The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) says workplace safety and health ranks as one of the department’s top “management challenges,” citing a decline in OSHA enforcement, mounting whistleblower investigations, and silica protections as key subjects where the agency must improve.
September 17, 2026
A Labor Department (DOL) official told a Nov. 16 advisory panel meeting that OSHA is on track to publish its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for heat danger enforcement by “late March” 2022, ahead of the next round of summer heat and in line with an administration-wide push to combat heat illness.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) has designated three cases for review by the full body, setting the stage for new decisions on how OSHA enforces its fall protection standard along with a host of general duty clause guidelines, even as President Joe Biden’s nominee to an open seat on the panel remains pending.
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Stakeholders on all sides say Democrats’ proposal to raise the OSH Act’s cap on penalties to $700,000 per violation would reshape OSHA enforcement, with labor and safety groups praising the bill as a much-needed boost to deterrence while employers’ attorneys are predicting a “big” increase in legal challenges to individual fines.
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Just-released legislative text that House Democratic leaders say implements a deal between President Joe Biden and Senate moderates for a $1.75 trillion social spending package maintains the previously announced proposal to raise statutory penalties for OSH Act violations by a factor of 10, along with $707 million in funding for OSHA itself.
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Whistleblower protection groups are asking OSHA to take new steps to help undocumented workers report safety violations and seek protection from unlawful retaliation following a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo ending immigration agencies’ practice of raiding work site to make mass arrests.
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The country’s largest nurses’ union is calling on OSHA to step up enforcement of its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare, arguing that a recent survey of hospital conditions shows widespread noncompliance with key provisions of the ETS, including on testing and protective gear, in its first month of implementation.
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OSHA is rejecting an Inspector General (OIG) report that found silica standard inspections dropped by 50 percent when its long-standing enforcement emphasis program lapsed and recommended policy reforms to avoid such gaps, arguing that it is not “appropriate” for the watchdog office to weigh in on the agency’s enforcement priorities.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a bill that employer attorneys say will “vastly” expand California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) enforcement authority and hike monetary penalty amounts for regulatory violations, as well as giving the agency new power to seek permanent injunctions against employer operations.
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The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) is setting a demanding test for OSHA to enforce portions of its safety standard for telecommunications work, holding that a cable company exercised “reasonable diligence” when it assumed an experienced worker would follow training on the standard without close supervision.
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