OSHA has released a new regulatory interpretation letter that says employers may allow workers who maintain facial hair because of a disability or closely-held religious belief to use loose-fitting powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) as alternatives to fitted N95 masks to protect against COVID-19 exposure.
OSHA is providing new guidance for employers to review workers’ self-administered COVID-19 tests under its pandemic emergency temporary standard (ETS), warning that while such tests can satisfy the rule’s requirement for weekly testing of unvaccinated employees they must be either read or observed by a third party.
OSHA has confirmed that it is withdrawing most of its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare facilities but says it still plans a permanent rulemaking for the sector and will continue enforcement action in the interim under the OSH Act’s general duty clause.
EPA and several major tech companies have joined with an environmental group to spearhead a program aimed at reducing workers’ exposure to toxic chemicals in the electronics sector’s supply chain, with the first round of priority chemicals identifying substances like methylene chloride that are already subject to EPA regulation under TSCA.
The Supreme Court announced Dec. 22 that it will hear oral argument Jan. 7 in litigation over both OSHA’s vaccine-or-test emergency temporary standard (ETS) for large employers and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccine mandate for many health workers, linking the two high-profile challenges to federal pandemic powers.
OSHA Dec. 21 allowed its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare workers to expire, spurring criticism from healthcare and workers’ rights advocates and calls for the agency to “expeditiously” issue a permanent standard to protect frontline medical workers amid a fresh spike in cases from the Omicron variant.
A new decision by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) holds for apparently the first time that road construction companies must adopt fall-protection measures for employees working from the backs of moving vehicles, but the panel took no clear position on what abatement methods the employers must use.
OSHA plans to start enforcing its COVID-19 vaccination emergency temporary standard (ETS) on Jan. 10, with employer vaccine policies to take effect Feb. 9 -- provided employers make “good faith efforts” to comply -- after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit voted 2-1 to dissolve an earlier order staying the rule.
The California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has readopted -- and strengthened -- a controversial COVID-19 worker-safety emergency temporary standard (ETS) through next April, even as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) authorized the board to continue the standard through the end of 2022 while officials continue to work on a permanent standard.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has denied petitions for initial en banc review of the consolidated challenges to OSHA’s vaccine emergency temporary standard (ETS), opening the field of judges who could potentially serve on a three-judge panel to decide whether to lift an injunction blocking the standard’s adoption.
Worker-safety advocates are urging OSHA to promulgate a disaster-response standard to ensure that employers are prepared for extreme weather-related events, in the aftermath of recent tornados that leveled workplaces across the Midwest and killed at least six workers at an Illinois Amazon warehouse and eight at a Kentucky candle factory.
OSHA plans to propose this month a rulemaking to withdraw state plan status from Arizona, according to its newly released Unified Agenda for regulatory actions that also targets May for a proposal that would grant partial state plan status to Massachusetts and sets updated timelines for a host of previously announced rulemakings.
Animal welfare and labor rights advocates are taking aim at the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) new “time-limited trials” allowing some poultry and pork slaughterhouses to raise line speeds if they implement worker safety measures, saying they see little difference from a speed-waiver program that a court scrapped earlier this year.
The Senate has confirmed by voice vote two of President Joe Biden’s three nominees to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), moving the panel, which investigates industrial incidents and advises OSHA and other agencies, closer to full strength after it spent more than a year with a single member.
The Senate voted Dec. 7 to approve a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would nullify OSHA’s emergency COVID-19 vaccination rule with two Democrats joining the chamber’s Republicans to back it, marking a symbolic win for the GOP even though it faces long odds in the House and a certain veto if it does pass there.
OSHA is pushing back two major deadlines for public input until early 2022 -- extending both the public comment period for its call for comments to inform a long-awaited heat illness standard, and the nomination deadline for new members to its Federal Advisory Council on Occupational Safety and Health (FACOSH).
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is backing a Republican-led effort to repeal OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccines, all but guaranteeing it will pass the 50-50 Senate while House Republicans are hoping to secure support from Democratic moderates that would allow them to force a vote in the lower chamber.
Two OSHA-related nominees won key Senate votes Dec. 2, as lawmakers voted to confirm Larry Turner as the Department of Labor’s (DOL) new Inspector General (IG) just hours after members of the labor committee backed Susan Harthill’s nomination to join the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC).
The Biden administration is expanding its efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 following the emergence of the novel and potentially immunity-avoiding “Omicron” variant, including a fresh push for employers to adopt vaccination-or-test requirements even after a court stayed OSHA’s rule that would make that policy mandatory.
A group of congressional Republicans is threatening to block a stop-gap government funding bill unless it blocks OSHA’s and other agencies’ COVID-19 vaccine policies, potentially undermining a newly announced bipartisan spending agreement and all but guaranteeing another clash on the subject at the next deadline.