OSHA is warning three states that it could withdraw their state plan status unless they craft COVID-19 protections for healthcare workers, arguing that all three have failed to adopt counterparts to the agency’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) and thus violated the mandate to maintain programs “at least as effective” as federal standards.
September 17, 2026
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has completed its review of OSHA’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) for a nationwide heat danger standard, setting the stage for what stakeholders expect to be a preliminary request for input that will inform the standard-setting process.
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The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has started stakeholder meetings on OSHA’s upcoming emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination, and several industry groups tell Inside OSHA they have used their sessions to raise concerns on implementation and recordkeeping requirements in the rule.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit could soon decide whether changes in state and federal workplace safety guidelines for the COVID-19 pandemic have rendered moot litigation over employers’ alleged failures to comply with earlier safeguards, as it weighs new arguments in Amazon workers’ suit over warehouse conditions.
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Whistleblower protection groups are asking OSHA to take new steps to help undocumented workers report safety violations and seek protection from unlawful retaliation following a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo ending immigration agencies’ practice of raiding work site to make mass arrests.
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OSHA has sent its hotly-anticipated COVID-19 vaccine emergency temporary standard (ETS) for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review, signaling the administration could soon enact its mandate for large private-sector employers to set strict vaccination requirements for their workers.
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The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is ramping up its calls for OSHA to broaden its process safety management (PSM) standard to cover additional “reactive hazards,” along with a parallel push for EPA to bolster its chemical-safety rules, after a recent investigation blamed the current policies for failing to prevent a fatal hydrogen gas explosion.
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The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is asking stakeholders to weigh in on best practices to alleviate workplace-related stress, mental health conditions and substance abuse for healthcare workers, as the agency gears up to launch a national awareness campaign to reduce stigma around the issue.
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The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun a formal review of OSHA’s electronic recordkeeping and reporting rule that will revive Obama-era requirements for employers to submit injury and illness records to the agency, after they were largely rolled back in 2019 by the Trump administration.
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The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is in the final stages of developing a first-of-its-kind, statutorily mandated national registry to monitor cancer exposures among firefighters, but says several hurdles remain in creating a process to protect the data security of program participants.
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The country’s largest nurses’ union is calling on OSHA to step up enforcement of its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare, arguing that a recent survey of hospital conditions shows widespread noncompliance with key provisions of the ETS, including on testing and protective gear, in its first month of implementation.
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OSHA is rejecting an Inspector General (OIG) report that found silica standard inspections dropped by 50 percent when its long-standing enforcement emphasis program lapsed and recommended policy reforms to avoid such gaps, arguing that it is not “appropriate” for the watchdog office to weigh in on the agency’s enforcement priorities.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a bill that employer attorneys say will “vastly” expand California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) enforcement authority and hike monetary penalty amounts for regulatory violations, as well as giving the agency new power to seek permanent injunctions against employer operations.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) is setting a demanding test for OSHA to enforce portions of its safety standard for telecommunications work, holding that a cable company exercised “reasonable diligence” when it assumed an experienced worker would follow training on the standard without close supervision.
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Katherine Lemos, chair and sole member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), told a House committee Sept. 29 that she plans to introduce new approaches for its incident investigations and reports that would take less time to complete, in order to address a years-long slowdown in CSB’s work.
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Two workplace legal experts say OSHA’s forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine rule appears likely to pass “constitutional muster” based on current legal precedent but warn that if litigation over the issue reaches the high court its outcome could be less certain if the conservative majority decides to reexamine those prior decisions.
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OSHA has released four new regulatory interpretation letters that clarify requirements for companies' safety data sheets (SDS) under the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS), including new guidance on labeling variant products and lithium-ion batteries even as the agency is weighing a broader overhaul of the standard itself.
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California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is floating a draft permanent COVID-19 worker-safety standard that aims to provide more compliance flexibility and streamlined requirements compared with its pandemic emergency temporary standard (ETS), in part by incorporating some core elements of the policy into its existing Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP).
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President Joe Biden has named his long-awaited nominee to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) after the panel has operated at a 1-1 partisan split for months, just as a Senate committee advanced his nominations of three candidates for the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).
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Retail industry groups are asking OSHA to address a variety of “vital concerns” in its COVID-19 vaccine rule, warning that President Joe Biden’s plan raises questions on how the agency will consider issues like employee classifications, exemptions and testing costs, and are further seeking a 90-day phase-in period to ease those challenges.
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