State Actions

Oregon’s worker safety agency has released its long-awaited proposal for a permanent heat illness prevention standard as part of a broader state effort to mitigate the impacts of climate change that also includes a workplace standard for wildfire smoke exposure, just as OSHA is conducting its own outreach for a nationwide heat stress rulemaking.

The California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board has readopted -- and strengthened -- a controversial COVID-19 worker-safety emergency temporary standard (ETS) through next April, even as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) authorized the board to continue the standard through the end of 2022 while officials continue to work on a permanent standard.

OSHA plans to propose this month a rulemaking to withdraw state plan status from Arizona, according to its newly released Unified Agenda for regulatory actions that also targets May for a proposal that would grant partial state plan status to Massachusetts and sets updated timelines for a host of previously announced rulemakings.

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.

A new decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit refusing to block Maine’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for healthcare workers over religious-freedom claims could bode well for OSHA’s impending general-industry vaccine standard, but attorneys say any such case is still likely to go to the Supreme Court.

OSHA is warning three states that it could withdraw their state plan status unless they craft COVID-19 protections for healthcare workers, arguing that all three have failed to adopt counterparts to the agency’s emergency temporary standard (ETS) and thus violated the mandate to maintain programs “at least as effective” as federal standards.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit could soon decide whether changes in state and federal workplace safety guidelines for the COVID-19 pandemic have rendered moot litigation over employers’ alleged failures to comply with earlier safeguards, as it weighs new arguments in Amazon workers’ suit over warehouse conditions.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has signed into law a bill that employer attorneys say will “vastly” expand California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) enforcement authority and hike monetary penalty amounts for regulatory violations, as well as giving the agency new power to seek permanent injunctions against employer operations.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is floating a draft permanent COVID-19 worker-safety standard that aims to provide more compliance flexibility and streamlined requirements compared with its pandemic emergency temporary standard (ETS), in part by incorporating some core elements of the policy into its existing Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP).

California lawmakers are advancing several worker-safety bills supported by labor unions and opposed by employer groups ahead of a Sept. 10 deadline to pass legislation, including measures aimed at protecting warehouse employees and speeding new safety rules by exempting them from mandatory cost-impact analyses.