Environmental and labor groups are expected to reiterate their strong support for the Biden-era proposed heat illness and injury standard during an upcoming public hearing while urging OSHA to make additional changes to the regulation that they argue will strengthen it and prevent even more deaths as extreme heat becomes more common.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups are urging OSHA to shift the Biden-era proposed heat safety standard from a one-size-fits-all prescription to a performance-based standard, similar to recent Nevada requirements, a message they are expected to deliver at an upcoming hearing on the proposal.
Public Citizen and the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) are renewing their push for OSHA to limit the work hours of resident physicians, arguing in a new petition that a medical education accreditation council has failed to demonstrate that it can establish and enforce standards for safe and healthful working conditions.
Attorneys are urging companies to ensure they have up-to-date heat safety programs ahead of high summer temperatures, noting OSHA’s continued focus on heat-related hazards through its National Emphasis Program (NEP) even in the absence of a federal standard and a growing number of states with heat safety standards.
The AFL-CIO is calling on Congress to “immediately intervene” to require the Trump administration to reinstate all staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as well as defend a federal budget that maintains and increases funding for job safety agencies like OSHA.
OSHA has announced plans to hold an informal public hearing in June on a Biden-era proposed rule aimed at preventing heat-related illnesses and deaths in the workplace, although it still remains uncertain whether the agency will finalize the rule amid industry and GOP lawmakers’ calls to scrap the rulemaking.
A medical sterilizer is suing EPA over its rule limiting occupational exposures to ethylene oxide (EtO) under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), a move that comes after the agency announced it will reconsider its air toxics rules for such facilities and puts more pressure on EPA to overturn a key EtO risk assessment.
OSHA is seeking to renew an information collection request (ICR) related to COVID-19 reporting and recordkeeping requirements for healthcare employees to ensure compliance with Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) mandates even as the agency has stopped enforcing the requirements and plans to withdraw them through a rulemaking.
Chemical distributors are urging the Labor Department to roll back two Biden-era OSHA regulations and drop plans for finalizing two proposed rules, arguing they impose excessive compliance costs without improving worker safety and meet the requirements in a recent executive order aimed at reducing regulatory burdens.
Environmentalists are warning that the second Trump EPA’s expected rollback of the Biden-era Risk Management Program (RMP) rule may be vulnerable to a new round of litigation, much as it was in the president’s first term, because the administration is again “quite likely” to conduct a predetermined rulemaking process.