Daily News

Worker safety programs at OSHA and elsewhere across the federal government are facing massive cuts under President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2018 budget blueprint, which calls for a 21 percent cut to the Labor Department (DOL), which funds OSHA, and elimination of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to reconsider the Obama administration's final rule overhauling the agency's facility accident prevention program hinged on federal investigators' ruling that arson caused the West, TX, fire driving the rulemaking, backing industry assertions that the finding is a threshold issue that undermines the need for the rule.

The industry petition that prompted the Trump administration to agree to reconsider the Obama-era overhaul of EPA's risk management plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program tees up numerous issues on which the agency may seek public input, including the threshold question of whether the finding that arson caused the fire that drove the rulemaking undermines the need for the final rule.

The Trump administration has narrowed OSHA's legal push to preserve the agency's authority to expand an inspection beyond the circumstances of an employee's injury, arguing inspectors had “reasonable suspicion” to check for some additional hazards, while dropping, for now, Obama-era arguments that OSHA could conduct an even broader review.

Industry and labor groups are offering competing arguments in lawsuits challenging the Obama OSHA's landmark final rule overhauling limits for workers' exposures to silica dusts, with unions faulting industry assertions that the prior limits adequately protected workers and industry rebuffing union calls for stronger protections and medical surveillance.

Grover Norquist, the influential leader of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), is urging House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to quickly advance a pending Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution to repeal the Obama EPA's overhaul of its industrial facility accident prevention program.

A broad coalition of petrochemical, power and other industry groups is petitioning EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to “reconsider and rescind” the Obama administration's final rule overhauling the agency's industrial facility accident prevention program even as the groups prepare to file litigation that they hope will lead to the rule's elimination.

Pro-regulatory groups are weighing first-time lawsuits on the scope of Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions the GOP and President Donald Trump are using to undo 11th-hour Obama administration rules, including several worker safety policies, hoping to narrow the CRA's bar on issuing “substantially similar” rules, or even invalidate the law.

The Trump administration has proposed delaying, for the second time, the effective date of the Obama OSHA's beryllium rule to allow for further review pursuant to a recent White House memo, even as an industry lawsuit challenging the rule advanced in federal court.

The Trump administration is widely expected to scale back numerous rules that OSHA and other agencies issued in the final year of the Obama administration, when industry critics say OSHA pushed out numerous unnecessary rules.

Backed by the chemical industry, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution to repeal the controversial Obama-era revisions to EPA's facility safety program, a companion to one introduced in the House last month.

Inhofe introduced S. J. Res 28 on March 2, with four co-sponsors: Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), environment committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY), homeland security committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), a member of the environment committee that has jurisdiction over the measure.

Two labor union groups are seeking to intervene in litigation brought by a coalition of fuel, manufacturing and other groups challenging the Obama OSHA's worker injury and illness reporting rule, saying there is no guarantee the Trump administration will continue to defend the rule forcefully.

Even as the House has voted to repeal the Obama OSHA's final rule clarifying that employers face a “continuing obligation” to record employee injuries and illnesses, businesses will continue pushing back against the measure, either in litigation or lobbying the Trump OSHA for a new rule, because of uncertainty over the fate of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) disapproval resolution, an industry attorney says.

A coalition of community and environmental justice groups is urging congressional leaders to preserve EPA's risk management plan (RMP) facility safety management rule that the Obama administration finalized shortly before leaving office, an attempt to counter a pending House resolution that aims to eliminate the regulation.

A federal judge in Texas has granted the Trump administration's request to moot the Obama OSHA's defense of the agency's final rule overhauling its worker injury and illness record-keeping regulation, finding that the industry plaintiffs challenging the rule have raised new issues that merit review, and setting a deadline for the parties to file a new briefing schedule.

President Donald Trump signed Feb. 24 a new executive order (EO) that requires OSHA and other agencies to each designate regulatory reform officers and establish a regulatory reform task force with the goal of identifying existing regulations for repeal or modification, expanding his administration's deregulatory architecture given the issue's priority.

Backed by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), a key lawmaker has introduced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to undo the Obama OSHA's final rule clarifying that employers have a continuing obligation to record employee injuries and illnesses, arguing the rule inappropriately circumvents the judiciary and fails to improve safety.

Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's nominee for the open Supreme Court seat, could significantly reduce OSHA's ability to quickly change policies, given his skepticism of the Chevron legal doctrine that grants agencies deference to interpret vague statutes, industry attorneys say.

The Trump administration, in a joint filing with industry plaintiffs, is asking a federal court for permission to file a new motion for summary judgment that would reverse the Obama OSHA's defense of the agency's worker injury and illness record-keeping regulation, filed in the waning days of the prior administration.

EPA's plan to assess 10 chemicals for possible regulation under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) is sparking debate between the chemical industry and environmentalists over the substances' uses the agency should weigh in risk reviews, with advocates urging EPA to consider more data, and industry arguing that would stall reviews.

The Trump OSHA and various industries are seeing mixed success in efforts to delay suits over Obama-era OSHA rules in order to give the new administration time to weigh whether to continue defending the policies, with one appellate court rejecting industry's bid to delay a suit over the agency's silica rule but OSHA winning delays in other cases.