Government Safety Regulations

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Opinion letters provide official written interpretations from the department’s enforcement agencies, explaining how laws apply to specific factual circumstances presented by individuals or organizations.

No real surprises came with the Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget for OSHA, released in detail Friday May 30, 2025.

OSHA is currently faring surprisingly well in a GOP-led anti-regulatory environment.

The White House’s budget request for FY 2026 asks for an approximately 35% deduction to DOL’s funding.

Letters reversing the layoffs arrived in the inboxes of some NIOSH staff a day ahead of House and Senate hearings May 14 with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. where he faced questions about the layoffs.

As of mid-May, so many efforts are underway to restore NIOSH funding and staffing (at least eight listed here) that you need a scorecard to keep up. Here is an overview.

Even as coal mining has shrunk, the potential dangers for people who still work in the field remain high. One in 10 underground coal miners who worked in mines for at least 25 years had black lung, according to a NIOSH report in 2018. In Central Appalachia, one of the main coal mining regions in the U.S., the rate was 1 in 5.

From 2021 through 2023, a NIOSH lab achieved 1,776 respirator approval decisions.  Work at the lab and the Respirator Approval Program link on the site has now been shut down.