OSHA Rulemaking

Subscribe to OSHA Rulemaking via RSS

OSHA has just announced it is partially reopening the record on the rulemaking for the permanent healthcare COVID-19 standard known as the rule on Occupational Exposure to COVID-19 in Healthcare Settings. Comments are due by April 22, 2022. The docket number is OSHA-2020-0004. Following the written comments, there will also be a hearing held online…

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in the OSHA ETS case.  Of course one never knows how the Court will rule, but if the Justices’ questions are any indication, there could be a 6-3 split in favor of a stay, with Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, and…

More than six months after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) promulgated an Emergency Temporary Standard for healthcare employers (Healthcare ETS), OSHA announced its intentions to propose an infectious diseases standard covering all industry sectors in April 2022. The agency said the new standard will address airborne, droplet, and non-bloodborne contact diseases.

To read…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has lifted the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) on COVID-19 vaccination and testing for employers with at least 100 employees. Multiple parties, including 27 states, have filed emergency motions with the U.S. Supreme Court to block…

In what is getting to be habit in the OSHA ETS litigation with courts issuing orders late Friday afternoons, the Sixth Circuit on December 3, 2021 tersely denied a petition to transfer the case back to the Fifth Circuit.  In the same order, the Sixth Circuit also denied, without explanation, the union petitioners’ bid to…

As the OSHA COVID ETS saga continues to unfold, several union groups have filed a motion requesting that the 6th Circuit transfer all of the consolidated petitions to the D.C. Circuit, arguing that the D.C. Circuit is better equipped to handle the matter.  The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, AFL/CIO-CLC and the…

Four separate groups of petitioners challenging the OSHA ETS, including a coalition of 27 states, have asked the court to hear the OSHA challenge en banc, arguing that the case involves a question of exceptional importance in that it is an “unprecedented mandate of COVID vaccines based on a rarely used law of questionable applicability.”…

In a 22-page order issued November 12, 2021, the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed its initial stay of OSHA’s vaccine Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). The 5th Circuit stated that petitioners are likely to succeed on the merits, meaning that OSHA’s ETS is an overreach of its authority on likely a variety of grounds. The 5th Circuit also…