OSHA has published a new round of regulatory interpretation letters, providing new readings of its standards governing permit-required confined spaces (PRCS), storage of compressed-gas cylinders and approved lifting devices for working with electrical transformers, each in response to separate requests for clarification from various employers.
September 17, 2026
A Massachusetts hospital and its Delaware-based management company are asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit to review an OSHA enforcement action that treated the two as a “single employer,” setting up a potentially precedent-setting decision on when the agency can subject firms to higher penalties that stem from such a standard.
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Employers are tentatively backing a potential OSHA rule to tighten its decades-old limit for workers’ blood lead levels but are urging the agency to be cautious with any broader revisions to the lead exposure standards, especially if officials intend to model the federal update on strict proposals pending in Washington and California.
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Paint and pigment trade groups are saying EPA’s new policy of assuming workers will not use protective gear in TSCA risk evaluations is “illegal” and irrational, charging that the agency has improperly ignored existing workplace practices and OSHA safety standards as well as companies’ general duty to protect their workers from “recognized” dangers.
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OSHA is urging Amazon and other companies to review their severe-weather emergency procedures and make improvements to further protect workers in such situations, following an investigation in the aftermath of a December tornado in Illinois that killed six contractors with the retail giant.
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Industry lawyers are raising broad concerns that strict worker safety standards and other provisions in EPA’s recently proposed TSCA ban on chrysotile asbestos uses signals the agency is take a tougher approach than OSHA and other federal agencies, raising questions about which agency has primacy over workplace safety.
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The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun formal interagency review of the Biden administration’s draft Risk Management Program (RMP) rule governing chemical facility safety, a measure that officials have said will strengthen a Trump-era version of the rule in part to account for climate and environmental justice (EJ) risks.
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OSHA officials used the public hearing on a forthcoming permanent COVID-19 rule for healthcare facilities to press union representatives for more data and testimony to support the groups’ arguments that a stringent regulation is needed to protect workers, asking questions on workplace infections, cost management and a host of other issues.
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Labor unions and safety groups are urging OSHA to reject employers’ calls to defer to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in any permanent COVID-19 safety standard for healthcare workers, saying that agency’s statutory mission and procedures are distinct from -- and less stringent than -- the OSH Act’s mandate to ensure safe workplaces.
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President Joe Biden has withdrawn his nomination of attorney and former Obama Department of Labor deputy solicitor Susan Harthill to serve on the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), leaving the normally three-member panel to continue with two commissioners for the foreseeable future.
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Some employers are warning OSHA that any move to revive the emergency temporary standard (ETS) would be illegal while others are urging the agency to link any long-term COVID-19 safety standard for the healthcare sector with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance in order to ensure flexibility in response to new research on the disease.
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California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has approved a revised COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) despite ongoing opposition to certain provisions by employer representatives and uncertainty about whether the state will pursue a permanent COVID worker-safety regulation or a broader infectious-disease rulemaking in the months to come.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has largely upheld an enforcement citation stemming from a 2018 construction accident, holding that OSHA’s safety standard for cranes and derricks requires strict adherence to equipment manuals and rejecting the employer’s argument that its use of “similar” safety measures was sufficient.
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OSHA is formally proposing to withdraw Arizona’s state plan authority under the OSH Act, pointing not only to the state’s failure to adopt a counterpart to the COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare workers but a longer “history of shortcomings” on fall protections and overall enforcement dating back to 2012.
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A group of 31 House and Senate Democrats is stepping up pressure on EPA to consider climate change impacts in its upcoming risk management plan (RMP) facility safety rule, arguing that hazards such as more frequent extreme weather will act as a “threat multiplier” for chemical releases and other disasters the rule is meant to prevent or mitigate.
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The chemical industry is praising what it says are recent moves by EPA to consult OSHA and other work-safety agencies to bolster the TSCA office’s approach to occupational exposure and risk analysis, while pursuing its own efforts to harmonize approaches to that discipline used by the toxics program, industrial hygienists and occupational regulators.
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EPA’s draft finding that formaldehyde exposures can lead to leukemia drew a range of reactions from other federal entities that reviewed a pre-release draft with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) leading praise of the cancer analysis while others warned that they see evidence of that link as more tenuous than the agency is claiming.
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EPA’s just-released draft risk assessment of formaldehyde links the chemical to myeloid leukemia based on a controversial study of workplace exposures, but does not use that finding in its cancer risk estimate due to modeling data uncertainty, resulting in a risk value that is an order of magnitude less strict than in 2010 and very close to its last final review in 1991.
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OSHA is formally launching its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for heat danger, directing its enforcement office to “proactively initiate inspections” and outreach targeted at workplaces in more than 70 industries deemed “high-risk” while expanding inspections of all industries to cover heat-related hazards and safeguards.
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The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy is touting its efforts to limit the scope of OSHA’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare as the most significant victory in its fiscal year 2021 agenda, saying its single-sector focus led to almost 98 percent of the office’s regulatory cost savings for the year.
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