OSHRC resolved one case in FY2025. It had 34 on its docket.

When an employer contests an OSHA citation, the case first goes to an administrative law judge.▸ If either side wants a second look, it goes up to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) — an independent, three-member panel appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Nothing at that appellate level moves without at least two of the three chairs filled. For most of FY2025, one was filled. For part of it, none were.

OSHRC's FY2026 enacted appropriation runs $14,449,000 and supports 51 full-time positions, split across three functions, per the Review Commission's FY2027 Performance Budget and Justification.▸ $6.2 million and 22 FTE fund the Administrative Law Judge function — the judges who travel to hold hearings out of OSHRC's Washington and Denver offices. $6.8 million and 24 FTE fund the Commission-review level: the three Commissioners, their counsel, and the Office of General Counsel. Of those 24 positions, seven are vacant — and OSHRC says so itself, in a footnote: they sit in "the Commissioners' offices and their staff, positions over which OSHRC has no hiring authority." The remaining $1.4 million and 5 FTE run the Office of the Executive Director, the agency's administrative back office.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires two of the three Commissioners to agree before the panel can decide a case.▸ In FY2025, per the budget justification, "the Commission-review level operated with one Commissioner for seven months" — Cynthia Attwood, whose term expired in April 2025 — "leaving no Commissioners and no quorum throughout the remainder of FY2025." The one case the Commission-review level closed that year wasn't decided by a vote at all; it ended in a settlement the Executive Secretary is separately delegated authority to approve. A second Commissioner, Jonathan Snare, was confirmed by the Senate on October 10, 2025 and sworn in that November — restoring OSHRC to one of three seats filled, still short of the two-member quorum the Act requires.

The effect on case production is not subtle.▸ OSHRC closed 17 cases at the Commission-review level in FY2023, when it had a working quorum. It closed zero in FY2024, a full year without one. It closed one in FY2025 — via that settlement, not a decision on the merits — while 34 cases sat on its docket, per OSHRC's own Commission-Review Level Case Activity table. The agency's FY2026 and FY2027 estimates of 11 and 12 cases closed assume the quorum problem gets solved; as of this budget's publication, in April 2026, it had not.

Every case stuck at the Commission-review level is a citation employers and workers are both waiting on — and, under the Act, an OSHA penalty that is neither collected nor overturned while it's under review.▸ Willful and repeat violations can carry a fine of up to $165,514 per violation, and serious violations up to $16,550, under OSHA's 2026 penalty schedule — unchanged from 2025, because there was no inflation adjustment this year. Those are the dollar amounts sitting in limbo for every case on OSHRC's docket.

The docket itself has aged sharply.▸ In FY2023, 18% of pending Commission-review cases were more than two years old. By FY2025, that share had reached 59%, and seven cases had crossed the three-year mark — up from zero in each of the prior two years, per OSHRC's own performance-goals reporting. The agency's stated target is that no more than 20% of its docket be older than two years; it has missed that target for two years running.

Figures are OSHRC's own FY2027 Performance Budget and Justification (April 2026) unless otherwise cited; FY2026 and FY2027 case-count figures are OSHRC's estimates, not final results. Quorum status reflects the Commission's staffing as reported in that document and confirmed by its own press release on Commissioner Snare's swearing-in.