State-Run Safety Agencies Delay OSHA’s Employee Vaccine ETS

State-Run workplace safety agencies are not enforcing OSHA’s Employee Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for large employees (100 or more employees) as they await to the Supreme Court’s next steps.   In more than half of U.S. states, part or all of the enforcement of federal workplace safety falls to state agencies, including several of the states whose attorneys general are suing to block the OSHA ETS.  As of January 7^th, state programs were required to inform OSHA of their implementation plans for the ETS and they are required to adopt a rule that is at least as effective as the federal standard by January 24th. The list includes 21 states with broad workplace safety authority, five more states with authority only covering public-sector employers, plus Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  Of those states, nine of them (Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming) are among those suing to block OSHA’s standard and are asking the Supreme Court to prevent it from taking effect.