Industry attorneys are highlighting challenges companies face under an Obama administration policy of targeting worker safety violations with environmental laws, including increased penalties, vague standards and more complex dealings with federal safety investigators -- areas the incoming Trump administration may target in scaling back enforcement.

Industry attorneys, including a former George W. Bush OSHA chief, expect that President-elect Donald Trump will significantly reduce OSHA enforcement efforts, by limiting future penalty increases, tightening the window for repeat violations, and putting the agency's severe violator enforcement program (SVEP) on the “chopping block.”

OSHA has issued guidance detailing steps small construction firms must take to comply with the agency's final rule strengthening its silica standards, signaling agency plans to advance the rule's implementation despite an industry legal challenge and expected pushback from President-elect Donald Trump's administration and Republican lawmakers.

Environmentalists are pressing departing Obama administration officials to strengthen EPA's upcoming final rule revising its facility safety regulation even as the measure faces a growing threat that the next Congress, backed by President Donald Trump, will eliminate the rule under privileged processes guaranteed by the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

Several industry attorneys say President-elect Donald Trump will likely seek to roll back many OSHA rules issued under the Obama administration, though it is unclear when Trump's administration will start that effort and which of the wide range of tools it will employ, given Trump's lack of specific statements on OSHA during the campaign, and other priorities.

OSHA is asking the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to review the recent three-judge panel ruling that vacated the agency's controversial 2015 policy narrowing an exemption from its process safety management (PSM) standard for retailers.

OSHA is widely expected to appeal the recent federal court ruling that it unlawfully targeted a poultry processing plant for an expanded inspection, opening the door to a broader precedent that would either give companies new authority to resist broader inspections, according to industry, or affirm the agency's discretion to protect workers, labor advocates say.

A federal district court has blocked OSHA's plan for an expanded inspection of a poultry processing facility because the agency's sectoral enforcement program arbitrarily and unfairly targeted the plant for inspection beyond the circumstances of a reported incident -- a ruling that could limit OSHA inspection authority under its emphasis programs.

A senior Justice Department (DOJ) official says prosecutors implementing a recent policy aimed at leveraging environmental laws to impose stiffer penalties for workplace violations are eyeing companies’ internal environmental management systems (EMS) and safety cultures while crafting settlements to ensure future compliance and improve attitudes toward worker safety.

A former top OSHA official says the agency is “an overmatched regulator” that rarely uses its full authority to protect workers, and is urging the agency to partner with federal, state, and local regulators, as well as the public, to better focus inspections on serious hazards.