How OSHA's 2025 Deregulation Could Ignite a Safety Tech Revolution

Herbert Post
safety tech monitoring control room

Key Takeaways

  • OSHA’s July 2025 proposals scale back citations for “inherent hazards” like live wires or molten steel, raising debate over whether this is modernization or neglect.
  • Reduced oversight poses risks: with only 1,850 inspectors for 130 million workers, fewer inspections historically correlate with higher accident rates.
  • Deregulation could accelerate safety tech adoption, with AI, wearables, and predictive analytics filling gaps left by thinner rulebooks in a market growing 16.9% annually.
  • Companies that treat deregulation as a license to innovate, not cut corners, can lower incidents, reduce insurance costs, and gain investor and worker trust.

 

When I read OSHA’s July 2025 announcement, I had to double-check the notice. The agency that built its reputation on citing companies for life-threatening risks was now saying some dangers were simply “inherent” to the job. Live wires, molten steel, toxic fumes, and other hazards that shaped entire rulebooks were being treated as unavoidable.

I understood why unions and lawmakers erupted. For many, this looked like a rollback that could erase fifty years of progress. After all, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was born out of a crisis era, when workplace deaths and injuries were a daily reality that galvanized Congress to act. The idea that the agency would now step back from hazards once considered unacceptable struck many as unthinkable.

But I see another layer to this story. Stripping away regulations could force a shift the rulebook never managed: unleashing a wave of innovation in safety technology. With the workplace safety market already pushing $18.79 billion and climbing, this deregulation may be less about government stepping back and more about technology stepping in.

 

Why Is OSHA Rolling Back Key Safety Rules Now?

I noticed a clear theme: the agency is trying to cut rules it sees as outdated or impossible to enforce. The most controversial piece is the plan to limit citations under the General Duty Clause when a hazard is considered “inherent and inseparable” from a profession. That means risks like live power lines for linemen or molten steel for foundry workers would no longer be cited if they’re judged to be part of the job itself.

This push ties back to Executive Order 14192: “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation”, which directed agencies to scale back compliance costs across industries. OSHA also singled out rules it views as obsolete, such as construction site illumination standards, arguing that they “are not reasonably necessary or appropriate” for reducing significant risks.

The backdrop for all this is today’s safety record. Injuries and illnesses have dropped from 10.9 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to just 2.4 in 2023. Worker deaths have also fallen from 38 a day in 1970 to 15 a day in 2023. OSHA doesn’t say outright that deregulation is a reward for these gains but when the agency argues a rule no longer addresses a “significant risk,” it’s leaning on those improvements to make the case.

So the question becomes: are these changes a smart modernization based on real progress, or a dangerous step back dressed up as efficiency? That tension is what makes the July 2025 proposals so contested.

 

What Could Go Wrong If Oversight Shrinks Too Far?

Let me paint you a picture of OSHA's current enforcement capacity. The agency employs approximately 1,850 inspectors responsible for 130 million workers at over 8 million worksites. That's one compliance officer for every 70,000 workers. If every inspector worked nonstop, visiting one workplace per day, it would take 137 years to inspect every worksite in America just once.

We've been down this road before, and the destination wasn't pretty. Research on transportation industry deregulation reveals that safety deteriorated in railroads during the mid-1960s financial crisis, directly linked to reduced oversight. When profit margins tightened and regulatory pressure eased, maintenance schedules stretched, safety equipment aged out, and accident rates climbed.

The data speaks volumes about OSHA inspection effectiveness. A study by Harvard University and UC Berkeley found that companies subject to OSHA's random inspections showed a 9.4% decrease in injury rates compared with uninspected ones. That's not just marginal improvement but thousands of prevented injuries, saved careers, and intact families.

The Union Perspective: A Warning We Should Heed

Rebecca Reindel, safety and health director for the AFL-CIO, doesn't mince words: "Inspections work. If an employer thinks they won't get inspected, they will take fewer steps to protect workers." Her organization's "Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect" report documents how workers remain at serious risk despite the celebrated statistics.

Consider this sobering fact: Since 1970, there have been 439,789 traumatic worker deaths, but only 137 cases have been prosecuted under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. That's a prosecution rate of 0.03%. Without regular inspections serving as a deterrent, what motivation do bad actors have to maintain safety standards?

The Hidden Gaps in Our Safety Net

Here's something the deregulation advocates don't advertise: 91% of workplaces that experienced fatal or catastrophic incidents hadn't been inspected in the previous 10 years. These aren't random accidents at exemplary facilities but preventable tragedies at sites that fell through the inspection cracks.

The data itself has blind spots. Most work injury datasets fail to capture a significant proportion of workplace injuries, particularly those in:

  • Gig economy positions
  • Undocumented worker populations
  • Small businesses under 10 employees
  • Contract and temporary workers
  • Industries with cultures discouraging injury reporting

Narrower definitions of citable hazards reduce what inspectors can write up. Low inspection odds mean fewer visits to catch problems. Undercounted injuries hide emerging risks. Put together, risk can rise even while the rulebook gets thinner. That is why responsible operators invest in continuous, tech-driven controls that can maintain safety performance when the rulebook gets lighter.

 

How Could Deregulation Actually Accelerate Safety Innovation?

Given the narrower definitions of citable hazards and the long inspection cycle you just saw, the next wave of safety gains has to come from tools and systems that operate continuously and prove results. That points to technology, insurer incentives, and voluntary performance standards that reward measurable outcomes. This does not hand companies a free pass. It pushes them toward earlier risk detection and documented control.

Why a Lighter Rulebook Can Speed up Safety Tech Adoption

  • Penalties and abatement credits tilt toward prevention: OSHA’s July 2025 update expands penalty reductions for small employers and adds credit for rapid hazard correction, which makes preventive investments compare favorably with list-price penalties.
  • Performance standards to fill the method gap: Many leaders lean on consensus frameworks that emphasize continuous improvement and measurable leading indicators. Two anchors are ISO 45001 and ANSI/ASSP Z10.0. The U.S. Department of Labor’s evaluation describes how these standards operate as voluntary, outcomes-focused systems.
  • Insurer pressure and support: Carriers are leaning into predict-and-prevent programs, from AI ergonomic assessments to wearables pilots, which can influence premiums and program design.
  • Independent adoption signals: National Safety Council’s Work to Zero initiative reports rising employer interest in safety technologies and strong employee openness to using them, which lowers internal friction for pilots and rollouts.

What Tech Moves from “Nice to Have” to “Must Prove It”

Technology

What it changes on the ground

Evidence or reference

AI computer vision

Spots PPE misses, unsafe proximity, line-of-fire exposure, and spills in real time, feeding alerts into EHS workflows

Systematic review of computer-vision PPE compliance, including deployment barriers and false positives. (Springer)

Wearables and direct-reading sensors

Flags heat strain, overexertion, and hazardous atmospheres, giving early warnings and trend data

NIOSH’s Center for Direct-Reading and Sensor Technologies and OSHA’s direct-reading instrument guidance. (CDC, OSHA)

Predictive analytics

Turns observations and leading indicators into risk forecasts so teams intervene before injuries occur

Campbell Institute guidance on designing and using leading indicators in practice. (The Campbell Institute)

AR headsets and assistive tech

Hands-free overlays for procedures, voltage checks, lockout steps, and remote assist, helping reduce human error in non-routine tasks

Human-factors research and systematic reviews on AR for safety training and task execution. (Taylor & Francis Online, ScienceDirect)

How Deregulation Changes the Business Case

I see three levers that get stronger when compliance is less prescriptive:

  1. Outcome proof over checkbox proof: Consensus standards such as ISO 45001 and ANSI/ASSP Z10 reward measurable performance and continuous improvement, which pairs naturally with sensors, computer vision, and forecasting tools that generate time stamped evidence.
  2. Faster pilots, faster iteration: When a rule no longer dictates a single method, teams can stand up limited trials, compare incident trends or leading indicators, and scale what works. The North American safety market’s growth signals a wider vendor ecosystem and more off the shelf integrations that shorten these cycles.
  3. Carrier alignment: Insurers are investing in tech forward risk control, from AI ergonomic assessments to wearables on job sites, and they influence purchasing and program design through underwriting conversations and service offerings.

I don’t want to oversell any single tool. The systematic review I mentioned earlier also points out barriers such as false positives, privacy concerns, model drift, and worker acceptance that can slow adoption or create new risks if organizations rush deployment.

NIOSH flags similar cautions when new technologies hit complex jobs or non routine tasks. The playbook that works under lighter oversight pairs tech with clear consent protocols, worker involvement in tool selection, and management system discipline grounded in ISO 45001 and Z10.

 

What Do Workers and Engineers Say About This Shift?

From the research and case material I reviewed, two themes come up again and again. Workers want tools that actually help them on the floor and clear boundaries on how data will be used. Engineers want signal they can trust, minimal false alarms, and clean integration into existing workflows.

What workers are asking for

  • According to the National Safety Council's Work to Zero initiative report, 83% of employees report being open to using new safety technologies in the workplace, though barriers like employee compliance and distrust still exist.
  • The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that workers are more likely to use wearables that are comfortable and convenient for their jobs, while expressing concerns about data privacy, cost, and ease of use, particularly regarding data ownership, privacy, and security.
  • Guidance from NIOSH stresses that user buy-in depends on transparent policies about purpose, access, and retention of monitoring data, coupled with training on how information will and will not be used.

What engineers are pushing for

  • A systematic review of computer-vision PPE monitoring shows that false positives and unstable models are still major barriers, especially in complex industrial environments. Engineers need systems that can explain why an alert was triggered and remain stable after pilot tests.
  • The GAO technology assessment highlights recurring issues like battery life, maintenance burdens, and rapid obsolescence as reasons programs fail after promising trials.
  • A human-factors study in Ergonomics tested augmented reality headsets for assembly tasks and found the gains came when AR was tied into work instructions and peer review processes, rather than introduced as a standalone gadget.

Both groups converge on one message: safety technology is welcomed when it solves real problems and respects boundaries. Workers want clear value and privacy safeguards. Engineers want accuracy, durability, and integration. In a lighter regulatory environment, these expectations set the bar for what will succeed: tools that run continuously, prove their worth on the floor, and earn trust from the people using them.

 

How Can Companies Turn Deregulation Into a Competitive Edge?

how to turn deregulation into action

When oversight shrinks, companies in high-risk sectors like energy, manufacturing, aerospace, and utilities face a choice: treat deregulation as a chance to cut corners, or as an opening to get ahead with stronger, tech-driven programs. The latter not only reduces incidents but also lowers insurance costs, keeps production lines running, and strengthens reputation with investors and customers.

Step 1: Upgrade the Management System So Audits Find What Rules Miss

A certified ISO 45001 program gives you a formal way to identify hazards, set objectives, and review performance across sites. The standard is built to integrate with existing business processes, which means it scales across plants and contractors instead of living in a binder. ISO’s overview explains how the framework drives continual improvement inside everyday operations, not just annual checkups. If you are seeking a quick primer to socialize internally, ISO’s guide to occupational health and safety management systems is a useful leave‑behind for executives and supervisors alike.

Step 2: Translate Safety Into Investor‑Grade Disclosure

Investors read safety through the lens of SASB Standards and GRI 403, which specify what to disclose on management systems, injuries, and workforce coverage. The IFRS Foundation’s implementation primer shows how to select the right disclosure topics per industry so safety data lands in a format investors trust. If you need to match your sector to the right template, the SASB find‑your‑industry tool is the fastest way to map your disclosures. Keeping current matters, so track the ISSB’s exposure draft on SASB updates to align with what analysts will expect next.

Step 3: Use Insurer Loss Data to Focus Spending Where It Pays Back

The Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index 2025 ranks the top causes of serious, nonfatal injuries by national cost burden. Their companion business page makes it easy to see where overexertion, falls, and contact with objects drive the largest losses. Using these categories to guide projects helps target the exposures most likely to move your total cost of risk. Coming to underwriting meetings with a control plan tied to those loss drivers strengthens the narrative that your program manages the highest‑impact risks first.

Step 4: Pilot with Partners Who Can Prove Impact, Then Scale What Works

If you want credible trials, work with programs that live in safety‑critical industries. The Safetytech Accelerator backed by Lloyd’s Register Foundation publishes case studies where sensing, analytics, and decision support improved operations in maritime and industrial settings. On the risk‑finance side, Marsh case studies show how better contractor data and program management reduced claims in large projects, which is the kind of operational proof boards and carriers respond to. The goal is simple: run time‑boxed pilots with success criteria, harvest what works into standard procedures, and retire one‑off gadgets that add noise.

Step 5: Make Results Visible to Customers, Communities, and Boards

Recognition and transparent reporting turn safety into reputation and access to capital. The National Safety Council’s Campbell Award highlights companies that connect EHS excellence to business performance, and its case study library is a useful benchmark set for leadership teams. For public reporting, GRI 403 details disclosures on worker coverage, injuries, and ill‑health so stakeholders can see progress in a consistent format. If you operate globally, the FM Global Resilience Index is another touchpoint boards know, underscoring that strong risk management supports faster recovery when something goes wrong.

If you apply this sequence with discipline, deregulation stops being a vacuum. It becomes an opening to prove that your organization can manage high‑energy work with modern systems, targeted controls, credible pilots, and reporting that speaks the language of investors and insurers.

 

What’s the Bottom Line for Leaders in Safety-Critical Industries?

As I’ve read through OSHA’s 2025 rollback proposals, one conclusion keeps surfacing: this moment is less about what the government steps back from and more about what leaders step forward to do. For industries where failure carries heavy human and financial costs, deregulation is not a shield from responsibility. It is a test of whether leadership can show that safety and innovation are not competing priorities but shared goals.

The historical record reminds us that when oversight shrinks too far, accidents rise. Railroad deregulation in the 1960s showed how quickly safety erodes when pressure is lifted without replacement systems in place. Yet the present also shows something different: safety technology has matured into a market projected to grow 16.9% annually through 2030. That creates a chance for leaders to prove that progress comes not from rules alone but from systems, investments, and choices that reduce risk every shift, every day.

If I were running operations in energy, manufacturing, or utilities, I would see deregulation as a turning point. Companies that cut corners will eventually face accidents, lawsuits, and reputational damage. Those who invest in technologies, align with ISO 45001 standards, and integrate safety into ESG reporting will earn investor confidence, insurance leverage, and worker trust.

The July 2025 rollbacks are not the end of safety but a start of a new era where the burden of proof sits more squarely on leaders. Those who treat deregulation as a license to innovate, rather than a license to relax, will save more lives, reduce more costs, and win more trust than those who cling to bare compliance. And that, in the long run, is the sharper competitive edge.

 

FAQs

Is OSHA being deregulated?

OSHA is still in place and enforcing standards, but its scope is being narrowed through proposed rule changes. The term “deregulation” here means fewer areas where OSHA can issue citations, not the elimination of the agency. It is more accurate to think of it as regulatory rollback rather than complete deregulation.

What is the deregulation law in the USA?

In the U.S., deregulation isn’t governed by a single law. Instead, it happens through executive orders, administrative rule changes, and sometimes acts of Congress. OSHA’s July 2025 initiative came from Executive Order 14192, but in other industries deregulation has been driven by legislation, like the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Each sector tends to have its own mix of deregulatory mechanisms.

Who benefits from deregulation?

Deregulation can benefit businesses by lowering compliance costs, but insurers, investors, and technology vendors can also benefit. Insurers gain when clients adopt proactive risk management outside of compliance. Investors may see more stable returns if firms replace outdated rules with stronger internal systems. Vendors of safety technologies benefit from companies seeking private-sector solutions when regulations step back.

How might deregulation affect smaller businesses differently than large corporations when it comes to safety investments?

Small businesses often operate on thin margins, so deregulation may relieve immediate compliance costs but also reduce incentives to modernize safety programs. Larger corporations, under heavier scrutiny from investors and the public, are more likely to adopt new technologies and standards regardless of regulatory pressure. This can widen the safety and performance gap between small and large firms unless small companies use deregulation as a chance to adopt scalable, low-cost solutions.

How should leaders communicate safety priorities to employees when government oversight is less visible?

When inspections become less frequent, leaders need to create their own accountability systems. That means explaining why safety investments are being made, linking them to business goals like uptime and insurance savings, and showing employees how reporting hazards leads to action. Using external benchmarks such as ISO 45001 certification or ESG disclosures also sends a strong message that safety is still a priority, even without regulatory pressure.

 

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The material provided in this article is for general information purposes only. It is not intended to replace professional/legal advice or substitute government regulations, industry standards, or other requirements specific to any business/activity. While we made sure to provide accurate and reliable information, we make no representation that the details or sources are up-to-date, complete or remain available. Readers should consult with an industrial safety expert, qualified professional, or attorney for any specific concerns and questions.

Herbert Post

Born in the Philadelphia area and raised in Houston by a family who was predominately employed in heavy manufacturing. Herb took a liking to factory processes and later safety compliance where he has spent the last 13 years facilitating best practices and teaching updated regulations. He is married with two children and a St Bernard named Jose. Herb is a self-described compliance geek. When he isn’t studying safety reports and regulatory interpretations he enjoys racquetball and watching his favorite football team, the Dallas Cowboys.

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