OSHA Under OIRA’s Deregulatory Memo: What Changes to Expect and What’s at Stake

Quick Hits

• The October 21, 2025, OIRA memorandum accelerates deregulatory actions across the federal government, with immediate implications for OSHA, including expedited review timelines and the use of the “good cause” exception to bypass notice-and-comment procedures.
• OSHA’s regulatory posture will be reshaped by the memo’s emphasis on legal recalibration, including the reevaluation of existing rules due to recent Supreme Court decisions and the potential for direct rescission of rules deemed unlawful without full notice-and-comment.
• Employers and regulated entities can expect faster deregulatory actions and more rigorous justifications for OSHA standards, focusing on clear statutory text and robust cost-benefit analyses to withstand potential litigation.

How the OIRA Memo Could Affect OSHA’s Regulatory Posture

The memo’s core features are procedural acceleration and legal recalibration. First, OIRA imposes a presumptive maximum fourteen‑day review period for deregulatory actions that repeal “facially unlawful” regulations and a twenty-eight‑day period for deregulatory actions supported by factual records. This is a marked departure from the ninety‑day review baseline under longstanding executive order practice. For OSHA, this means deregulatory packages—especially those framed as legally compelled—can move far faster through interagency review than traditional rulemakings.

Second, the memo operationalizes the APA’s “good cause” exception where a regulation is deemed unlawful as a matter of law, emphasizing that notice and comment may be “unnecessary” or “contrary to the public interest” when an agency lacks lawful authority to maintain the rule. Applied to OSHA, this pathway invites legal screening of standards that rest on interpretation, policy judgments, or authorities that intersect with questions of “vast economic and political significance.” Where OSHA concludes a rule contravenes the best reading of the OSH Act or fails under the major questions doctrine, the memo encourages direct rescission without full notice-and-comment, paired with a brief legal explanation.

Third, the memo directs agencies to reevaluate regulations in light of recent Supreme Court doctrine, including decisions emphasizing textual analysis and the major questions doctrine. In OSHA’s context, these doctrines focus attention on whether the OSH Act clearly authorizes specific regulatory approaches and whether OSHA’s rules reflect the “single, best meaning” of the statute. Rules that depend on open-ended or ancillary provisions for sweeping effects face heightened vulnerability under this framework.

Finally, the memo streamlines or consolidates ancillary executive order analyses for deregulatory actions, treating many consultation and analytic requirements as presumptively inapplicable or satisfied through standard OIRA and APA processes. OSHA deregulatory actions could thus face fewer procedural burdens, further accelerating timelines.

The State of the July 1, 2025, Proposed Rule Changes

As of the memo’s issuance, the landscape for mid‑2025 OSHA proposals is shaped by two cross‑currents: substantive rulemakings progressing through the APA pipeline, and the administration’s deregulatory priorities. The memo does not itself alter any underlying legal prerequisites for OSHA to finalize pending proposals, nor does it automatically halt or withdraw those proposals. Rather, it sets an institutional posture that favors rapid reconsideration where legal risk is high and urges agencies to triage dockets accordingly.

In practical terms, pending OSHA proposals as of July 1, 2025, fall into three categories. First are proposals grounded in well‑established OSH Act authorities with detailed risk and feasibility records. These are less likely to be targeted for legal rescission but may still be slowed or reconsidered if cost‑benefit profiles appear weaker than anticipated. Second are proposals that address significant new hazards or programmatic requirements with broad economic reach. These are more likely to undergo legal stress‑testing under the memo’s framework, especially where statutory text is arguably ambiguous or the regulatory mechanism reaches beyond traditional workplace controls. Third are proposals that were developed with close calls on technical feasibility or that relied heavily on qualitative benefits; these may be reopened for additional quantification or pared back to reduce litigation exposure.

Where OSHA judges that a pending proposal would be vulnerable under the memo’s legal tests, it may pause, repropose with narrowed scope, or withdraw to reframe its legal basis. Conversely, if OSHA believes the statutory authorization is clear, it may proceed but bolster the record with more robust cost‑benefit analysis and textual justification, anticipating litigation under the doctrines highlighted by OIRA.

Which OSHA Regulations Are Most Likely to Be Impacted

The memo implicitly prioritizes review of OSHA rules that present one or more of the following characteristics: reliance on generalized or ancillary statutory provisions for substantial regulatory programs; significant economy‑wide impacts or major compliance costs; limited or contested quantitative cost‑benefit support; or enforcement and compliance histories suggesting limited marginal safety benefits. Against that background, several types of OSHA actions are most susceptible to reconsideration.

First, broad programmatic standards that impose comprehensive management‑system or plan‑based requirements beyond specific hazard controls are likely to be examined for clear statutory anchors. Where OSHA has built expansive obligations on general duties or ancillary provisions rather than specific hazard‑control mandates, those rules are prime candidates for “facial unlawfulness” assessments under the memo’s interpretive approach.

Second, rules that carry substantial nationwide cost burdens—especially those affecting multiple sectors and supply chains—may draw major‑questions scrutiny. If a standard is projected to have far‑reaching economic effects and was justified by ambiguous statutory text, OSHA could deem it risky to sustain and consider narrowing, revising, or rescinding.

Third, emerging‑hazard standards or significant updates proposed in mid‑2025 that hinge on complex feasibility demonstrations and qualitative benefit narratives may be revisited for strengthened quantification. The memo urges agencies to quantify costs and benefits whenever possible and to avoid overreliance on qualitative justifications where data exist. OSHA standards built on predictions that can now be tested against new data may be recalibrated.

Fourth, enforcement‑intensive rules that have yielded few violations or marginal measurable safety gains over time could be reframed under the memo’s deregulatory rationales. The memo expressly notes that thin enforcement histories can support the view that a regulation is unnecessary, and it encourages agencies to consider “private‑conduct liberty benefits” and the codification of enforcement priorities when building deregulatory records.

Finally, recent or pending OSHA actions that were structured to stretch existing authority to address cross‑cutting risks—particularly where OSHA’s reach overlaps with other statutes or agencies—may be re‑assessed for statutory fit. The more a rule looks like a major policy choice with broad societal ramifications rather than a workplace‑specific hazard control squarely contemplated by the OSH Act, the more it implicates the memo’s legal triggers.

Practical Takeaways for Employers and Regulated Entities

For the regulated community, the near‑term effects are twofold. On process, expect shorter OIRA review windows and faster movement on deregulatory packages, especially where OSHA frames a rule as facially unlawful under current Supreme Court doctrine. On substance, expect OSHA to prioritize legal defensibility rooted in clear statutory text and to seek stronger quantitative cost‑benefit records where feasible. Some mid‑2025 proposals may pause for reframing or targeted narrowing; others may proceed with augmented records to weather litigation.

Stakeholders are likely to see a bifurcated docket: accelerated rescissions or revisions of rules seen as legally vulnerable, and more meticulously justified standards where OSHA has confidence in statutory authorization and quantifiable benefits. Comment strategies should emphasize statutory text, empirical cost‑benefit evidence, and feasibility data, anticipating that OSHA will foreground those considerations in both defending existing proposals and in considering deregulatory actions under the OIRA memo.

Ogletree Deakins’ Workplace Safety and Health Practice Group will continue to monitor developments and provide updates on the Workplace Safety and Health blog as additional information becomes available.

This article and more information on how the Trump administration’s actions impact employers can be found on Ogletree Deakins’ Administration Resource Hub.

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