Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ilhan Omar and more than 20 other Democratic lawmakers are urging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to abandon a proposed rollback of respirator mask regulations, a change they say would weaken worker protections against hazardous substances. In a letter to OSHA Assistant Secretary David Keeling, a former UPS and Amazon executive, the lawmakers said the proposed rules would leave employers with fewer requirements to provide workers with respirator masks when working with substances including “lead, asbestos, formaldehyde and inorganic arsenic, among other chemicals.”

The agency is also trying to end a requirement that employers provide medical evaluations to employees who wear specific types of respirators in their work, the letter noted.

The lawmakers said the rules show how the Department of Labor, OSHA’s parent agency, “is endangering workers and prioritizing the interests of unscrupulous employers over Americans who work hard to provide for their families,” according to the letter.

On average, more than 5,000 Americans die annually from occupation-related respiratory illnesses. In recent years, the rates of silicosis and coal-related worker’s pneumoconiosis have been on the rise due to artificial stone used for countertops and increased silica exposure in coal seams.

The lawmakers also faulted the process behind the rules. They noted that OSHA issued the proposed rules in July 2025 without providing required evidence or requesting the information needed to implement them, and they criticized the agency for holding a procedural hearing in August, during Congress’s recess, when no lawmakers were on Capitol Hill to discuss the rules. Most OSHA standards take years to move through the same steps these respirator rules have moved through in a matter of months, the lawmakers wrote.

The letter was also signed by Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Cory Booker; Reps. Pramila Jayapal, Rashida Tlaib and Jasmine Crockett; and more than 20 other congressional Democrats.

Unions and medical and industry experts, including the Advisory Committee on Construction Safety and Health, the American Industrial Hygiene Association, National Nurses United and North America’s Building Trades Unions, have warned OSHA against pulling back the standards. The Associated General Contractors of America, a construction industry trade association, said in a comment against the rules that “quality safety regulations save contractors money in the long run and any deregulatory benefits associated with the proposed rule will be outweighed by potential liability down the line.”

The lawmakers said the rollback is part of a broader deregulatory effort at OSHA under the Trump administration, which had proposed more than 60 deregulatory rule changes in the Department of Labor last year. The letter said the Trump administration claims to be a “champion of the American worker,” but the labor department “has demonstrated its disregard for workers’ lives by trying to roll back the regulations that keep workers safe – even when industry leaders, safety experts and workers raise the alarm.”

Republicans have proposed cutting OSHA’s budget by over 8% for fiscal year 2027. In 2025, OSHA inspections dropped by 20% and the agency lost 223 full-time employees to buyouts and early retirements amid efforts to significantly reduce the federal workforce during Trump’s second term. OSHA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.