Washington state is forging ahead with rulemaking based on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination and testing despite a court order blocking implementation of the federal rule, as officials there say they “are not delaying” work on their vaccine rule while other delegated states are weighing next steps.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) says workplace safety and health ranks as one of the department’s top “management challenges,” citing a decline in OSHA enforcement, mounting whistleblower investigations, and silica protections as key subjects where the agency must improve.
OSHA is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to lift a stay blocking its emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination, teeing up a decision by the appellate court on whether the agency will be able to implement its rule in the coming weeks -- though observers expect the Supreme Court to have the last word.
A Labor Department (DOL) official told a Nov. 16 advisory panel meeting that OSHA is on track to publish its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for heat danger enforcement by “late March” 2022, ahead of the next round of summer heat and in line with an administration-wide push to combat heat illness.
House and Senate Republicans are readying several measures to force votes on OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccines, including a Congressional Review Act (CRA) repeal measure and a threat to block any new bills to fund the federal government unless they include language scrapping the rule.
A Department of Labor (DOL) attorney says OSHA intends to release new guidance on individual exemptions from vaccine requirements under the agency’s COVID-19 emergency temporary standard (ETS), though the agency is emphasizing that all work on implementation of the rule is paused due to an appellate court’s order.
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has chosen the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to hear suits over OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccinations -- a boost to employers, GOP-led states and conservative groups seeking to scrap the rule, as the court is dominated by Republican nominees.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has extended indefinitely its stay of OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccine emergency temporary standard (ETS) just days before a multi-court panel is set to consolidate all pending ETS suits before a single court, holding that the rule is “fatally flawed” on statutory grounds and is “likely unconstitutional.”
Labor unions have filed at least three lawsuits over OSHA’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19 vaccination, opening proceedings in appellate courts with a Democratic majority among their active judges, ahead of an expected “lottery” to consolidate all ETS litigation in a single circuit.
OSHA is urging a federal appellate court to wait to consider litigants’ bids to block implementation of its COVID-19 vaccine standard until the many pending challenges to that rule are consolidated into a single venue, while also raising its first defenses of the rule against claims that the policy is unlawful or unconstitutional.