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Washington — A House appropriations subcommittee is proposing 8%, 10% and 14% funding cuts to OSHA, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and NIOSH, respectively.
The bill serves as a contrast to a Senate Appropriations Committee-approved bill that would maintain – or bolster by $1 million in the case of NIOSH – the safety agencies’ current funding.
The House bill – released Sept. 2 before a Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee markup – would allocate nearly $582.4 million to OSHA for fiscal year 2026, which begins Oct. 1. That matches the White House’s request, finalized on May 30, and would represent nearly an 8% cut if enacted into law.
At press time, the House hadn’t published a bill report that includes details on how funding for the safety agencies would get divvied among various programs or departments.
The Senate bill allocates $632.3 million to OSHA. Lawmakers would need to resolve those differences in their finalized legislation, or they may seek to avoid a government shutdown with a continuing resolution, as they did throughout FY 2025.
For MSHA, the House bill proposes $348.2 million, or a 10% cut. That, too, is identical to the White House’s request. The Senate bill proposes $387.8 million, the same funding from FY 2025.
NIOSH
The most significant difference between the House bill and the White House request is funding for NIOSH. The House bill would allocate $312 million to the agency, or 14% less than its FY 2025 budget of $362.8 million.
The Trump administration requests $73.2 million for NIOSH, including $66.5 million for mining research. The remainder would go to the Firefighter Cancer Registry ($5.5 million) and the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank ($1.2 million). These three divisions received the same funding in FY 2025.
The Senate bill would allocate $363.8 million to NIOSH.
The Trump administration has reportedly cut hundreds of workers at the agency, including those in the Respirator Approval Program at the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory.
Reactions
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), chair of the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, said in a press release:
“As you may know, this subcommittee is responsible for the largest nondefense expenditure in the federal government. Therefore, it presents one of the greatest opportunities for us to reevaluate our spending priorities to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent responsibly, in order to provide for critical services in health care, workforce development and education – all while eliminating waste and cutting out politically motivated programs being pushed by nonelected bureaucrats.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), ranking member of the subcommittee, contends in a separate release that the bill “slashes worker wage, health and safety protections” and is “an attack on the programs and services that Americans depend on at every stage of their life.”
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Original article published by Safety+Health an NSC publication