As the Trump administration prepares to hear stakeholder views on a Biden-era OSHA rule setting heat-protection standards, groups in California are weighing a Cal/OSHA plan to strengthen the state’s heat illness-prevention standards as required by a 2022 law, which was prompted by fears of the potential impacts of hotter temperatures caused by climate change.
September 17, 2026
David Keeling, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead OSHA, is suggesting the Trump administration may be able to fill data gaps as a result of its plans to slash the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) by using data from “private entities” and “professional groups,” though he acknowledged that it may not be easy to do so.
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A former Trump administration official is hoping that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit helps define the threshold “unreasonable risk” standard EPA must use when regulating chemicals to protect workers and others under TSCA given Congress’ and the agency’s failure so far to define the term.
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California lawmakers are advancing bills to ban employers from preventing workers from wearing masks or respirators, place new restrictions and certification requirements on stone fabrication shops to protect workers from crystalline silica, and require an academic study and new advisory panel on understaffing and vacancies at Cal/OSHA.
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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.
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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.
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Employer attorneys are generally praising recently published guidance documents by New York’s Department of Labor (NYDOL) for companies to comply with the state’s new retail worker violence-prevention rules, but some say questions remain over several key provisions including training requirements related to active-shooter drills.
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Employer attorneys are seeing mixed results in key revisions to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) draft workplace violence-prevention rules, welcoming the removal of language barring employers from requiring employees to confront individuals suspected of committing a crime while criticizing an updated definition of “workplace violence hazards.”
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A New Jersey steel fabricator is seeking summary judgment in its lawsuit claiming that Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) review of enforcement actions is unconstitutional, an early test for Trump officials on whether federal courts must review enforcement actions or the panel’s administrative law judges (ALJs).
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A panel of 5th Circuit judges appears skeptical of EPA’s TSCA authority to regulate workplace exposures, as well as its threshold risk finding of methylene chloride, raising the prospect that any ruling in the potentially precedent-setting case could again undercut agency efforts to regulate chemicals as the circuit did in a 1991 asbestos case.
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