The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has denied petitions for initial en banc review of the consolidated challenges to OSHA’s vaccine emergency temporary standard (ETS), opening the field of judges who could potentially serve on a three-judge panel to decide whether to lift an injunction blocking the standard’s adoption.
September 17, 2026
Worker-safety advocates are urging OSHA to promulgate a disaster-response standard to ensure that employers are prepared for extreme weather-related events, in the aftermath of recent tornados that leveled workplaces across the Midwest and killed at least six workers at an Illinois Amazon warehouse and eight at a Kentucky candle factory.
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OSHA plans to propose this month a rulemaking to withdraw state plan status from Arizona, according to its newly released Unified Agenda for regulatory actions that also targets May for a proposal that would grant partial state plan status to Massachusetts and sets updated timelines for a host of previously announced rulemakings.
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Animal welfare and labor rights advocates are taking aim at the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) new “time-limited trials” allowing some poultry and pork slaughterhouses to raise line speeds if they implement worker safety measures, saying they see little difference from a speed-waiver program that a court scrapped earlier this year.
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The Senate has confirmed by voice vote two of President Joe Biden’s three nominees to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), moving the panel, which investigates industrial incidents and advises OSHA and other agencies, closer to full strength after it spent more than a year with a single member.
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The Senate voted Dec. 7 to approve a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would nullify OSHA’s emergency COVID-19 vaccination rule with two Democrats joining the chamber’s Republicans to back it, marking a symbolic win for the GOP even though it faces long odds in the House and a certain veto if it does pass there.
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OSHA is pushing back two major deadlines for public input until early 2022 -- extending both the public comment period for its call for comments to inform a long-awaited heat illness standard, and the nomination deadline for new members to its Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH).
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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