By Eric J. Conn

OSHA is attempting to reap the policy-making benefits of a Supreme Court decision that lets regulatory agencies offer new (even contradictory) interpretations of existing rules without following the Administrative Procedure Act’s (“APA”) notice-and-comment rulemaking process, with the most immediate and serious impacts seen in the regulatory landscape of chemical process safety. OSHA policymakers have shown they are eager to exercise new-found authority to unilaterally change the meaning or application of existing regulations to suit their current agenda (i.e., without soliciting stakeholder input and otherwise flouting the traditional checks on agency rulemaking afforded by the APA, such as economic and feasibility analyses).

Perez v. Mortgage Bankers

That is the reality following the high court’s 2015 decision in the closely watched Perez v. Mortgage Bankers case. The Supreme Court’s decision killed a longstanding doctrine, set by the D.C. Circuit, that changes to agency rules, even if the changes…