Regulatory Agenda Previews OSHA Actions on Emergency Response, Substance-Specific Standards
OSHA projects that it will issue a final rule on emergency response in April 2027, according to the latest agenda of federal regulatory and deregulatory actions, which was published on July 3. The agenda lists the rule, which would replace OSHA’s fire brigades standard (29 Code of Federal Regulations 1910.156), in the final stage of rulemaking. The fire brigades standard was promulgated in 1980, covers only firefighters, and has received only minor updates, whereas a new standard would expand protections to include employees who work for employers that provide emergency services other than firefighting, such as emergency medical service providers and technical search and rescue services. OSHA received feedback via public comment and during an 11-day informal public hearing that in part raised “serious concerns about the economic feasibility of the proposed standard for volunteer fire departments.” According to the regulatory agenda, the agency is “currently making revisions based on the analysis of the testimony and evidence provided.”
The updated regulatory agenda offers little information about OSHA’s rulemaking related to prevention of heat-related injury and illness. The latest actions listed for the heat rulemaking are an informal public hearing that began on June 16 and concluded on July 2, 2025, and a post-hearing comment period that was ultimately extended until Oct. 30, 2025. The regulatory agenda lists two planned actions: a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking to be released in December 2026, and a “final action” to take place in October 2027.
Many of the other proposed rules on the regulatory agenda would affect provisions regarding respiratory protection in some of OSHA’s substance-specific standards. For 13 substance-specific standards—including those for methylenedianiline, methylene chloride, lead, inorganic arsenic, ethylene oxide, cotton dust, coke oven emissions, cadmium, benzene, asbestos, 1,3-butadiene, 1,2-dibromo-3-chloropropane, and 13 carcinogens (4-nitrobiphenyl, etc.)—the agency is proposing to revise requirements to allow different types of respirators to be used. Proposed changes to the vinyl chloride and formaldehyde standards have to do with removing language or requirements that OSHA says are duplicative with its respiratory protection standard, and the changes proposed for the agency’s acrylonitrile standard are meant to “better align it” with the respiratory protection standard.
Another proposed rule would amend the respiratory protection standard to remove some medical evaluation requirements for filtering-facepiece respirators and loose-fitting powered air-purifying respirators.
The regulatory agenda indicates that OSHA plans to hold public hearings on its proposals related to respiratory protection in August 2026. Last week, OSHA reopened the rulemaking records for 14 of the proposed rules that would affect the agency’s substance-specific standards following recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health. ACCSH recommended that OSHA not move forward with several of its proposed changes.
For more information on these and other rules, view the full agency rule list for the Department of Labor.