Congress moves to strip federal workplace safety protections entirely
H.R. 86 — NOSHA Act · Filed by Andy Biggs (R-AZ) · Introduced Jan 3, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill repeals the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and abolishes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), eliminating federal workplace safety and health standards, inspections, and enforcement. Workers would lose federal protections for hazardous conditions, and employers would no longer face federal safety requirements or penalties.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is the repeal of the foundational federal workplace safety statute and abolition of its enforcement agency. This is a direct deregulation measure, not a technical amendment or narrow carve-out.
What the text implies
- State-level workplace safety regimes would become the only floor; many states have no equivalent to OSHA or weaker standards, creating a patchwork of protection.
- Workers in states without robust occupational safety laws would have no federal recourse for hazardous conditions, unsafe equipment, or employer retaliation for safety complaints.
- OSHA's injury and illness reporting database (used by researchers, journalists, and workers to identify dangerous employers) would cease to exist.
- Employers in high-risk industries (construction, mining, manufacturing, healthcare) would face no federal inspection, citation, or penalty authority.
- Workers' compensation systems (state-run, employer-funded) would become the only remedy for workplace injury, but those systems do not prevent injuries—they only compensate after the fact.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary workers lose federal workplace safety protections, hazard standards, inspection rights, and injury-reporting mechanisms. Employers are freed from federal safety obligations and penalties, shifting all risk of workplace injury and death onto workers and their families, with no federal safety floor.
Who stands to gain
- employers in high-hazard industries (construction, manufacturing, mining, agriculture)
- companies with poor safety records currently subject to OSHA penalties
- industries with high injury/illness rates (hospitality, warehousing, meat processing)
Named in the bill
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Department of Labor, House Committee on Education and Workforce
Where it stands
- Jan 3, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 3, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $450,304 in lobbying spend. A filing names 40 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Andy Biggs, the sponsor, reported $9,100 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- International Association of Fire Fighters — $380,304 on 2 filings
- Salem Media Group — $70,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (255 characters) on Aug 17, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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