State Actions

OSHA is urging the 4th Circuit to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of South Carolina’s challenge to the agency’s requirement that states match annual increases to federal minimum and maximum OSH Act penalties, arguing the state missed the deadline to file its suit.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) is advancing this year high-profile worker-protection rules that are drawing close scrutiny from employer and employee advocacy groups, including legislatively required measures to prevent workplace violence, heat illness and harms from wildfire smoke.

Employer-focused attorneys say they expect California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) to take additional and more aggressive enforcement actions in the coming year, including a potential new focus on criminal prosecutions, as a result of the agency recently filling long-vacant inspector and other positions.

OSHA is confirming in a new Federal Register notice that Tennessee OSHA (TOSHA) has assumed authority over worker safety and health of non-federal employees performing work at former Energy Department (DOE) facilities in the state, adding new details to a pair of OSHA-DOE agreements on transferring such authority.

A petition to California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board seeking a ban on artificial stone slabs containing more than 1 percent crystalline silica to prevent more cases of the deadly lung disease silicosis is sparking new debate over whether a ban is appropriate or if state officials should substantially ramp up enforcement of worker-safety standards.

California OSHA (Cal/OSHA) officials are examining if they can work with law enforcement and health officials in several counties to expand enforcement and bring criminal charges against stone fabrication shop owners who are violating worker-protection standards, as the state continues to see a troubling increase in cases of the deadly lung disease silicosis.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy is highlighting to the Justice Department (DOJ) worker protection laws in Washington state and Oregon that it says “impose significant burdens on small businesses” and should be preempted as part of a broader Trump administration effort to target such laws.

A Michigan Senate panel is weighing legislation that would bring the state’s OSHA penalties in line with federal requirements, seeking to head off the potential loss of state protections for public-sector employees and other state benefits if OSHA were to revoke the approval of Michigan’s program.

North Carolina’s Republican labor commissioner is urging Senate Democrats to end the ongoing federal government shutdown, warning that unless OSHA grants to states are restored, North Carolina will be forced to furlough safety inspectors, putting the state’s workers at risk.

Environmentalists are urging Virginia and Pennsylvania leaders to adopt state-level heat standards, pointing to record-level heat illness incidents in 2025 and the uncertainty of when, or if, OSHA will set a federal standard -- a message that could gain new traction in Virginia if Democrat Abigail Spanberger is elected governor on Nov. 4.