must improve.
OSHA is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to lift a stay blocking its emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination, teeing up a decision by the appellate court on whether the agency will be able to implement its rule in the coming weeks -- though observers expect the Supreme Court to have the last word.
Employers’ attorneys say OSHA officials have told them the agency intends to update its 1992 process safety management (PSM) standard during President Joe Biden’s current term and could release a formal proposal as soon as next year, after the Trump administration halted an Obama-era push to rework the rule.
A Labor Department (DOL) official told a Nov. 16 advisory panel meeting that OSHA is on track to publish its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for heat danger enforcement by “late March” 2022, ahead of the next round of summer heat and in line with an administration-wide push to combat heat illness.
House and Senate Republicans are readying several measures to force votes on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccines, including a Congressional Review Act (CRA) repeal measure and a threat to block any new bills to fund the federal government unless they include language scrapping the rule.
A Department of Labor (DOL) attorney says OSHA intends to release new guidance on individual exemptions from vaccine requirements under the agency’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), though the agency is emphasizing that all work on implementation of the rule is paused due to an appellate court’s order.
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has chosen the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to hear suits over OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccinations -- a boost to employers, GOP-led states and conservative groups seeking to scrap the rule, as the court is dominated by Republican nominees.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has extended indefinitely its stay of OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccine emergency temporary standard (ETS) just days before a multi-court panel is set to consolidate all pending ETS suits before a single court, holding that the rule is “fatally flawed” on statutory grounds and is “likely unconstitutional.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has designated three cases for review by the full body, setting the stage for new decisions on how OSHA enforces its fall protection standard along with a host of general duty clause guidelines, even as President Joe Biden’s nominee to an open seat on the panel remains pending.
EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG)’s annual report on management challenges facing the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) once again finds that the panel cannot function properly with just one Senate-confirmed member, even after reworking its governing rules to better fit the current “quorum of one."
Labor unions have filed at least three lawsuits over OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination, opening proceedings in appellate courts with a Democratic majority among their active judges, ahead of an expected “lottery” to consolidate all ETS litigation in a single circuit.
OSHA is urging a federal appellate court to wait to consider litigants’ bids to block implementation of its COVID-19 vaccine standard until the many pending challenges to that rule are consolidated into a single venue, while also raising its first defenses of the rule against claims that the policy is unlawful or unconstitutional.
Legal experts and a former OSHA official say a federal appeals court’s order blocking implementation of the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine standard is unlikely to have a long-term impact on the rule, while worker safety advocates are pointing to the unusually quick ruling as proof that politics are “front and center” in litigation over the policy.