If and when federal OSHA enacts its national Covid-19 shot-or-test requirement, some state governments opposing that mandate could stave off for months the enforcement of its requirements.
That’s because the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration allows the governments of 26 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to adopt and enforce their own workplace safety and health rules for private-industry or state and local government workers.
Those states include Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Utah, and Wyoming—all states where Republican attorneys general have vowed to sue over the OSHA standard if it is enacted. Right now the ...