House and Senate Republicans are pushing the Biden administration to appeal a federal district judge’s ruling that vacated a controversial line-speed waiver program at pork plants over worker-safety fears, arguing that allowing the waivers to end would cut the sector’s capacity and cost farmers as much as $80 million in lost sales this year.
September 17, 2026
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is seeking data and expert advice on use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by “underserved” workers -- a project that could aid not just workplace regulations but also EPA’s effort to tighten its approach to PPE in its chemical risk assessments and rules.
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The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) gearing up to peer-review the Defense Department’s (DOD) revised approach to developing a standard for workplace exposures to trichloroethylene (TCE), marking the latest step in DOD’s long-running struggle to reconcile EPA and OSHA’s drastically different findings on the solvent.
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Speakers at EPA’s June 16 environmental justice (EJ) consultation for impending rules on trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE or perc) urged the agency to focus on impacts to workers, and heard praise from industry on what one official said is a new promise from officials to seek briefings on industrial hygiene practices.
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Employer and industry groups are splitting over the latest revised California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), after the agency relaxed masking and distancing requirements for vaccinated workers -- a move some firms are welcoming while others say the new rule is still too strict and should be repealed.
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OSHA will publish its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) in the June 21 Federal Register, making the rule effective for the healthcare sector upon publication, meaning the 14-day compliance deadline for most of its provisions will arrive on July 5.
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EPA’s top waste official is promising that the agency’s plan to revise the Trump-era rule setting safety mandates for chemical facilities will require that industry provides the “maximum protection possible” and will make environmental justice a key focus, bolstering environmental groups that have pushed for such approaches.
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The Senate labor committee backed Doug Parker’s nomination as the next head of OSHA on a mostly party-line vote June 16, setting the stage for his likely confirmation by the full Senate later this summer, just as the agency is laying out its first rulemaking agenda in the Biden era following its release of the long-awaited COVID-19 standard.
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OSHA plans to propose in December a rule to restore Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates that the Trump administration largely rolled back in 2019, according to its newly released Unified Agenda of regulatory actions that also targets December for proposing a long-delayed infectious-disease standard.
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California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has scrapped its contentious revision to the state’s COVID-19 standards that drew fire from employers and others for what critics said were overly strict masking and distancing requirements, and is proposing a more lenient update that it could adopt as soon as June 17.
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Unions and their allies are pushing back on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, arguing that limiting the rule to healthcare workers leaves at-risk workers in other industries unprotected, even as employers’ attorneys are warning that the agency could soon tighten enforcement across all industry sectors.
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OSHA has released its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare employers, alongside new general-industry guidance for the pandemic that focuses on vaccination and recommends infection-control measures only for workplaces where some employees are not yet vaccinated.
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Labor Secretary Marty Walsh says OSHA will release June 10 a COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) that applies only to the medical sector, rejecting arguments from unions and safety groups that a general-industry standard is still needed despite widespread vaccinations.
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Anonymous workers at a Pennsylvania meat plant who sued OSHA over its decision not to take enforcement action over what they said was an “imminent danger” of COVID-19 infections there are appealing a federal district judge’s dismissal of the case, setting up a rare precedential decision on whether the OSH Act allows such suits.
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The Department of Labor (DOL) is suing a New York healthcare center over allegations that it fired a whistleblower who raised alarms over potential COVID-19 exposures at the business -- the first time it has announced opening a lawsuit over whistleblower claims related to the pandemic.
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Employers and industry groups hope to fast-track further changes to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) after the agency’s regulatory body adopted new requirements in “bizarre” fashion on June 4, drawing charges that the new mandates clash with federal guidance and the state’s reopening plan.
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OSHA has named five new members to its Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health (ACCSH) and renewed another 10 for new two-year terms, including an official with North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) who will serve as chair, in the Biden administration’s first round of appointments to an agency panel.
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The White House is proposing a $64 million boost to OSHA’s budget including 362 new full-time equivalent (FTE) staff positions, in what would be an across-the-board boost to the agency’s capacity for rulemaking, enforcement and outreach that the Biden administration says is needed to “reassert its position” in national safety policy.
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Employer and industry attorneys are criticizing the California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) draft revised COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) as not appropriately relaxed to conform with new physical distancing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ahead of a key June 3 vote by the agency’s standards board.
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OSHA and four companies that sued over the Obama-era beryllium exposure regulation have reached a settlement to expand the list of “abrasive blasting materials” the agency says in guidance are subject to the rule, potentially resolving a long-running conflict among industry on which materials the policy should cover.
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