A Texas oil field equipment supplier has dropped without comment its legal challenge to the constitutionality of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC), which it originally filed after receiving OSHA citations related to the death of a subcontractor’s employee.

Battery makers and other critical users of the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) are pointing to a worker protection value in EPA’s Biden-era TSCA rule restricting most uses of the solvent to support their argument that even though the rule provided them extended phaseout timelines, the conditions are too stringent and thus violate the toxics law.

The Labor Department (DOL) is not making any adjustments to civil money penalties in 2026 -- including for OSHA and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) -- because the lapse in federal funding last fall prevented the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) from producing the data necessary for any such adjustments.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is granting a petition to launch a rulemaking to prohibit the fabrication and installation of artificial stone products containing more than 1 percent crystalline silica -- a move to protect workers after hundreds have contracted the deadly lung disease silicosis in recent years and more than 30 have died.

California OSHA’s (Cal/OSHA) standards board is granting a petition to launch a rulemaking to prohibit the fabrication and installation of artificial stone products containing more than 1 percent crystalline silica -- a move to protect workers after hundreds have contracted the deadly lung disease silicosis in recent years and more than 30 have died.

OSHA’s construction-sector advisory panel is backing the agency’s long-discussed plan to develop a tree care standard, noting state and industry standards that could serve as a model for a national standard and highlighting areas where construction activities overlap with actions that could be considered tree care.

California lawmakers are advancing some bills to bolster Cal/OSHA worker-protection standards and enforcement, while blocking others, including an industry-sponsored measure that would have required Cal/OSHA to develop an application and certification process for artificial stone fabrication shops to help reduce crystalline silica exposure.

OSHA’s construction-sector advisory panel is providing a mixed response to the agency’s proposals to streamline and provide compliance flexibility for chemical-specific respirator standards -- backing some, opposing others and deadlocking on two -- after previously narrowly opposing other aspects of OSHA’s deregulatory package.

EPA and petroleum refiners are renewing their efforts to dismiss a suit challenging the agency’s denial of a petition seeking stricter regulation of hydrogen fluoride (HF) to prevent accidental chemical releases that could harm workers or residents, charging the case is doomed because it relies on uncertain worst-case scenarios.

New analysis from a coal miners’ advocacy group, using data collected by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), finds that 20 percent of surface and underground mines sampled for silica exposure in 2025 had levels of silica dust above the standard set in a now-paused Biden-era MSHA rule.