Podcast: OSHA Policy and Enforcement Trends Under the Current Administration

In this podcast interview, Peter Vassalo, senior counsel with the Littler legal firm, explains how OSHA has maintained its core activities despite leadership challenges, emphasizing ongoing inspections, citations, and the cautious approach to rulemaking, while exploring the impact of increased use of opinion letters for compliance assistance. 

Drawing on his decades of experience with the US Government, most recently as Counsel for Special Litigation with the US Department of Labor, Vassalo explains that even with political and administrative changes, OSHA's fundamental safety enforcement remains steady. The emphasis is on proactive safety programs, compliance, and data-driven hazard focus. He recommends that safety professionals should focus on robust safety programs and compliance, regardless of whichever political party is in charge at any given time.

Listen to the entire podcast interview by clicking on the player console below.

Excerpts from the podcast:

Adrienne Selko: Let's start with an overview of how things have changed within OSHA over the past year. Do you see policy shifts in the strategies of how OSHA is operating?

Peter Vassalo: The last year has been challenging for the agency in many ways. At the beginning of the administration, they were basically spending the bulk of their time sorting through everything associated with the transition, and honestly, everything that happened with DOGE took up a significant amount of time internally.

They also lost a number of people, many of whom were senior within the agency. In fact, as of right now, I believe there are only two full‑time, onboarded senior executive service personnel in the national office. Everyone else is in an acting capacity. So they did not have a significant amount of leadership throughout. Once the DOGE era passed, they were in a “let’s keep the trains running” mode, and they weren’t going to start developing new initiatives until the new Assistant Secretary, David Keeling, was confirmed and onboarded—which he now is.

Here we are at the end of January 2026, and he has been on board since he was sworn in at the end of October. My understanding is he’s still getting the lay of the land, and I’m sure they’re starting to think about some of the things they’ll be doing. But in terms of policy shifts, I really haven’t seen much. I think within the department, OSHA and MSHA seem to have some sort of carve‑out. Nobody has really limited them in terms of what they’re doing. They’re still citing cases, still doing larger cases, inspections are happening, and they haven’t rescinded any major national emphasis programs. Site‑specific targeting is still in effect, warehousing is still in effect. So from that perspective, they’re operating relatively normally. The only major shift is with respect to rulemaking activity—they’re still sorting through that, and I don’t expect a lot of movement there, which is typical for a Republican administration. We can get into that more later. That’s the broad overview of what I’m seeing.

Selko: One area I’ve noticed is increased use of opinion letters as part of a wider initiative. How is this being perceived from the employer perspective as well as from EHS professionals?

Vassalo: Opinion letters have always existed, and where this is coming from is Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling. In the first Trump administration, he led the Wage and Hour Division. Opinion letters in the wage and hour context are a bigger deal—they have more of a legal background behind them.

The initiative announced is department‑wide and includes OSHA. It’s tied to compliance assistance—cooperative relationships with employers. It’s a way to work with employers instead of solely relying on enforcement and rulemaking.

With OSHA, they’re encouraging employers with compliance questions to write in. OSHA will answer them. It’s an excellent tool because it gives employers clarity. If there’s a compliance question that could later be an issue during an inspection, having a written answer helps avoid disputes with enforcement personnel whose interpretations may vary regionally.

There’s really no downside. It provides certainty and guidance. It’s a win for the agency and employers: OSHA helps employers get their programs where they need to be, which protects workers, and employers gain clarity about compliance obligations. I encourage clients to use this, especially if it’s something OSHA is open to working with them on.