OSHA and other Labor Department (DOL) officials are agreeing with Government Accountability Office (GAO) calls to bolster a suite of protections to prevent injury and illness among child laborers in agriculture and other sectors, strengthening Democrats' efforts to scrutinize Trump administration plans to ease child-labor rules for teens in the healthcare sector.
September 17, 2026
In compliance with an appellate court order, EPA is issuing a final rule imposing requirements of the Obama administration's January 2017 final rule strengthening the agency's Risk Management Plan (RMP) facility accident prevention program, despite plans to issue early next year a final rule largely scrapping the Obama-era rule.
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The Labor Department’s Inspector General (OIG) is slated to release in fiscal year 2019 a broad series of inquiries into OSHA enforcement and regulatory practices, reviews that could aid Democrats who will control the House next year and are already planning significant oversight of the Trump administration's worker safety programs.
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Alexandra Dunn, President Donald Trump's nominee to serve as EPA's toxics chief, is likely to face tough questions at her Nov. 29 confirmation hearing given Democrats long-standing opposition to Trump administration rules setting a framework for how EPA will consider chemicals' risks to workers and others under the revised toxics law.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is backing OSHA's policy that allows the agency to cite “controlling employers” for hazards to other employers' workers on a job site, backing, for the first time in this appellate circuit, the use of Chevron deference to uphold OSHA's OSH Act authority to address multi-employer sites.
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OSHA continues to bolster its oversight of industrial facilities through inspections under a 2017 National Emphasis Program (NEP) and data-sharing with EPA enforcement officials, despite the agency's decision to shelve a planned strengthening of its process safety management (PSM) rule, according to industry attorneys.
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A coalition convened by NIOSH is calling for a review of existing ergonomic guidelines to ensure they are appropriate for current work environments, opening the door to a debate on whether current policies are adequate to protect against harms in food processing and other sectors.
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The Labor Department's (DOL) Office of Inspector General (IG) is reiterating calls for OSHA to ensure employers report workers' injuries and abate workplace hazards, highlighting an ongoing dispute with the Trump administration's top OSHA official, who has argued that employers are not required prove they have abated workplace hazards.
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OSHA has sent for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review a proposed rule seeking to revise an Obama-era rule strengthening the agency's beryllium standards, changes that are part of a settlement with industry groups that calls for clarifying ancillary provisions of the Obama-era rule's general industry standard.
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House Democrats have introduced a bill that would compel OSHA to follow through on an Obama-era commitment to issue an enforceable standard requiring that employers in the healthcare and social services sectors craft plans for preventing workplace violence, arguing that the Trump administration is slow-walking the rule.
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North Carolina regulators are asking their science advisors to review strict guidance developed with EPA for protecting against workers and others' exposures to trichloroethylene (TCE) through vapor intrusion at contaminated sites, amid ongoing controversy with EPA's 2011 assessment that found the solvent poses risks to pregnant women.
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Public Citizen is urging a federal court to preserve its suit challenging the Trump administration's suspension of OSHA's Obama-era injury and illness reporting rule, charging that the agency's motion to dismiss wrongly claims it lacks standing and that the court lacks jurisdiction.
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Despite Democrats' control of the House next year, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) faces continued uncertainty about its future as its supporters fear the Trump administration may deprive it of a quorum to operate by not nominating new board members to replace those whose terms expire starting at the end of 2019.
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Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is faulting the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's (CSB) spending on legal fees in a dispute with the board's former managing director, saying that CSB's continued focus on the on the matter distracts from its mission of investigating facility accidents.
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EPA and OSHA, the lead agencies once charged with implementing an Obama-era Executive Order (EO) on improving facility safety after a 2013 disaster, are heeding long-standing industry calls to enforce existing rules while scaling back or shelving new protections advanced under the Obama administration.
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OSHA is urging a district court to “disregard” recent claims from Public Citizen that it is able to detect companies that do not report worker injuries, part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeking the reports, arguing that the plaintiff misunderstood a recent agency statement on how it targeted enforcement against possible reporting violators.
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Democrats are stepping up their efforts during Congress' lame duck session to kill House Farm Bill language that would codify a permanent waiver for retail facilities from OSHA's safety standards, though sources say that if lawmakers are unable to reach a deal on the Farm Bill this year, prospects for killing the OSHA language in 2019 would improve as Democrats will control the House.
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Facing a Nov. 10 deadline to act, the Trump OSHA has issued a final rule easing Obama-era certification requirements for crane operators while also issuing interim guidance that seeks to implement the new rule's more-flexible requirements before they take effect in early December.
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Top House Democrats are signaling they plan to closely scrutinize Trump administration plans to allow teens to independently operate powered patient lifts in healthcare, adding to the lengthy list of Labor Department (DOL) policies that could adversely effect worker safety that Democrats plan to address should they win back control of the House.
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Democrats who are expected to win control of the House in 2019 following Nov. 6 elections are preparing for a host of oversight hearings to block planned Trump OSHA rollbacks of Obama-era rules that strengthened requirements on beryllium, recordkeeping and other measures, as well as the agency's “failure to staff up,” a Democratic staffer says.
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