Rules To Come? Future Regulatory Agenda For OSHA

It’s that time of year again…when the federal government tells the regulated community what types of rulemaking initiatives that various agencies are undertaking for the year. Yesterday, the semiannual regulatory agenda was published. This Regulatory Agenda provides a complete list of all regulatory actions that are under active consideration for promulgation, proposal, or review and covers regulatory actions for over 60 federal departments, agencies, and commissions.

The regulatory agenda for the Department of Labor includes a total of thirteen regulatory entries for OSHA specific actions.  In comparison, the regulatory agenda published in May 2016 had thirty two regulatory entries for OSHA specific actions. Additionally, sixteen agency actions have been removed completely from the current agenda, including Combustible Dust, Noise in Construction, Preventing Workplace Violence in Healthcare, Infectious Disease, and the Tree Care Standard.  These initiatives have been classified as “completed actions” and for each initiative OSHA states, “OSHA is withdrawing this entry from the agenda at this time due to resource constraints and other priorities.” The removal of these initiatives from the agenda aligns with the Trump Administration’s goal of effective and less burdensome regulation.

Of those initiatives remaining for OSHA, five of the thirteen rulemaking actions still are in the pre-rule stage.  At this stage, OSHA is simply gathering relevant information through stakeholder meetings or outreach measures.  The remaining eight regulatory actions are in the proposed rulemaking stage, and include rules that were promulgated and finalized under the Obama Administration and recently reopened under the Trump Administration, such as Occupational Exposure to Beryllium.

A summary of some of the regulatory actions under consideration by OSHA include:

 The full federal Unified Agenda and Regulatory Plan can be found online at:

http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaMain