EPA has signed its long-awaited final TSCA rules restricting uses of the industrial solvents trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) with several changes from the 2023 proposals, including a much more lenient “interim” workplace exposure limit for TCE and an extended deadline for facilities to adopt new worker protections for PCE.
September 17, 2026
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has completed review of final EPA rules seeking to limit workplace risks from three toxic solvents, teeing up their release in the last weeks of the Biden administration -- and likely efforts to narrow or reverse them after President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
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OSHA and the steel company claiming that Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) review of enforcement actions is unconstitutional have agreed to push the agency’s deadline to answer the novel litigation until February, leaving it to the incoming Trump administration to decide how -- or whether -- the government will contest those arguments.
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EPA has issued a draft TSCA evaluation of the synthetic rubber component 1,3-butadiene finding that inhalation exposure to the ubiquitous chemical poses unreasonable risk to the health of workers and the general population, just weeks after finalizing court settlements that set deadlines for that review and more than 20 others.
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OSHA is giving stakeholders another two weeks to file comments on its proposed heat safety standard, pushing the deadline from Dec. 30 into the new year -- though far sooner than the two months or more that many employer groups sought -- while also scheduling an online hearing on the rule for summer.
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EPA has unveiled its long-awaited final TSCA evaluation of “legacy” asbestos uses, finding ongoing risk to workers and the general population from several asbestos fiber types and applications that were excluded from its Trump-era “Part 1” review -- and triggering a mandate for the incoming Trump administration to regulate those dangers.
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A three-judge appellate panel is evaluating whether EPA correctly determined that it has authority to regulate rail cars as a “stationary source” under its Risk Management Program (RMP) and emergency planning rules for facility safety, questioning how it should review the agency’s interpretation since the high court eliminated Chevron deference.
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Russell Vought, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) for a second time, is expected to push a series of measures from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 deregulatory blueprint for the new administration to slash OSHA and other agencies’ budgets, as well as wider efforts to scale back the executive branch civil service.
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President-elect Donald Trump has selected outgoing Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), a moderate who has sponsored union-friendly legislation, to head the Department of Labor (DOL), drawing skepticism from pro-business Republicans and cautious praise from organized labor -- though many are questioning whether the administration will allow her to maintain those priorities.
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California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is launching an advisory committee that will weigh amending state safety rules to eventually allow deployment of certain types of autonomous agricultural equipment, amid continued pushback from labor advocacy groups.
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Two employer attorneys say a New Jersey steel company’s bid to declare the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) unconstitutional poses legal questions that will likely require resolution by the Supreme Court -- though possibly only after similar cases make their way through multiple lower courts.
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Industry attorneys say the incoming Trump EPA will likely try to reverse a host of the Biden administration’s TSCA actions including chemical-specific rules and risk evaluations that aim to limit workplace chemical exposures, but could struggle to overcome legal barriers to quick rollbacks as well as a potential wave of court challenges to its efforts.
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A California roads authority is claiming that a Trump-era OSHA memo easing implementation of its scaffolding safety rule raised costs and introduced regulatory uncertainty for the state’s construction projects even though it is not directly bound by the policy, after the Biden administration argued that it lacks standing to challenge the letter in court.
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California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) and state prison officials plan to propose indoor heat safety rules specific to correctional institutions, after the state exempted those facilities from its first-time heat standards covering all other employers shortly before they took effect in July.
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OSHA has sent for White House review a draft final rule based on its proposal to mandate that construction employers ensure workers have properly fitting personal protective equipment (PPE), though even if the agency manages to enact the policy before the end of the Biden administration it faces uncertain prospects under President-elect Donald Trump.
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Three chemical-sector groups are pressing EPA not to prioritize hydrogen fluoride (HF) -- used as a catalyst in oil refineries and other industrial contexts -- for risk evaluation under TSCA despite renewed calls from the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), saying OSHA standards and other rules already provide “comprehensive” protections.
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OSHA is touting recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data showing decreases in nonfatal injury and illness rates in 2023 as well as its own findings of a decline in fatal injuries that year as evidence its enforcement programs and collaboration with labor and industry are succeeding -- even as the incoming Trump administration could soon upend those policies.
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After almost a decade of delay, OSHA has sent its proposed infectious disease standard for health care facilities and other “high-risk” environments to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review, teeing up its release just ahead of the transition to President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration.
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Attorneys for both the chemical sector and environmentalists say the incoming Trump administration could shift evaluation and regulation of workplace chemical exposures under the reformed TSCA from EPA to OSHA -- a move one source says would deal a “crippling blow” to the toxics program.
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A federal district judge has rejected a chemical manufacturer’s request to intervene in litigation setting deadlines for EPA to complete 20 overdue TSCA risk evaluations, ending the firm’s bid to block an imminent settlement that would require its final formaldehyde review by the end of December -- a timeline that industry has warned will improperly tie the incoming Trump administration to a flawed review and potentially force strict workplace limits.
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