Hours before the start of a federal government shutdown, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and other Republican conservatives arrive for a meeting with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., introduced a bill Monday that would abolish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) — the federal agency tasked with overseeing workplace safety.
The text of the bill is just 18 words:
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is repealed. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is abolished.
In a statement Monday, Biggs railed against the half-century old OSHA, calling it “yet another example of the federal government creating agencies to address issues that are more appropriately handled by state governments and private employers.”
“Arizona, and every other state, has the constitutional right to establish and implement their own health and safety measures, and is more than capable of doing so,” continued the Congressman. “It’s time that we fight back against the bloated federal government and eliminate agencies that never should have been established in the first place. I will not let OSHA push Arizona around with their bureaucratic regulations and urge my colleagues to support my effort to eliminate this unconstitutional federal agency.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon on December 29, 1970. It created the agency whose mission is to “assure America’s workers have safe and healthful working conditions free from unlawful retaliation.”
OSHA’s primary function is to set and enforce standards for workplace safety, provide training, enforce anti-retaliation provisions of the federal law that created it, and work together with state programs in furtherance of its mission of workplace safety. In the 50 years since OSHA’s formation, it has been credited with improving workplace safety in a variety of ways ranging from setting standards for protecting workers from asbestos, arsenic, benzene, lead, cotton dust, and other carcinogens to creating ergonomic standards for workplace equipment and shielding whistleblowers who raise safety concerns in the workplace.
The federal act aimed to bring uniformity to workplace standards which had previously been a patchwork of inconsistent state regulations. Several high-profile industrial accidents in the 1960s brought workplace safety into the national discourse. In 1964, a drilling barge capsized in the Gulf of Mexico, releasing crude oil and triggering an explosion and killing 21 workers. Similarly, 78 miners perished in the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster in West Virginia. Although labor advocates had long argued the need for federal workplace safety laws, OSHA gained political support following the incidents — contributing to the often-repeated adage that safety regulations are “written in blood,” because they so often follow fatal accidents.
President Donald Trump made campaign promises to curtail the power of federal administrative agencies, culminating in the appointment of billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to execute a major overhaul of the agencies like OSHA.
In. Nov. 2024, Tesla was fined nearly $7,000 by OSHA in for allegedly exposing four workers to hazardous chemicals without proper training or monitoring at its Gigafactory in Texas. The company was already under a separate OSHA investigation for the death of a worker at the same factory.
Biggs has served Arizona’s fifth district since 2017, and is currently a candidate for the 2026 Arizona gubernatorial election. Biggs has been an outspoken Trump supporter, claimed that there was widespread voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election despite extensive evidence to the contrary, and signed on to a lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results of election and prevent President Joe Biden from taking office.
Biggs also spoke at “Stop the Steal” rallies and falsely claimed in October of 2021 that, “we don’t know who won Arizona in the 2020 presidential election.” Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander testified at a deposition before the House Jan. 6 committee that he spoke with Biggs before the insurrection at the Capitol.
