Texas trade groups target OSHA's rulemaking power in lawsuit

By Daniel Wiessner

Dec 4 (Reuters) - Two produce industry trade groups in Texas have filed a lawsuit claiming the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration's legal authority to adopt rules regulating workplace safety is unconstitutional, in the latest court challenge to a federal agency's long-held enforcement powers.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Amarillo, Texas federal court alleges that Congress improperly handed over its legislative powers to OSHA, which is part of the Department of Labor, when it created the agency over 50 years ago and allowed it to adopt any standards it deems "reasonably necessary and appropriate."

Congress never defined those terms, the trade groups said in their lawsuit, giving OSHA too much latitude to adopt thousands of pages of burdensome and often unnecessary regulations.

"For a statute that affects the entire national economy, this is not sufficiently definite and precise to allow anyone to determine whether OSHA has conformed to those standards," the groups said.

The plaintiffs are the Texas International Produce Association and the Texas Vegetable Association, which said they represent hundreds of companies. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the delegation of powers to OSHA violates the U.S. Constitution and an injunction blocking the enforcement of existing OSHA standards.

OSHA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

OSHA has faced similar claims at least once before, in a 2021 lawsuit by an industrial furnace servicing company. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2023 affirmed a judge's dismissal of that case, agreeing with OSHA that Congress had properly limited its powers by requiring the agency to identify significant risks and only adopt standards that are necessary to mitigate them.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal of that case last year, with conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissenting. "If this far-reaching grant of authority does not impermissibly confer legislative power on an agency, it is hard to imagine what would," Thomas wrote at the time.

The Texas case will be heard by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the only judge in Amarillo and an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump, who has issued a number of rulings backing conservative legal arguments. Any appeals will be heard by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, which is widely considered as one of the most conservative federal appeals courts.

Several other federal agencies have faced legal challenges to their structure and enforcement powers in recent years, and the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark ruling last year limited the deference courts must show to agency rulemaking, reversing a 40-year-old precedent.

The court last year separately held that the Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house enforcement scheme was unconstitutional. The National Labor Relations Board, Federal Trade Commission and others have faced similar claims.

The case is Texas International Produce Association v. Occupational Safety & Health Administration, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, No. 2:25-cv-0261.

For the groups: Benjamin Isgur of Southeastern Legal Foundation; Chance Dean Weldon of the Texas Public Policy Foundation

For OSHA: Not available

Read more:

OSHA's broad rulemaking powers upheld by US appeals court

US Supreme Court rejects challenge to workplace safety agency

US Supreme Court's conservatives flex muscles to curb regulatory agencies