The Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) will launch audits of OSHA’s oft-criticized COVID-19 pandemic response oversight program and its efforts to prevent workplace violence in the coming months, according to a newly released audit plan for fiscal year 2025.
September 17, 2026
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, the direction of federal labor and safety policy faces a major upheaval, as he has pledged to sharply roll back a host of Biden-era regulations and would likely scale back OSHA’s work as he did during his first term.
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A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had tough questions for both sides in high-profile arguments Nov. 4 as the panel reconsiders its original ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the case the Supreme Court used to overrule Chevron deference earlier this year.
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Two industry groups are seeking to bolster allegations from the chemical sector that EPA’s TSCA rule for the solvent methylene chloride is unlawful, arguing that the agency’s claim of broad discretion to limit or ban chemical uses in order to protect workers is at odds with the Constitution and ignores Congress’s intended role for OSHA.
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The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is renewing its calls for EPA to target hydrogen fluoride (HF) -- a highly toxic catalyst involved in several releases or near-misses in industrial accidents in recent years -- for possible regulation under TSCA, as the agency weighs candidates for its next “prioritization” cycle.
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The Mine Safety and Health Review Commission (MSHRC) is declining to participate in a pair of D.C. Circuit appeals where both the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and mining companies hope to overturn its decisions that the agency lacks “unfettered” authority to drop already-issued citations in favor of settlement agreements.
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A three-judge 5th Circuit panel is letting stand automakers’ amicus brief opposing EPA’s landmark TSCA rule for chrysotile asbestos that EPA and public-health advocates attacked as improperly adding a host of new legal questions to the case, teeing up what could be complex arguments over which of the group’s claims are properly before the court.
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OSHA is arguing that California highway regulators responsible for the Golden Gate Bridge cannot continue to challenge its Trump-era guidance letter that eased implementation of a long-standing scaffolding safety standard, because officials in the state are not directly bound by the policy and thus have suffered no “injury” from it.
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The fabricated stone manufacturing industry is making final pleas for California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to scale back its proposed final permanent rules to protect workers from exposure to crystalline silica, warning that dozens of onerous new requirements and poor enforcement will penalize businesses that are adequately protecting employees.
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Chemical-sector groups are urging EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ease the strict workplace exposure standard that the agency proposed in its TSCA rule for trichloroethylene (TCE), by either easing the final regulation or allowing for greater flexibility on enforcement.
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OSHA has replaced its long-standing enforcement guidance for poultry facilities with one that covers all animal slaughtering and meat processing sites -- a move it says will tighten its oversight of the sector in order to better target disproportionately high injury and illness rates for workers.
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Trade groups and a chemical company suing EPA over its redone rule governing TSCA risk evaluations are divided on what bar the agency must clear to defend its new policy, teeing up a question that will shape how appellate judges decide whether the agency has properly justified its approach to measuring workplace risk, among other key issues.
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A Missouri agriculture firm is appealing to federal circuit court an enforcement case where it argued OSHA lacks jurisdiction over fall-prevention in train loading -- an argument that an administrative law judge (ALJ) said is at odds with a nearly 30-year-old policy balancing the agency’s authority against that of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
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Trade groups are asking a federal appeals court to hold that the reformed TSCA gave OSHA, not EPA, primary responsibility to regulate any “unreasonable risks” to workers from toxic substances, seeking to scrap the agency’s approach to chemical-specific rules that has focused primarily -- sometimes exclusively -- on workplace dangers.
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Labor unions are urging California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) and its standards board to thoroughly consider potential dangers workers could face from increased use of autonomous vehicles (AVs), including through an advisory committee agency staff have proposed to help craft what would be a first-time rule for autonomous tractors in the agriculture sector.
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Industry trade groups and individual companies are asking the 5th Circuit to scrap EPA’s rule governing methylene chloride for a litany of reasons, saying the agency ignored research on the chemical’s dangers, improperly refused to consider their workers’ use of protective gear and misapplied science to craft a strict workplace exposure limit, among other claims.
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is weighing an enforcement appeal about the bar employers must clear to show compliance with OSHA’s machine-guarding standard, including whether they can rely on evidence that their safety practices are in line with “industry custom” -- a claim that an attorney for the agency said at oral argument could “eviscerate the OSH Act” if judges back it.
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A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says OSHA must do more to address musculoskeletal injuries and ergonomic hazards in warehouses and so-called “last-mile” delivery services as the e-commerce industry continues to rapidly expand, though the agency is only agreeing with some of its recommendations.
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Unions and worker-safety advocates are asking the D.C. Circuit to hold that TSCA forbids the agency from considering workers’ use of personal protective equipment (PPE) when evaluating chemicals’ risks, saying its rule on the subject shows a “fundamental misunderstanding” of OSHA’s requirements for employers to provide protective gear.
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OSHA chief Douglas Parker says the agency is seeking to adopt “a more strategic approach” to enforcement and compliance assistance for its safety standards on fall prevention and silica dust, including outreach to smaller residential construction projects, while touting a 20 percent year-to-year drop in falling deaths.
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