The Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) is raising a long list of defenses against OSHA’s proposal to withdraw its state plan authority under the OSH Act, saying the federal agency’s claim of a “history of shortcomings” by ICA is merely a “pretext” for a revocation and that it has never established a legal standard to deem a state program inadequate.
September 17, 2026
Employers and labor-aligned groups are renewing their longstanding arguments on the merits of OSHA’s expanded electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates in response to the Biden administration’s proposal to generally unwind a Trump-era rollback of those requirements, with unions again welcoming the rule while industry calls it unnecessary or dangerous.
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With little warning, EPA has revived and finalized a 2016 proposal that aims to harmonize its approach to regulating new chemicals with OSHA’s overall worker protection practices and the terms of that agency’s 2012 Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) -- rejecting industry objections that certain policies are either inconsistent with TSCA or redundant.
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A top TSCA official says EPA’s pending rule banning use of chrysotile asbestos is not “indicative” of how it will regulate workplace exposures and other risks from chemicals under the reformed toxics law, telling stakeholders to look instead at upcoming rules for several solvents, starting with methylene chloride, as a better model for the future.
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Seeking to ramp up OSHA enforcement, House appropriators have approved a fiscal year 2023 spending bill for the Labor Department that would raise the agency’s budget by $100 million from current levels, exceeding the White House’s request by over $10 million and turning focus to the Senate, which has yet to begin its appropriations process for the coming year.
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OSHA is formally proposing to grant Massachusetts’ application for OSH Act authority to enforce workplace safety standards for state and local government employees following years of quiet negotiations, clearing a path for the Bay State to become the seventh with state-plan authority only for government workplaces.
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California lawmakers continue to advance a bill that would strengthen California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) worker-safety standards for heat and wildfire smoke despite opposition from industry and business groups, though proponents have recently softened the measure to delay its deadline for the agency to propose new limits by about a year.
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OSHA is floating a wide range of ways to tighten its decades-old lead exposure standards, including stricter medical removal requirements or even strengthening the permissible exposure limit (PEL) that forms the basis for many of the rule’s provisions, and is also asking stakeholders to weigh in on using state-level proposals in California and Washington as models.
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Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), ranking member on the Senate’s environment committee, used a June 22 hearing to warn EPA’s chemicals chief that her office is “drifting” into territory better regulated by OSHA, arguing that it should stay away from addressing personal protective equipment (PPE) and other worker protection measures.
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OSHA intends to issue its long-term healthcare industry standard for preventing COVID-19 infections in September, according to the agency’s newly updated unified agenda of future regulatory actions, while other key rulemakings are being delayed by months or more from their previously announced targets.
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Environmentalists are pushing EPA to tighten its new draft risk assessment of formaldehyde by setting a cancer estimate based at least in part on the ubiquitous chemical’s links to leukemia, rejecting agency arguments that while such a link exists, the studies establishing it are too uncertain to use in an Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) review.
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California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has released a draft long-term COVID-19 rule that is already drawing employer concerns for its stricter definition of “close contact,” but the same stakeholders are welcoming plans to end the controversial “exclusion pay” requirement that mandates compensation for workers removed from their duties under the standard.
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Industry groups are calling for EPA to rework its draft formaldehyde risk assessment to address what they say is a long list of scientific faults, ranging from the agency’s handling of a controversial workplace-exposure study to a failure to “harmonize” its approach to evaluating the chemical’s cancer risks with 2005 guidelines.
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OSHA’s long-delayed call for public input on possible updates to the decades-old lead exposure standard has cleared White House review, teeing up the first step of a rulemaking process the agency says will at least aim to tighten the blood lead levels (BLLs) that trigger medical removal of workers but could be much broader.
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EPA plans to “learn from” OSHA’s enforcement of workplace chemical-exposure limits as it prepares for the demands of enforcing new TSCA risk management rules, a spokesperson says, while an industry attorney sees a formal memorandum of understanding (MOU) or other partnership between the two agencies as an option to aid those efforts.
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Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) Chair Katherine Lemos has resigned with three years left in her term, reportedly citing “eroded confidence” in the body’s mission and priorities, months after the Senate confirmed two new CSB members and just days after the announcement of President Joe Biden’s latest nominee.
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EPA is refusing an array of requests from industry and members of Congress to extend the June 13 comment deadline on its latest draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of formaldehyde, arguing that criticism of its development process is unfounded and that there will be more chances for the public to weigh in during peer review.
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A top Republican on the Senate environment committee is strongly opposing Democrats’ latest bill to ban asbestos uses, arguing during a June 9 hearing that OSHA and EPA should address the material’s risks through rulemaking instead of legislation, in a sign the measure faces an uphill battle to win bipartisan support needed to break any filibuster.
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California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) has released a long-delayed new draft of its proposed workplace violence prevention standard that would govern “all industries” as a supplement to its existing, healthcare-specific rule, but the revisions are drawing early push-back from employer attorneys over its definitions and broad applicability.
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EPA has quietly released workplace exposure limits for five chemicals that will be subject to upcoming TSCA rules, appearing to lay the groundwork not just for those proposals but also a potential reversal on trichloroethylene (TCE), where the agency has prepared two limits -- one based on the Trump-era risk determination and a stricter second option using research the prior administration rejected.
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