A federal district judge has scrapped the Trump Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) line-speed waiver for some pork slaughterhouses over its refusal to consider threats to worker safety during the rulemaking process -- a win for unions that said the policy was unlawful -- and is giving the Biden administration 90 days to decide its next steps.
September 17, 2026
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), which aims to prevent fatalities and injuries at U.S. mines, is announcing more than $10.5 million in funding for states to provide training and retraining of mine operators and their employees, covering all aspects of mining including emergency preparedness and exposures to dust hazards.
Date:
A small business representative says that shortly before the presidential transition EPA risk managers signaled they were considering occupational exposure limits for uses of the acutely toxic solvent methylene chloride at levels more stringent than those set by OSHA and an occupational hygienists group, in an early marker for the forthcoming rule.
Date:
EPA’s acting chemicals chief is detailing a series of steps to toughen reviews of new chemicals, including dropping what critics said were overly optimistic assumptions on workers’ use of protective gear, expanding the scope of the reviews and increasing the use of enforcement orders after approving pre-manufacture notices (PMNs).
Date:
A newly published OSHA letter crafted during the final days of the Trump administration says the agency’s injury and illness recordkeeping mandate applies only once in situations where a worker suffers multiple injuries days apart but stemming from the same event, so that companies do not have to “double report” injuries.
Date:
Former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) Chairman James Sullivan has left the panel to return to private practice, opening a seat on the three-person panel more than a month before his term was slated to expire and setting the stage for President Joe Biden to name his first OSHRC nominee.
Date:
Attorneys representing an employer industry coalition are pressing California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to amend its controversial COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) to clarify and ease certain key provisions of the rules, while also tracking “cleanup” legislation in the state legislature to further address uncertainty over the ETS.
Date:
Animal welfare advocates challenging the Trump administration’s line-speed waivers for pork slaughterhouses say the Agriculture Department (USDA) is moving slowly, if at all, on a potential reconsideration of the policy, and they are renewing their push for a court ruling that would declare the waivers unlawful.
Date:
AFL-CIO health and safety director Rebecca Reindel says the Senate’s imminent confirmation of Labor Secretary nominee Marty Walsh could prompt OSHA to finish work on its emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, after the agency missed President Joe Biden’s March 15 deadline to issue a rule.
Date:
OSHA and the grain industry are floating a series of steps that owners of grain storage facilities should consider in order to reduce the risk of worker accidents and deaths, saying “common sense” measures might help reduce the increasing risk of entrapment and fatalities at the thousands of grain bins across the United States.
Date:
OSHA is seeking nominees to fill six seats on the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH), just a few weeks after the Trump administration named four new members to the committee during its final days and further advancing the revival of the panel that had been dormant since 2019.
Date:
Even as the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) works to continue operating despite a one-member board and a lack of administrative resources, industry attorneys say it still has the capacity to boost inspections of incidents involving using potentially hazardous chemicals from Trump-era levels, should officials choose to take that path.
Date:
Employers’ attorneys see OSHA’s newly announced national emphasis program (NEP) for COVID-19 as a major shift in the agency’s approach to the pandemic that could drive an immediate rise in enforcement, even as OSHA continues to weigh issuing an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the virus.
Date:
Employers are urging OSHA to use its impending emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 to standardize the nationwide approach to pandemic protections, by formally overriding state-level ETS rules and executive orders that have created a patchwork of workplace safety requirements against the coronavirus.
Date:
OSHA is launching a new enforcement “emphasis” program to tackle COVID-19 workplace exposures, bolstered with $100 million in funding for the agency through the newly enacted stimulus law that will in part assist the enforcement effort, amid suggestions that OSHA might delay an emergency safety rule for the virus.
Date:
The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has overturned a 2018 OSHA citation to a construction firm for falling hazards at a subcontractor’s worksite, holding that while the agency proved the company was a controlling employer at the site there was scant evidence that it was aware of the subcontractor’s violation.
Date:
The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has updated its guidance for employers to protect mine workers from COVID-19 infections but continues to weigh whether to issue a binding safety standard for the pandemic at mines, even as OSHA is widely expected to unveil such a rule within days.
Date:
OSHA identified more violations of fall-protection standards than of any other safety regulations in its fiscal year 2020 enforcement actions, according to preliminary figures from deputy agency enforcement chief Patrick Kapust, with the respiratory protection standard being the only pandemic-related policy in the “top 10” for citations.
Date:
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York are asking a federal appeals court to hold that even a binding OSHA COVID-19 standard would not preempt their claims that the retail giant violated state pandemic safety mandates, despite a district judge’s ruling that such protections are part of OSHA’s “primary jurisdiction.”
Date:
Republicans on a House appropriations panel used a recent hearing on worker-safety issues in meat and poultry plants to call for an increased focus on vaccinating workers in the sector against COVID-19 as a better strategy than a strict OSHA standard, signaling how conservatives could seek to counter the agency’s imminent rule.
Date: