Even as OSHA ramps up its COVID-19 enforcement, employers’ attorneys say the more than 300 already filed pandemic citations are facing an extraordinary level of legal push-back, with appeals pending for almost half of the cases -- potentially teeing up pivotal rulings on the agency’s authority to require infection-control measures.
September 16, 2026
In the highest-profile enforcement action so far under OSHA’s new COVID-19 national emphasis program (NEP), the agency is proposing to levy $136,532 in penalties, the largest in a pandemic-related case, against a tax preparation firm it says barred employees from taking infection-control measures.
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President Joe Biden is proposing $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2022 funding for OSHA and other Department of Labor (DOL) worker protection agencies, representing an increase of $304 million or 17 percent over the FY21 enacted level to ramp up enforcement and regulatory efforts to protect employees.
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The Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which investigates releases of hazardous or toxic chemicals and other industrial incidents, will soon draw up a new board order as recommended by EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that oversees CSB, while embarking on a hiring push to bolster the ranks of its investigators.
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Former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) Chairman James Sullivan says the Biden OSHA’s plan to step up enforcement, particularly on COVID-19 worker exposures, poses an “interesting” test for OSHRC and its precedent setting a high bar for the agency to sustain penalties in some enforcement cases.
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A newly published OSHA letter crafted during the final days of the Trump administration says the agency’s injury and illness recordkeeping mandate applies only once in situations where a worker suffers multiple injuries days apart but stemming from the same event, so that companies do not have to “double report” injuries.
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Former Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) Chairman James Sullivan has left the panel to return to private practice, opening a seat on the three-person panel more than a month before his term was slated to expire and setting the stage for President Joe Biden to name his first OSHRC nominee.
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OSHA is seeking nominees to fill six seats on the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH), just a few weeks after the Trump administration named four new members to the committee during its final days and further advancing the revival of the panel that had been dormant since 2019.
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Even as the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) works to continue operating despite a one-member board and a lack of administrative resources, industry attorneys say it still has the capacity to boost inspections of incidents involving using potentially hazardous chemicals from Trump-era levels, should officials choose to take that path.
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Employers’ attorneys see OSHA’s newly announced national emphasis program (NEP) for COVID-19 as a major shift in the agency’s approach to the pandemic that could drive an immediate rise in enforcement, even as OSHA continues to weigh issuing an emergency temporary standard (ETS) for the virus.
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