The Biden administration has released its latest Unified Agenda of regulatory actions, detailing updated timelines for a host of long-pending OSHA policies along with a single newly announced rulemaking process where the agency says it plans to consider whether to approve a new fit-testing protocol for respiratory protective gear.
September 17, 2026
An employer attorney says the Supreme Court’s reversal of its long-standing Chevron deference doctrine bolsters the odds that a court will reverse OSHA’s new rule governing employee representatives’ roles in inspection walkarounds and will encourage the targets of enforcement actions to challenge whatever standards the agency cites them for violating.
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The Supreme Court will not take up an employer’s suit that claimed OSH Act provisions giving OSHA authority to craft long-term safety standards as “appropriate” are unconstitutional, denying a bid to drastically expand the “nondelegation” doctrine limiting Congress’ ability to grant agencies rulemaking discretion.
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OSHA has released its proposed nationwide heat illness and injury prevention standard after years of development, closely following the outline it previewed to agency advisors earlier this year that mandates written safety plans at both indoor and outdoor work sites, with triggers for action based on either heat index or wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) measurements.
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The Supreme Court has held that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) does not require lawsuits over OSHA and other agencies’ rules and “final agency action” to begin within six years of their promulgation but rather within six years of when a party was first injured by a particular policy -- a precedent that could open the door for a “tsunami” of wide-ranging challenges to long-settled policies.
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The Supreme Court has overruled its 40-year-old Chevron doctrine granting deference to OSHA and other agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous statutory language, scrapping a principle that was the basis for countless decisions on the lawfulness of agency rules, guidance and other actions.
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The Supreme Court has adopted a new, stringent standard for regulatory agencies to justify sending enforcement actions to administrative law judges (ALJs) for review rather than federal courts, but the majority appears to hold up the OSH Act as an example of a law that passes its test, signaling that OSHA could avoid major impacts from the precedent.
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The industry coalition suing EPA over its controversial update to the risk management program (RMP) says it will ask a federal appellate court to scrap four aspects of the rule in particular -- those that mandate third-party audits, “safer technology” analyses, public transparency, and adoption of new “generally accepted” engineering practices.
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California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has approved -- as expected -- first-time indoor heat worker-protection standards, along with a petition from a labor union to begin work on a rule that would subject renewable fuel refineries to the same strict worker-safety standards that already apply at petroleum refineries.
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Unions and a worker-protection group are signaling that their suit over EPA’s rule setting out requirements for chemical risk evaluations will target a single provision allowing the agency to consider data on companies’ use of protective equipment in its reviews -- a narrow focus despite the rule’s broad swath of policy changes.
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The California Labor Commissioner’s Office is fining Amazon.com Services, LLC nearly $6 million for alleged violations of the state’s “Warehouse Quotas” law at two distribution facilities, saying the lapses threaten the health of workers and putting new focus on a raft of state and federal enforcement actions against the online retailer that began in 2022.
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Sources with the chemicals industry say they are again looking for fresh legislative avenues to reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program after an amendment that would have added it to the annual defense authorization bill failed to reach the House floor.
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Six national and regional trade associations are suing the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) over its landmark rule tightening exposure standards for silica dust, with one of the petitioners vowing to target what its top official says was the final measure’s inclusion of several elements never mentioned in a 2023 proposal.
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A broad coalition of unions, public-health groups and environmentalists is petitioning the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to recognize extreme heat and related wildfires as “major disasters” eligible for federal relief funding, arguing the move would help local authorities quickly ramp up protections for workers and vulnerable communities.
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EPA has formally published its proposed TSCA risk management rule for the solvent n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP), starting a 45-day comment period that will close on July 29 as the agency seeks to finalize restrictions on the chemical’s use that it says are designed to protect industrial and commercial workers from chronic exposure.
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A bipartisan amendment to the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have reauthorized the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) lapsed Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard (CFATS) has failed to reach the House floor, cutting off another avenue to revive the program almost a year after it expired.
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The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has begun formal interagency review of OSHA’s long-awaited plan to set a nationwide heat illness and injury prevention standard, after years of development and repeated calls from worker-safety advocates for officials to quickly complete the rulemaking as global temperatures have spiked.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has quietly replaced the chairman of Cal/OSHA’s standards board and dismissed a vocal member of the panel who represented occupational health interests, in the aftermath of the members’ controversial decision to approve a new worker-safety standard for indoor heat despite opposition from the state finance department.
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A federal judicial panel has chosen the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review EPA’s redone “framework” rule governing TSCA risk evaluations of existing chemicals -- a victory for labor groups that sought to challenge it there, and a loss for industry groups that favored the conservative 5th Circuit instead.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has appointed Debra Lee as the permanent head of Cal/OSHA, a role she has filled in an acting capacity since early this year -- tasking her with working through the agency’s backlog of worker-safety rulemakings amid a stubbornly high staff vacancy rate.
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