Trump Selects Nominees for OSHA and MSHA

President Trump has nominated David Keeling and Wayne Palmer to lead OSHA and MSHA, respectively. Keeling and Palmer were among several nominations sent to the Senate on Feb. 12 by the White House.

Keeling, a resident of Louisville, Kentucky, started work at UPS in 1985 and became vice president of global health and safety in 2018, a position he held until June 2021. He moved to Amazon a month later, where he was director of global road and transportation safety until May 2023.

Palmer served in the first Trump administration as acting head of MSHA until the confirmation of David Zatezalo in November 2017. Palmer then served as principal deputy assistant secretary at MSHA until 2021. Recently, Palmer has been executive vice president of the Essential Minerals Association, an advisor to the Department of Commerce Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Critical Minerals and Nonferrous Metals, and a senior advisor in the Department of Labor Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Nomination hearings for Keeling and Palmer have not yet been scheduled by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Yesterday, the Committee held hearings to consider Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the president’s nominee for Secretary of Labor. Chavez-DeRemer is currently a U.S. Representative from Oregon.

Background information on all DOL nominees appears in JD Supra.