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38 Pallet C e nt ral • Janu a r y -Fe b r u a r y 2 0 25 Express, never made it to the confirmation finish line and withdrew his name when a hearing was finally scheduled. As a result, the agency was leaderless and guided by a Deputy Assistant Secretary who had been a former congressional staffer. e main achievement during that term was to roll back the Obama electronic recordkeeping rule in part (later restored by President Biden in 2023) and to alter the criteria for independent contractors (also restored by Biden in the January 10, 2024, final rule). Work was delayed under Trump, and resumed under Biden, on rules addressing heat illness prevention and workplace violence. Of course, most contentious between the two administrations was the OSHA COVID-19 rule and enforcement, ultimately doomed in court. If a true epidemic hits workplaces arising from the avian flu (H5N1 virus), expect OSHA enforcement to be omitted from any federal response (although agricultural and protein plants may be hard-hit). During the first Trump term, some OHS policies were issued (e.g., Site- Specific Targeting inspection criteria), and the National Emphasis Programs were left in place, but Obama-era enforcement strategies like the Severe Violator Enforcement Program (SVEP) were killed. SVEP was restored during the Biden administration but is likely to be cancelled in the new administration, along with other Biden initiatives such as "Instance by Instance" (egregious) penalties. Civil penalties will rise in mid-January 2025 for all federal government fines, but that is indexed through old legislation and is not tied to any administration. As this goes to press, the federal government's continuing resolution providing FY 2025 stopgap funding ends on December 20, 2024, and it is unclear whether there will be a government shutdown for days, weeks, or possibly until after the inauguration on January 20, 2025. OSHA enforcement would be clearly hampered, at least short-term. In terms of OSHA appropriations, the Senate-passed bill, S 4942, allocated $637.3 million for OSHA—0.8% above current funding. Biden's budget request for OSHA was $655.5 million for the agency—3.7% above its FY 2024 level. e House of Representatives never passed its version of DOL appropriations, which proposed an 11.8% decrease for OSHA. It remains unclear which set of numbers would prevail in any funding bills passed after the new GOP-controlled Congress is seated. e House also proposed draconian cuts of over 27% for NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, much of which funds both intramural and extramural research and informs OSHA regulatory decisions. OSHA's very existence is in question, based upon legislation that was floated this term and will be taken more seriously next year: the NOSHA Act (HR 69, sponsored by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). e legislation would rescind the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and abolish the agencies created in that statute (OSHA, NIOSH, and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission). As the Biden team rides into the sunset, it leaves a number of work items at OSHA that are now unlikely to see any action for four years, including the heat illness prevention rule (comments close 1/15/25), the workplace violence rule, and the emergency responder proposal. On the heat front, some states have already stepped up and promulgated their own heat stress rules: California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, and Maryland, While these are applicable only in those states and enforced by the state plan agencies, compliance with those state rules shows feasibility and can be used to impute knowledge to the employer, supporting federal OSHA General Duty Clause citations until such time as the feds have a unique rule. On the environmental front, in his first term, President Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations and more than 100 EPA regulations, and he has now tapped former NY Rep. Lee OSHA CONT. "OSHA's very existence is in ques on, based upon legisla on that was floated this term and will be taken more seriously next year."

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