AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is warning OSHA nominee Scott Mugno that the labor movement will be “monitoring his every step,” and that they will organize if he attempts to “move backwards” on worker protections, increasing pressure on the nominee to break from the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda.
September 17, 2026
A coalition of local safety and health groups say that an uptick in worker deaths in 2016 should prompt the Trump administration to boost OSHA funding for inspections, arguing that increased resources for workplace safety and health programs and more robust agency follow-up enforcement would help prevent worker deaths.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) says that a process safety management (PSM) system like the one required under OSHA's PSM rule could have prevented a fatal February 2017 explosion at a Louisiana paper mill, putting new pressure on the Trump administration to revive an Obama-era effort to strengthen OSHA's regulation.
Breaking from efforts to reverse various of the previous administration's initiatives, the Trump OSHA appears to be retaining on its website an annotated occupational chemical exposure limit table and stringent guidance language that was a product of an Obama-era effort to bolster the agency's chemical oversight.
Dozens of labor and citizen groups are urging Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to preserve committees that advise OSHA regarding the impact of the agency's policies and standards, charging that the Trump Labor Department (DOL) is “stalling, disbanding and allowing the lapse” of the committees that are critical to the agency.
Faced with labor shortages that are preventing many jobs from being filled, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta signaled a “step back” in the Trump administration's strict zero tolerance approach on drug use in the workplace, opening the door to a possible softening in OSHA's plans to roll back an Obama-era rule that precludes company policies, such as drug testing, if they deter injury reporting.
Faced with labor shortages that are preventing many jobs from being filled, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta signaled a “step back” in the Trump administration's strict zero tolerance approach on drug use in the workplace, opening the door to a possible softening in OSHA's plans to roll back an Obama-era rule that precludes company policies, such as drug testing, if they deter injury reporting.
Environmentalists have filed their opening brief in their suit challenging EPA's “framework” rules for prioritizing and assessing existing chemicals for possible regulation under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing the rules violate a requirement to conduct a holistic review that considers all of a chemical's uses.
Environmentalists have filed their opening brief in their suit challenging EPA's “framework” rules for prioritizing and assessing existing chemicals for possible regulation under the revised Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), arguing the rules violate a requirement to conduct a holistic review that considers all of a chemical's uses.
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's (CSB) is asking a federal appellate court to grant it broad power to subpoena documents related to “potential” releases at facilities where it is investigating industrial incidents, a move that a major refiner is resisting, charging it amounts to an unlawful expansion of the board's powers.
