A recent legal battle over a raft of OSHA citations under the process safety management (PSM) standard underscores a dilemma faced by the agency in how to craft risk-based regulations, versus the prescriptive standards that are common for OSHA rulemaking throughout its history, safety and health experts say.
September 17, 2026
OSHA's policy on using an employer's self-audits during inspections to identify potential workplace hazards -- and the results of those procedures then being used as the basis for citations -- has come up as an issue in a contested case over alleged process safety management (PSM) violations at a BP facility in Ohio.
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An administrative law judge (ALJ) has thrown out most of OSHA's citations and fines against BP Products North America and an Ohio subsidiary over a slew of allegations that the company violated process safety management (PSM) standards -- a decision that poses serious issues for the agency's enforcement of the rule and potentially has wider implications for the industry's reliance on generally accepted safety practices.
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OSHA has formally withdrawn a proposed rule to change the provisions of consultation agreements to allow inspectors to enter work sites that are participating in the Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) when critical hazards are identified.
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has inked a corporate-wide settlement agreement with OSHA to abate hazards involved in trash compactors, cleaning chemicals and hazard communication throughout the company, clearing up citations that originally arose from inspections at a Rochester, NY, operation.
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A recently formed Senate Judiciary subcommittee is probing the reasons behind what critics call an unnecessarily protracted White House review of new agency regulations, focusing on OSHA's planned rule tackling crystalline silica hazards, which is still under “extended” review at the Office of Management and Budget.
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A contentious OSHA plan to reshape the rules under which compliance officers can enter work sites that fall under the voluntary Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) has quietly gone by the wayside, with the agency saying in a regulatory document that it is withdrawing the proposed rule “in light of” stakeholder concerns.
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OSHA faces a 90-day deadline to start collecting comments on possible gaps in the agency's process safety management (PSM) standard, as well as controversial exemptions to the rule for retail and commercial-grade operations, under a sweeping new executive order from President Obama.
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OSHA, in a final rule issued Friday (Aug. 2) to require federal agencies to report all injury and illness data among federal workers annually through the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is setting up a system of data collection for the public sector that in some ways reflects the approach it has taken to gathering comprehensive data on private work sites, experts on OSHA recordkeeping say.
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OSHA and NIOSH have produced a joint hazard alert on 1-bromopropane (1-BP), a chemical used in furniture making, dry cleaning and degreasing that is suspected to cause nervous system damage in workers.
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President Obama is ordering federal agencies including OSHA to review their existing chemical regulations in light of the disastrous fire and explosion this April at a West, TX, fertilizer processing plant that cost 15 lives and decimated the rural town.
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The Obama administration's naming of a Democratic majority to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has experts on management-labor relations expecting unions to wield more leverage on the powerful dispute mediation panel.
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OSHA's planned regulations to reduce workplace exposures to crystalline silica dust are leading to friction with industry stakeholders -- not just over the contentious plan to lower the permissible exposure limit (PEL) for silica, but also because of strict monitoring and training requirements likely to accompany such a rule, according to industry sources, who also say the rule probably faces tough court challenges.
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A key occupational health group has completed the transfer of its guidelines for workplace chemical exposure limits to a toxicology risk assessment group, in a move that a source familiar with the deal says will bolster development and updates of the guidelines.
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A new report from the Labor Department's internal watchdog concludes that OSHA failed to spend nearly half the money DOL set aside from stimulus funds early in the Obama administration targeted for increased enforcement, but that the agency also exceeded program goals in terms of inspections and compliance assistance.
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The Labor Department's newly minted leader is already facing a full-court press from worker health advocates to confront one of the thorniest regulatory issues that has daunted OSHA in recent decades -- how to adjust permissible exposure limits (PELs) for workplace chemicals using more updated science than when most of the compulsory caps were developed in the early 1970s.
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Editor's note: Inside OSHA Online welcomes views from readers on this July 26 email from industry attorney Lawrence Halprin. For background, please see a recent story, “Chemical Safety Board Urges OSHA To Make Combustible Dust Top Priority.” Letters may be sent to ccole@iwpnews.com.
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The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is pushing hard for OSHA to forge ahead on far-reaching standards tackling combustible dust hazards in general industry, saying the issue represents the board's “Most Wanted” regulations and top advocacy priority.
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Two new nominees by President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have been reported favorably out of committee, but not without running into strong opposition from the labor panel's top Republican, who questioned “the ability of these two to set aside their pro-union advocacy past and act as neutral arbiters between employees and employers.”
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A Washington think tank that leans toward pro-union policies lacerated the Obama administration on Monday (July 22) for the pace of occupational safety and health rules moving forward over the last five years, using a baseball metaphor to suggest the White House is on course for a “shutout” in getting vital regulations done.
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