Updated Regulatory Agenda Offers Little Information on OSHA Heat Rule

OSHA “is continuing to examine” a possible rule related to prevention of heat-related injury and illness, the agency announced last week in a news release about the Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda, which was recently updated for spring 2025. The latest action listed for OSHA’s heat rulemaking is the informal public hearing that began on June 16 and concluded on July 2, 2025. No further planned actions related to the heat rulemaking are listed in the regulatory agenda, but OSHA’s website states that a post-hearing comment period is open until Sept. 30 for those who submitted notices of intention to appear during the hearing. Recordings and transcripts from the hearing are available via the agency’s website.

Many proposed rules appear for the first time in the regulatory agenda, including 16 proposed rules that affect provisions regarding respiratory protection in some of OSHA’s substance-specific standards. Another new proposed rule seeks to amend the respiratory protection standard to remove some medical evaluation requirements for filtering-facepiece respirators (FFRs) and loose-fitting powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs).

“The agency preliminarily concludes that there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that wearing FFRs and loose fitting PAPRs without a prior medical evaluation can result in unavoidable adverse outcomes, and that the assumption that medical evaluation effectively detects risk for adverse effects from the occupational use of FFRs and loose fitting PAPRs is unproven,” OSHA previously explained in the Federal Register.

Another deregulatory action appearing for the first time in the regulatory agenda is titled “OSHA Standards Improvement Project 2025.” According to the agenda, this project will examine standards covering general industry, maritime, construction, and agricultural industries.

“[T]he agency has good cause to believe that the existing regulations significantly and unjustifiably impede technological innovation and economic development,” the regulatory agenda says. “By modernizing the existing regulations, OSHA will allow increased productivity and reduce the regulatory burden on employers.”

The only OSHA rules in the final stage of rulemaking are a rule that would update design and construction requirements for the agency’s powered industrial trucks standard, a rule regarding procedures for the use of administrative subpoenas, and rules regarding procedures for how retaliation complaints are handled under the Whistleblower Protection Statutes, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, and the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act.

For more information on these and other rules, view the spring 2025 agency rule list for the Department of Labor.