OSHA budget increase for FY 2022 much smaller than Biden administration’s request

Washington — OSHA is set to receive a $20 million increase in its fiscal year 2022 budget after President Joe Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 2471) on March 15.

The agency’s total budget is approximately $612 million for the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 30. Congress gave OSHA around $591.8 million in FY 2021, and the Biden administration sought to increase that amount to $664.6 million in its initial FY 2022 appropriations request, submitted May 28.

A sizable portion of the $20 million increase is slated for enforcement (nearly $7.3 million), while OSHA’s compliance assistance efforts will receive nearly $3.7 million more than in FY 2021.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration is marked for a $4 million increase to its budget – to $383.8 million from $379.8 million. All of that increase will go toward enforcement. The Biden administration had requested $447.2 million for the agency in FY 2022.

“At Labor, Health, and Human Services, and Education (Appropriations Subcommittee), which I am honored to chair, we are going even further to expand access to education, Head Start, child care, lifesaving biomedical research, public health, maternal health, mental health, job training and worker protection,” House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said on the House floor March 9.

NIOSH’s budget is now $351.8 million, a $6.5 million increase from FY 2021. The Chemical Safety Board is set to receive $13.4 million in FY 2022, a $1.4 million increase.

“I am pleased to announce that Congress has now completed the FY 2022 appropriations process,” Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a March 10 press release. “On the non-defense side, it cuts billions of dollars in wasteful spending proposed in the president’s budget.”