EPA is proposing to align its Risk Management Program (RMP) regulation with OSHA’s Process Safety Management (PSM) rules to avoid duplicative requirements and eliminate “unnecessary burdens” on facilities where there is no data to show the Biden-era approach would reduce accidental releases.
September 16, 2026
The 10th Circuit has upheld OSHA citations against a Colorado psychiatric hospital for failing to prevent workplace violence, rejecting arguments that the agency lacked authority under the OSH Act’s General Duty Clause to issue the citations and that an administrative law judge (ALJ) erred in backing the citations.
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The 11th Circuit has rejected a Georgia construction company’s challenge to OSHA’s multi-employer policy, finding the company failed to preserve for appeal most of its objections and that it failed to demonstrate that compliance with specific safety standards was infeasible.
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The 6th Circuit has entered a new judgment in an OSHA enforcement case against a paper manufacturing company, clarifying that it is partially vacating an Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) order and remanding it for further proceedings, although it is unclear when OSHRC will consider the issue.
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An injury caused by an employee’s personal lithium-ion battery is considered a workplace injury subject to OSHA recordkeeping if the injury occurs at the workplace during working hours, the agency explains in a recent interpretation letter to the federal contractor that operates a key nuclear security facility in Tennessee.
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Occupational medicine experts are decrying the Trump EPA’s proposed revisions to the calculation of risks from formaldehyde, saying the change in the way cancer risks are assessed will increase the number of preventable cancer cases for both workers and some residents.
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The Labor Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) in its annual report of the department’s top management challenges is highlighting the need for OSHA to address workplace violence, ensure employers report injuries and illnesses, and inspect as many worksites as possible with a limited number of inspectors.
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South Carolina is pushing back on OSHA’s efforts to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of the state’s challenge to the agency’s requirement that states match annual increases to federal minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties, arguing in part that OSHA is pushing a flawed legal theory.
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Enforcement will continue to be a major part of OSHA’s activities during the second Trump administration, even with a renewed emphasis on compliance assistance, though budget and staffing constraints are affecting the types of inspections conducted and citations issued, legal experts say.
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OSHA is asking a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit to reconsider its landmark ruling that found the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) preempts OSHA from regulating worker safety around railcars, arguing the preemption issue was not before the court, and even if it was, the judges made several other errors in their ruling.
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Business groups are seeking to boost the chemical industry’s legal arguments that TSCA is intended to be a “gap-filling” statute between OSHA’s authority and other environmental and public health laws, arguing in a recently filed amicus brief that the Biden-era rule phasing out most ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos improperly shifted that balance.
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Petroleum refiners and chemical manufacturers are urging OSHA to ease compliance in a pending proposal to amend 2016 updates to the agency’s fall-protection requirements, asking OSHA to either repeal requirements for personal fall protection systems or grandfather in the use of cages or wells on existing fixed ladders.
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A federal district court in West Virginia has stayed a challenge by a pair of coal miners to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) layoffs of most of the staff at a key worker-safety agency last year, after the miners and HHS jointly asked for a pause in the litigation because HHS has now rescinded all the layoff notices.
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Employer and industry groups are pressing California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to scale back certain provisions of a long-overdue rule to update the agency’s first-aid kit requirements for general industry and construction companies, including requirements for additional protections for unique hazards and a new 3-4-minute time limit for employees to access kits.
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The AFL-CIO is urging key members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to reject a Republican draft discussion bill aimed at making numerous industry-requested changes to TSCA, arguing the legislation as written “would put American workers, their children, spouses and neighbors in danger.”
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The House has approved a fiscal year 2026 spending bill that includes funds for OSHA and other worker-safety agencies at levels roughly the same as FY25, after House and Senate appropriators reached a deal on funding for several federal departments that rejects President Trump’s efforts to cut or nearly eliminate worker-protection funding.
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EPA is poised to release its proposal scaling back the Biden administration’s Risk Management Program (RMP) rule, a measure that will spark heated debate as environmentalists charge the measure guts crucial protections from industrial incidents while industry groups say it is needed to end the “regulatory whiplash” that characterizes the policy.
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The Labor Department (DOL) is urging the D.C. Circuit to uphold an OSHA citation against a Louisiana-based oil and gas drilling specialty contractor, arguing an administrative law judge (ALJ) correctly found the company exposed its employees to a hazard when a pipe ruptured at a gas well in south Texas in 2022.
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House Judiciary Committee Republicans are championing legislation that would prohibit lawsuits against manufacturers and sellers of artificial stone slabs for injuries caused by exposure to respirable silica during third-party fabrication, arguing hundreds of lawsuits in California courts are threatening to put American companies out of business.
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EPA has withdrawn a direct final rule (DFR) meant to conform hazardous chemical inventory reporting regulations under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) with OSHA Hazard Communication System (HCS) standards that were updated in 2024.
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