Proposed Republican Congressional House Budget for OSHA and the Agency’s Regulatory Agenda Reinforce Trump Administration’s Deregulatory Focus

Heather MacDougall
Sep 9, 2025
8 min read

The first week of September provided insights into OSHA's budget and regulatory agenda.

Musings from Jim Frederick and Heather MacDougall, Esq. and CSP for workplace health and safety watchers

House Republicans’ FY 2026 OSHA budget proposal would cut OSHA funding by 8%, shrink staff, and eliminate the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program—reflecting the Trump administration’s deregulatory focus. Congress must now reconcile sharply different visions for OSHA’s future. At the same time, OSHA’s new regulatory agenda keeps heat illness prevention moving forward but sidelines workplace violence and other rules.

House Republicans’ Proposed Budget for OSHA Seeks to Decrease Funding

A House bill released on September 2, proposes a Congressional budget for OSHA for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY 2026 begins October 1, 2025) with a significant cut in funding and staff compared to FY 2025, with the budget proposal requesting roughly $582 million and a workforce of 1,587 employees. The House bill matches the White House’s request released on May 30 and would represent an approximately 8% cut if enacted into law.

Key provisions of the House Republicans’ proposal include eliminating the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, decreased enforcement activities and funding fewer enforcement staff, reduced funds for rulemaking, and a focus on modernization, streamlining, and data-driven decision-making. Other proposals in Congress, however, advocate for maintaining the FY 2025 funding level or increasing it, creating a contrast in approaches to OSHA's budget.

Key aspects of the House Republicans’ Trump-backed proposal

Reduced Funding and Staff: The proposal seeks to reduce the agency’s budget by about $50 million, from $632.3 million in FY 2025 to $582.4 million for FY 2026. This would also mean cutting 223 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, bringing the total workforce to 1,587. OSHA has seen a significant amount of attrition since January, but it is unclear if the Labor Department or OSHA has shared any actual numbers of staff that left the agency.
Elimination of Susan Harwood Grants: The proposal calls for the elimination of the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, which provides funding for worker safety and health training, contending that it is wasteful and ineffective.
Focus on Deregulation and Efficiency: The budget request reflects the administration's deregulatory initiatives and stated emphasis on modernizing and streamlining the agency, rather than increasing enforcement.
Targeted Enforcement: There would be a decrease in inspection activities and less spending on enforcement, with a shift towards focusing on high-hazard industries and compliance assistance.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), chair of the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, said in a press release about the proposed budget: “[I]t presents one of the greatest opportunities for us to reevaluate our spending priorities to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly, in order to provide for critical services in health care, workforce development and education—all while eliminating waste and cutting out politically motivated programs being pushed by nonelected bureaucrats.”

Counterproposals

House Democratic FY26 Budget Proposal (House Appropriations Committee, Democrats): In a separate release, Democrats propose an alternative budget for OHSA. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), ranking member of the subcommittee, contends in the release that the Republican bill “slashes worker wage, health and safety protections” and is “an attack on the programs and services that Americans depend on at every stage of their life.” Key aspects of the Democrats’ proposed budget include: (i) restore and expands the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program; (ii) increase funding for enforcement, whistleblower protections, and compliance assistance; (iii) support OSHA’s role in climate resilience, pandemic preparedness, and workplace equity; and (iv) maintain funding for DEI initiatives and worker outreach programs.
Senate Efforts: The Senate bill allocates $632 million to OSHA, which proposes to maintain the FY 2025 funding level for OSHA, emphasizing continued focus on worker safety and health.

Contrasting approaches will need resolution

The overall congressional approaches present a contrast between the administration's significant cuts and other proposals that seek to maintain or increase funding for OSHA's core mission, including health, training, and targeted risk mitigation. Lawmakers will need to resolve their differences in finalized legislation to avoid a government shutdown, or they may seek to avoid a shutdown with a continuing resolution (or multiple shorter term continuing resolutions), as they did for FY 2025.

Why it matters (Heather’s take)

Worker Protections: Changes to OSHA’s budget and staffing may impact the agency’s ability to enforce workplace safety laws, engage in rulemaking, and, arguably, protect American workers. OSHA’s budgetary resources can be efficiently spent if the agency works collaboratively with employers and other stakeholders, considers how technological advancements are enhancing workplace safety, and enforcement is targeted to the industries and hazards that present the greatest risk of serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs).
Efficiency vs. Effectiveness: The proposals highlight a debate on whether budget cuts and deregulation can lead to greater efficiency, or if they will hinder OSHA’s core mission.

Why it matters (Jim’s take)

OSHA’s budget has remained relatively flat over the past decade, even as the costs of fulfilling its mission, like staffing, travel, and operational expenses, have increased. Despite these financial constraints, the agency has worked hard over recent years to make strategic cuts. There aren’t many cost cuts that can be made at OSHA that won’t directly, negatively impact the agency’s mission.
We invest roughly $5 per worker per year in OSHA. That’s a small price for an agency tasked with preventing workplace injuries and fatalities. Having spoken with many families who have lost loved ones on the job over my career, I believe further budget reductions are not just unwise, they are unacceptable.
OSHA is often described as the agency that sets and enforces workplace safety standards, but that narrow view overlooks its broader contributions to occupational health and safety. Still, if budget cuts continue, even those core functions will be significantly compromised.
A note about the Harwood Grant Program. My first job after college was partially funded by an OSHA grant. I have written proposals for and received OSHA grants many times during my career. I oversaw the approval of those grants for four years. I know that there are many grant-funded initiatives that improve workplace safety and health for many, many workers.

Trump Administration’s “Spring” 2025 Regulatory Agenda for OSHA

On September 5, the first regulatory agenda of President Trump’s second term was published. Included are the more than 25 proposed rules recently published by the Department of Labor, many which are substance-specific standards. See our July 2 Safety Scoop for more information on these rules.

The Unified Regulatory Agenda, issued semiannually by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), outlines the status and anticipated timelines of potential regulations, organized into three stages: pre-rule, proposed rule, and final rule. The Spring 2025 regulatory agenda was briefly published August 15, but it was removed from the OIRA website hours later.

What we learned about heat and workplace violence rulemaking

The Spring 2025 regulatory is revealing for what remains on it—heat—and what is not included in its list of rulemaking—workplace violence.

In a DOL news release announcing the publication of the regulatory agenda, the department highlighted the advancement of the proposed rule on Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings, stating it “is continuing to examine how to establish standards specifically related to heat-related injury and illness prevention.” While OSHA kept the heat rule on its list of rulemaking, it does not provide an expected date to finalize the standard, indicating only the actions taken thus far, such as the public hearing before OSHA held June 16-July 2. It is still unknown if rulemaking on a heat rule will align with the rule proposed during the Biden administration or if OSHA will pursue a performance-based outcome standard.

Workplace violence, however, was not listed as a priority, moving from the proposed rule stage in the Fall 2024 regulatory agenda with an anticipated NPRM in June 2025, to this agenda’s “long-term actions.” That usually signifies that the agency doesn’t intend to make any progress on a regulation—at least until the next regulatory agenda may indicate otherwise. The reprioritization of workplace violence is interesting, especially given that during the June 5 confirmation hearing of President Trump’s nominee to lead OSHA, Dave Keeling committed to promulgating a standard on workplace violence. DOL’s actions on workplace violence not only conflict with Keeling’s confirmation hearing statements but also the Senate Appropriations Committee’s report that called for such a standard to “ensure that healthcare and social services workers are protected from violence in the workplace” in language that accompanied the Senate’s FY 2026 funding bill for DOL.

Also moved to long-term actions are OSHA’s rules titled:

Process Safety Management and Prevention of Major Chemical Accidents
Amendments to the Cranes and Derricks in Construction Standard
Occupational Exposure to Crystalline Silica: Revisions to Medical Surveillance Provisions for Medical Removal Protection

Other notable rules remaining on the regulatory agenda include:

Communication Tower Safety: OSHA states that “[t]o the extent a new standard [on communication tower safety] or changes to existing OSHA safety standards are needed … rulemaking will implement the necessary regulatory requirements.” The timetable states that a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) will be published in October 2025.
Emergency Response: OSHA states that it “is currently reviewing the testimony and evidence from the public hearing and post-hearing comment period.”
Mechanical Power Presses Update: OSHA indicates that it would “limit this rulemaking to eliminating the reporting requirements for specific injuries. The agency believes these requirements create a burden on employers that does not result in significant reductions in injuries.” The timetable states that the NPRM will be published in April 2026.
Lock-out/Tag-out Update: OSHA states that to address technological advancements regarding LOTO, such as computer-based controls of hazardous energy, an NPRM is expected in December 2025.
Powered Industrial Trucks Design Standard Update: OSHA states that a final rule on PIT should publish in November 2025. OSHA states that the final rule will “incorporate by reference the consensus standard provisions related to the design and construction of powered industrial trucks and is a continuation of OSHA’s ongoing effort to update references to consensus standards published by standards-developing organizations.”
Shipyard Fall Protection—Scaffolds, Ladders and Other Working Surfaces: OSHA states that the existing requirements should be modernized to “allow new technologies that both increase productivity and reduce regulatory burden on the shipbuilding industry.” The timetable states that an NPRM will be released in April 2026.
Tree Care: Noting that OSHA completed the SBREFA process in May 2020, the timetable for a tree care standard states that an NPRM will be published in April 2026.
Walking-Working Surfaces: OSHA states that it intends to reopen the rulemaking record in November 2025 “to correct a formatting error in Table D-2 and also revise the language of the requirements for stair rail systems to make them clearer and reflect OSHA's original intent.”
Welding in Construction Confined Spaces: OSHA sets a December 2025 timetable for publishing a NPRM to “amend the Welding and Cutting Standard in construction to eliminate any perceived ambiguity about the definition of ‘confined space’ that applies to welding activities in construction. This revision will make it clearer and easier to understand what the standard requires and will reduce burdens on the regulatory community by including deregulatory language to allow the use of ‘natural ventilation’ when certain conditions and criteria are met.”

More on what does this regulatory agenda mean (Heather’s take)?

One of the proposed rules is telling of where OSHA in the second term of the Trump administration stands on rulemaking. The proposed rule states that OSHA Standards Improvement Project 2025 (SIPs) are:

[I]ntended to remove, modernize, or narrow duplicative, unnecessary, or overly burdensome regulatory provisions. The project examines multiple standards covering general industry, as well as maritime, construction, and agricultural industries. These actions will be deregulatory and / or burden reducing to covered employers. This rulemaking is consistent with the intent of Executive Order 14219 (Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President's "Department of Government Efficient Deregulatory Initiative) because the agency has good cause to believe that the existing regulations significantly and unjustifiably impede technological innovation and economic development. By modernizing the existing regulations, OSHA will allow increased productivity and reduce the regulatory burden on employers.

While OSHA will remain committed to rulemaking for certain hazards, perhaps including heat, the agency will look to reduce regulatory burdens and align standards with technological advancements.

More on what does this regulatory agenda mean (Jim’s take)?

A couple of the items moved to the long-term agenda are also telling.

I think most of us can agree that it is not if we will have the next chemical plant or West Texas type disaster, but the better question is when it will occur. I know that many, many employers are working diligently to exceed the OSHA PSM standard, but unfortunately not every employer is doing so.

On workplace violence, given the statement by Dave Keeling during his hearing, with that rule now on the long-term agenda, it will be difficult to complete it during the term of the administration (if it remains a priority of Mr. Keeling).