Rulemaking

OSHA has issued an interim final rule detailing new procedures for handling cases of alleged retaliation against whistleblowers who come forward about violations of antitrust law, introducing a process specific to the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act (CAARA) for the first time.

Democratic attorneys general (AGs) in seven states are petitioning OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for occupational heat exposure to take effect on May 1, arguing that workplace heat exacerbated by climate change poses a “grave danger” to tens of millions of employees around the country.

With new support from 18 more lawmakers, a group of House and Senate Democrats is renewing its call for EPA to toughen its proposed risk management program (RMP) rule when it finalizes the rule later this year, seeking to shore up the rulemaking just days after one of their key supporters announced plans to leave EPA after failing to win Senate confirmation.

Officials with the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) say the group is pushing both OSHA and EPA to prioritize enforcing their Risk Management Program (RMP) and process safety management (PSM) standard facility safety policies rather than overhauling and expanding them through pending rules.

OSHA’s director of standards and guidance is vowing that the agency will move quickly on its long-awaited nationwide heat danger standard, telling a key advisory committee that it is actively developing new guidance and expects to initiate a small-business consultation within months.

Healthcare employers and trade groups representing an array of other, overlapping sectors are continuing to push OSHA to either drop its plan for a final COVID-19 safety standard in healthcare workplaces, or tie it strictly to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance, as the White House advances its review of the rule.

Labor groups are urging the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to tighten OSHA’s final safety standard for COVID-19 exposure in healthcare workplaces beyond the emergency requirements the agency imposed in 2021, focusing in particular on calls to exceed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for the pandemic.

A top official with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce used a recent White House meeting to reiterate claims that OSHA is violating the law by crafting a final COVID-19 safety standard for healthcare facilities based on its expired emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the sector, in a preview of possible legal challenges facing the imminent rule.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has approved final COVID-19 worker-safety rules, despite ongoing unease among key stakeholder groups -- including labor representatives unhappy that an “exclusion pay” requirement was left out of the standard, and employers who fear that mandate will return in a future rule for general infectious diseases.

OSHA’s advisors are floating several areas where they could urge the agency to take a broad approach in its upcoming heat danger standard, such as by tailoring protections for a wide range of job conditions and expanding the list of health risks the rule could address.