This Week at the Department of Labor — week of June 22, 2026

This week, the Department of Labor finalized several administrative cleanups to mine safety rules, removed an affirmative outreach requirement for job training programs, and asked for public input on hearing loss testing for maritime workers. Most of the week’s actions were housekeeping, but one rule changes expectations for federally funded workforce programs.

Workforce Job Training Programs

• The Labor Department finalized a rule that rescinds a 2016 requirement for recipients of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Title I funds to conduct affirmative outreach. Previously, organizations receiving federal money for job training had to take proactive steps to reach groups including people with disabilities, different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and those with limited English proficiency.
• This shifts the responsibility for proactive recruitment away from a federal compliance checklist and back to individual state or local workforce agencies. For organizations that spent resources to meet the old requirement, the burden of proof has changed from demonstrating active outreach to ensuring they are not actively discriminating against applicants.

Maritime Workers and Hearing Loss

• The Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs is seeking feedback on updating rules for proving hearing loss under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Current claims rely heavily on traditional audiograms, which require the patient to respond to sounds.
• The agency wants to know whether newer objective tests should be allowed as evidence. The current regulations predate many of these technologies, and updating them could make it easier to accurately determine disability levels for maritime workers with noise-induced hearing loss, while addressing cases where patient cooperation during a standard test is questionable.

Mine Safety Regulations

• The Mine Safety and Health Administration finalized a rule deleting Section 57.4532, which set standards for blacksmith shops at surface areas of underground metal, nonmetal, sand, gravel, stone, or crushed stone mines. This removes regulatory text no longer applicable to modern mining operations, with no immediate impact on safety practices or costs.
• MSHA finalized a rule deleting an old requirement for flame safety lamps in underground coal mines. The technology is no longer used, and modern gas detectors provide better monitoring. The agency determined this is not a significant regulatory action because it imposes no new costs and affects no current operations.
• MSHA finalized a rule removing two paragraphs from Section 75.1108 that listed flame-resistance requirements for conveyor belts. Those requirements have not been in effect since December 2018, so deleting them makes the regulations easier to read without changing how safety inspections work.
• MSHA finalized a rule deleting expired compliance dates from regulations on diesel exhaust in underground coal mines. The actual limits on diesel particulate matter emissions remain unchanged; the cleanup only removes references to deadlines that have long passed.

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This weekly agency digest is generated from federal records (the Federal Register and Congress.gov) and summarized in plain English. It may simplify or omit detail — follow the linked official sources before relying on any item. Part of The Boring Parts.