President Joe Biden has named three nominees to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) including a former United Auto Workers (UAW) safety official, after labor and industry groups as well as the body’s own inspector general warned that CSB cannot continue to operate with a single member.
September 17, 2026
OSHA is marking the 50th anniversary of its 1971 founding by touting its imminent emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 and its plans to boost enforcement related to the pandemic, while Democratic lawmakers are using the occasion to ready their latest push to overhaul and tighten the OSH Act.
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OSHA has sent its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) rule for White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review, more than six weeks after President Joe Biden’s deadline for the ETS that observers expect will take effect within weeks and could include tiered mandates for specific industries.
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Congress is stepping up its focus on the Biden administration’s worker protection policies, with senators advancing the nomination of Julie Su to be Deputy Labor Secretary while members of a key House subcommittee plan a hearing on OSHA’s development of an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19.
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OSHA says employees’ negative reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine are “work-related” and thus subject to recordkeeping and reporting mandates if an employer “requires” the vaccination, a definition the agency says it will read broadly to include any workplace where unvaccinated workers face “adverse action.”
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A new analysis conducted by OSHA researchers and academics says EPA’s risk evaluation of methylene chloride undercounted workers’ deaths from exposure to products made with the chemical by almost 40 percent if not more, prompting calls from some of its authors as well as environmental groups for EPA to ban use of the solvent.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) acting regulatory chief is defending a proposed rule that critics say includes burdensome hazard assessment mandates for industry that could aid EPA’s chemical regulations, saying the new provisions merely codify existing guidance and require industry to take “reasonable” steps.
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Even as OSHA ramps up its COVID-19 enforcement, employers’ attorneys say the more than 300 already filed pandemic citations are facing an extraordinary level of legal push-back, with appeals pending for almost half of the cases -- potentially teeing up pivotal rulings on the agency’s authority to require infection-control measures.
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In the highest-profile enforcement action so far under OSHA’s new COVID-19 national emphasis program (NEP), the agency is proposing to levy $136,532 in penalties, the largest in a pandemic-related case, against a tax preparation firm it says barred employees from taking infection-control measures.
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The United Steelworkers (USW) and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) are urging President Joe Biden to nominate new members to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) and increase its budget, arguing that CSB’s current status as a one-person panel has rendered it “dysfunctional.”
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OSHA is extending the comment period on its proposed hazard communication standard (HCS) update, giving industry critics more time to build legal and policy cases against the rule after one attorney said it appears designed to aid EPA chemical evaluations by forcing many chemical companies to conduct elaborate new hazard analyses.
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The White House is backing House Democrats’ bill that would give OSHA a one-year deadline to craft a workplace violence standard for health care and social services workers, after a long-pending rulemaking process stalled during the Trump administration, though the legislation faces an uncertain path in the Senate.
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President Joe Biden is proposing $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2022 funding for OSHA and other Department of Labor (DOL) worker protection agencies, representing an increase of $304 million or 17 percent over the FY21 enacted level to ramp up enforcement and regulatory efforts to protect employees.
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Unions and worker safety groups are praising President Joe Biden’s selection of California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) chief Doug Parker to lead the federal OSHA and are urging him to swiftly enact a COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), which employers’ attorneys fear Parker could model on Cal/OSHA’s strict virus policy.
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OSHA has announced its first whistleblower stakeholder meeting under the Biden administration, giving unions, worker safety groups and others a fresh venue to advance calls for dramatically strengthening the agency’s program that protects employees from retaliations for reporting violations of workplace safety rules.
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The Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which investigates releases of hazardous or toxic chemicals and other industrial incidents, will soon draw up a new board order as recommended by EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that oversees CSB, while embarking on a hiring push to bolster the ranks of its investigators.
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Worker safety groups are urging OSHA to issue “within the next few weeks” an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, arguing the already-delayed rulemaking is urgently needed, following reports that new Labor Secretary Marty Walsh has directed the agency to update the ETS to reflect new research on the virus.
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An industry attorney says chemical makers and users could soon face an “absurd,” onerous mandate to assess the hazards posed by chemicals they produce or use, not only in their own operations but in all possible downstream uses and combinations -- a duty he says could be aimed at supporting EPA’s risk evaluations of existing chemicals.
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Former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) Chairman James Sullivan says the Biden OSHA’s plan to step up enforcement, particularly on COVID-19 worker exposures, poses an “interesting” test for OSHRC and its precedent setting a high bar for the agency to sustain penalties in some enforcement cases.
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A federal district court judge has dismissed a suit filed by Pennsylvania meat-packing plant workers that aimed to force OSHA to take action against their employer for inadequate protections against COVID-19, finding the OSH Act does not allow such suits unless an inspector makes a formal finding of “imminent danger” at the site.
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