By OLIVIA OLANDER and NICK NIEDZWIADEK
07/24/2023 10:00 AM EDT
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COVID RULE CHALLENGES: An Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule, aiming to make permanent emergency Covid-19 protections in health workplaces, might never come amid waning political interest, two people who have worked with the agency speculate.
“I personally don’t think we’re going to see it,” Jordan Barab, former deputy assistant secretary for OSHA at the Labor Department under then-President Barack Obama, said of the rule. Barab added: “No one wants to talk about Covid anymore.”
The final rule, for which unions including National Nurses United have pushed, was listed on the most recent regulatory calendar as scheduled for June. The other person who speculated skepticism on the rule did so on the condition they weren’t identified.
Some amount of delay is typical in federal regulation. However, in this case, the ongoing delay might be a tactic to avoid the fuss of pulling the rule all together, Barab said.
The rule also faced scrutiny from employer interests on procedure. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, argues the window has passed for converting the emergency temporary standard — on which the final rule would be based — into a permanent regulation.
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