OSHA is asking stakeholders to weigh in on a host of issues it says will inform the first-ever update to its 1971 safety standard for mechanical power presses, including whether to expand the rule to cover currently-excluded hydraulic and pneumatic presses, and whether to use an industry consensus standard as a basis for the revision.
September 17, 2026
Incoming OSHA chief Doug Parker could seek to tighten the agency’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) following his expected confirmation, an employer attorney said during a July 22 webinar, based on his record of strict regulation as California’s top safety official and the spike in infections due to the virus’s “Delta” variant.
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White House officials have completed their review of OSHA’s long-delayed request for information designed to shape its first-ever update to the safety standard for mechanical power presses -- a rule that dates to 1971, and which the agency sought unsuccessfully to rework during the George W. Bush administration.
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Environmentalists and industry groups are starting to draw battle lines over how or whether the Biden administration should revise the Trump-era rule governing chemical facility-safety requirements, with environmentalists urging officials to restore and strengthen the Obama-era rule while industry is arguing for retaining the Trump rule.
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OSHA plans to make a heat-illness standard one of its top priorities early in the Biden administration, touting California’s heat standard as a potential model and warning that without a new federal rule, Trump-era judicial precedent will block use of the OSH Act’s general duty clause to combat heat dangers.
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OSHA will publish its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) in the June 21 Federal Register, making the rule effective for the healthcare sector upon publication, meaning the 14-day compliance deadline for most of its provisions will arrive on July 5.
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EPA’s top waste official is promising that the agency’s plan to revise the Trump-era rule setting safety mandates for chemical facilities will require that industry provides the “maximum protection possible” and will make environmental justice a key focus, bolstering environmental groups that have pushed for such approaches.
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OSHA plans to propose in December a rule to restore Obama-era electronic recordkeeping and reporting mandates that the Trump administration largely rolled back in 2019, according to its newly released Unified Agenda of regulatory actions that also targets December for proposing a long-delayed infectious-disease standard.
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Unions and their allies are pushing back on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, arguing that limiting the rule to healthcare workers leaves at-risk workers in other industries unprotected, even as employers’ attorneys are warning that the agency could soon tighten enforcement across all industry sectors.
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OSHA has released its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS) for healthcare employers, alongside new general-industry guidance for the pandemic that focuses on vaccination and recommends infection-control measures only for workplaces where some employees are not yet vaccinated.
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