OSHA Fines Would Jump by Tenfold If Reconciliation Bill Passes

President Joe Biden, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris (L) and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (R), addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on April 28, 2021. Melina Mara/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

On Sept. 9, President Joe Biden unveiled plans to order a vaccine mandate that would affect as many as 100 million Americans. This mandate would extend into the private sector, as Biden asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to require vaccines or weekly testing. Now, Democrats in Congress have put a section into the Build Back Better Act that would increase fines for violating OSHA standards tenfold.

The new addition to the Build Back Better Act, the culmination of Biden’s presidential agenda, comes amid a ramped-up push by the administration to increase vaccinations across the United States.

Biden Takes Expansive View of OSHA Jurisdiction

To enforce these incursions into the private sector, Biden is stretching the limits of a clause in the OSHA Act of 1970 that allows the organization to impose an “emergency temporary standard” (ETS) to deal with short-term crises. In the text of the original legislation, OSHA can only declare an ETS after determining “that employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards, and that such emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger.”