As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to launch hearings, labor groups and their Democratic backers are vowing to strongly oppose Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, citing in part his record that they say shows he has backed employers over OSHA, though they face a high bar as the GOP controls the Senate.
As a federal appellate court weighs the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) standing to sue, the group is moving to drop its suit challenging the agency's draft framework for reviewing new chemicals under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing that EPA has decided not to implement the framework.
Appellate judges have scrapped former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's rule delaying by almost two years implementation of Obama-era facility safety requirements after finding the delay made a “mockery” of Clean Air Act mandates, the latest in a string of legal losses for the agency in suits filed over Pruitt delays of Obama EPA policies.
A three-judge federal appellate panel appeared skeptical during recent oral argument of a construction company's challenge to OSHA's “controlling employer” policy, suggesting the agency should be granted deference to interpret its authority and that officials are better positioned than courts to interpret ambiguous statutes.
Business groups are urging the Supreme Court to review and reverse a California high court ruling that backed the state's use of supplemental enforcement powers to address workplace safety violations, fearing it will allow nearly two dozen other states operating under OSHA-approved plans to use their unapproved state laws to address alleged violations.
A federal appellate court is upholding a criminal conviction and a maximum penalty against an employer who failed to provide fall protection to an employee who fell to his death, a rare use of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act's criminal enforcement authority, which the Obama administration sought to bolster.
Democrats and labor union officials are concerned that the Supreme Court's ruling that public sector workers cannot be required to pay labor dues -- even if they benefit from any contract -- could undercut workplace safety, arguing that the ruling would curtail unions' power and their insistence on safety and other requirements.
OSHA is urging a federal judge to reject an advocacy group's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeking injury and illness records submitted under the agency's May 2016 record-keeping and reporting rule update, saying that release of the information will encourage employers to withhold reports in violation of the rule.
OSHA's review commission appears split over when and how the agency can use its general duty clause powers to cite employers for hazards not covered by the agency's standards, suggesting that the outcome of two pending cases under review may not provide clear indications of how regulators may proceed in the future.
OSHA's enforcement review commission is holding unusual oral arguments June 7 in two closely watched cases that attorneys say could test the agency's power to cite employers under its general duty clause for heat stress and workplace violence -- two emerging issues for which OSHA has not set unique standards and is thus forced to rely on its general duty powers when citing employers.