Virus Workplace Rule Still MIA Three Months After Biden Order

Three months after President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. Labor Department to consider enacting a rule to protect workers from Covid-19 infection, the agency has yet to issue an emergency temporary standard or even say whether a regulation is needed.

Biden’s Jan. 21 order had given DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration a March 15 deadline to release a rule, but OSHA officials still haven’t said publicly whether they believe the pandemic poses a grave threat to workers’ safety, the threshold needed to advance an expedited emergency rulemaking.

Earlier this month, a department spokesperson said Labor Secretary Marty Walsh had ...