Litigation

South Carolina is asking a federal district court to grant its motion for summary judgment in a long-running challenge to an Obama-era rule requiring states to match annual increases to federal minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties, while acknowledging that OSHA’s bid to dismiss the case is still pending.

Legal experts are warning that a recent 7th Circuit decision upholding criminal convictions of two grain mill supervisors that stemmed from falsifying health and safety records illustrates the significant risks of failing to comply with OSHA requirements, though the Trump administration is seeking to limit such enforcement.

Industry groups and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) have begun discussions about a possible settlement of consolidated litigation challenging the Biden-era silica dust rule following the Trump administration’s pause on enforcing the rule and a federal appeals court’s stay of the rule’s compliance deadlines.

OSHA attorneys are reiterating their calls for a federal court to dismiss North Dakota’s suit challenging an agency investigation into alleged whistleblower retaliation by the state’s environment department, arguing that a federal court lacks jurisdiction and the state has no sovereign immunity from its enforcement action.

The Trump EPA’s plan to rewrite the Biden-era TSCA phaseout of chrysotile asbestos to limit workplace exposures and further delay litigation over the measure is raising questions over whether the agency will continue to enforce the existing rule as it expects it will take 30 months -- much of the administration’s remaining term -- to redo the rule.

A former Trump administration official is hoping that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit helps define the threshold “unreasonable risk” standard EPA must use when regulating chemicals to protect workers and others under TSCA given Congress’ and the agency’s failure so far to define the term.

A New Jersey steel fabricator is seeking summary judgment in its lawsuit claiming that Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) review of enforcement actions is unconstitutional, an early test for Trump officials on whether federal courts must review enforcement actions or the panel’s administrative law judges (ALJs).

A panel of 5th Circuit judges appears skeptical of EPA’s TSCA authority to regulate workplace exposures, as well as its threshold risk finding of methylene chloride, raising the prospect that any ruling in the potentially precedent-setting case could again undercut agency efforts to regulate chemicals as the circuit did in a 1991 asbestos case.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and industry groups are urging the 8th Circuit to again reject unions’ attempt to intervene in consolidated litigation over the agency’s silica dust rule, arguing the unions have provided no new evidence that the court should reverse its prior denial.

The Trump administration is continuing its push for a federal court to dismiss a West Virginia coal miner’s lawsuit challenging staffing cuts at a key federal health agency, raising standing and sovereign immunity defenses to argue there is nothing for the court to decide.