Rulemaking

OSHA says it is renewing work on a permanent COVID-19 standard for the healthcare sector in light of the Supreme Court ruling that blocked its economy-wide vaccination rule, but warns that a final rule is still “six to nine months” away in a new legal filing opposing unions’ bid for a court order seeking a permanent standard within 30 days.

Attorneys say the Supreme Court’s stay of OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccine standard both forces the agency to use the general duty clause as its primary tool to enforce pandemic safety measures, and creates new hurdles for those efforts -- though it could also open the door to a separate rule based on the emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare workers.

Labor groups and House Democrats are urging OSHA to issue a final rule based on its temporary COVID-19 vaccine standard but are split on how to approach that task, with some seeking comprehensive guidelines while others, including the lawmakers, favor a narrower rule that reflects the Supreme Court’s decision blocking the emergency standard.

Environmentalists and work-safety groups are ramping up pressure on OSHA to expedite a heat exposure standard, including through a new study that says high heat conditions, exacerbated by climate change, could lead to as much as $55.4 billion in lost wages annually by 2065 without new workplace protections or greenhouse gas reductions.

OSHA is raising its civil penalties for violations of the OSH Act and regulatory standards by 6.2 percent to account for inflation -- the largest such adjustment in recent memory and one industry attorneys are warning could lead to an even sharper spike in total fines as the agency looks to step up enforcement action across the board.

OSHA has quietly resumed development of an emergency response standard intended to bolster protections for first responders after pausing the process late in the Obama administration, but stakeholders are warning that the eventual rule may exclude much of the sector as it is dominated by public-sector and volunteer workers outside OSHA’s purview.

Public health groups are asking a federal appeals court to resume their lawsuit over OSHA’s 2019 rollback of Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates, after the agency failed to propose restoring the rule by the end of 2021 as it promised in an earlier filing -- though it now says the proposal will arrive by mid-February.

State and national labor groups are asking a federal appeals court for an order that would force OSHA to reinstate its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare workers and quickly enact a permanent rule for the sector, teeing up what could be the first appellate decision on the agency’s ability to extend the six-month emergency regulations.

OSHA has released a new regulatory interpretation letter that says employers may allow workers who maintain facial hair because of a disability or closely-held religious belief to use loose-fitting powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) as alternatives to fitted N95 masks to protect against COVID-19 exposure.

OSHA is providing new guidance for employers to review workers’ self-administered COVID-19 tests under its pandemic emergency temporary standard (ETS), warning that while such tests can satisfy the rule’s requirement for weekly testing of unvaccinated employees they must be either read or observed by a third party.