On May 21, 2026, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (OSHSB) granted in part Petition No. 609, kickstarting a process that may result in the ban of fabrication and installation of artificial stone in California.

In December 2025, less than one year after the adoption of the new silica standards and less than two months after the enactment of Senate Bill 20 (also called the Silicosis Training, Outreach, and Prevention (STOP) Act), the Western Occupational & Environmental Medical Association (WOEMA) filed Petition No. 609, declaring that enforcement of existing regulations is not likely to prevent more silicosis cases in California. Notably, WOEMA’s petition did not show that compliance with current regulations is insufficient to protect stone fabrication workers from silica exposure.

Even though these regulations are still nascent and there has not yet been enough time to properly evaluate their efficacy, OSHSB’s decision to move forward with a potential ban on artificial stone ultimately obfuscates the real issue at hand: the number of silicosis cases in California is not an issue of product but of Cal/OSHA’s continuous failings in enforcing its own regulations. However, with OSHSB demonstrating a clear bias against artificial stone¹, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors of artificial stone slabs may be forced to compensate for Cal/OSHA’s inability to hold fabrication shop employers accountable for their willful negligence in exposing their workers to harmful working conditions.

Cal/OSHA’s Enforcement Failures

Cal/OSHA has admitted to its own widespread failure to ensure compliance with workplace safety regulations, conceding in its evaluation of WOEMA’s petition that: (1) artificial stone can be fabricated safely; (2) the stone fabrication industry is routinely noncompliant with workplace safety regulations; (3) Cal/OSHA is aware that stone fabrication workers in California have little ability to advocate for workplace improvements; and (4) the average Cal/OSHA penalty is unlikely to incentivize compliance or deter employer violations. In fact, in a 2025 report, the California State Auditor concluded that Cal/OSHA’s own noncompliance in its enforcement processes has undermined California’s workplace protections by enabling noncompliant employers to evade the enforcement process.² These “critical weaknesses” include questionable rationale when evaluating valid complaints for on-site inspections, inadequate inspections and poor file management, and overly lax procedures for confirming the abatement of violations and reducing fines in post-citation negotiations with employers.

Thus, in response to the deficiencies highlighted in the State Auditor’s report, Assembly Member and Chair of the State Assembly’s Committee on Labor and Employment Liz Ortega (D–Dist. 20) introduced Assembly Bill No. 2321 (AB 2321).³ The original bill, among other provisions, sought to alleviate the workload of Cal/OSHA’s Bureau of Investigations (BOI) by deputizing district attorneys to investigate serious violations for prosecution. The current version of AB 2321 requires Cal/OSHA and the BOI to implement specific written policies and procedures for reviewing cases and deciding whether to investigate or refer them for prosecution. It also establishes a pilot program in Alameda County and Santa Clara County to transfer investigative responsibilities from the BOI to the respective District Attorney for workplace incidents resulting in death.⁴

Shortly after AB 2321 was introduced, OSHSB wrote a letter inviting the District Attorneys (D.A.) for the seven counties with nearly 95% of all silicosis cases in California to join “in a unified fight” to stop silicosis. Calling for the D.A.s to independently investigate and prosecute misdemeanor dry cutting cases, OSHSB emphasized that the “known extreme risks” of dry cutting are alone sufficient to establish criminal liability, and that law enforcement can identify dry cutting with minimal training and easily collect supporting evidence without a crime scene investigation: “That means that every successful misdemeanor you prosecute will shutter a violating employer and save workers’ lives.”⁵ However, Orange County D.A. Todd Spitzer was “furious” about OSHSB’s letter: “Nothing happens anymore on misdemeanors. […] The idea that they’re calling on district attorneys to step up and get behind this, my response is, why don’t you go back to your boss, the governor, and actually get statutes that we can use to make a difference? Why don’t you give us a felony classification for engaging in this kind of behavior? Why do we have to wait for somebody to be seriously injured or die?”⁶ According to the California Department of Public Health, Orange County accounts for 21% of the state’s confirmed silicosis cases, second only to Los Angeles County, which accounts for more than half of the state’s silicosis cases alone.⁷

Indeed, with almost 75% of California’s silicosis cases to be concentrated in two counties, is this really a product issue? What about the fact that as of March 2026, California had the highest number of silicosis lawsuits nationally at over 430 lawsuits filed, compared to the 22 cases collectively filed in all other states? This concentration of silicosis cases is proof that artificial stone is not the problem. As OSHSB admits in its letter to the District Attorneys, the fabrication shop employers are “facilitating this disease criminally violating occupational regulations” and continue to do so “with reckless disregard for the health of workers.” Simply put, Cal/OSHA – the agency responsible for protecting the state’s workers from occupational safety and health violations – is repeatedly failing to do its job of protecting California’s stone fabrication workers from these grossly negligent employers.

The Future of Artificial Stone in California

OSHSB did not outright grant the petition to ban artificial stone, but thanks to two significant changes made from its proposed decision, OSHSB leaves Cal/OSHA with broad decision-making authority to control the future of artificial stone in California. First, OSHSB’s adopted decision omits the specific membership recommendations and detailed outcome guidelines for the advisory committee(s) whose findings will provide the foundation for Cal/OSHA’s decisions regarding the ban. Second, and more importantly, OSHSB’s adopted decision allows Cal/OSHA to draft emergency rulemaking to amend the silica standard to ban artificial stone.

To be clear, any ban on artificial stone cannot occur immediately. Cal/OSHA must first draft its proposed amendment, and the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) must then approve the proposed amendment and Cal/OSHA’s “finding of emergency” demonstrating need for the immediate adoption of the proposed regulation. Manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors of artificial stone should track these developments and take advantage of the public comment opportunities to make a record of their objections to the ban:

On July 31, 2026, Cal/OSHA will hold an advisory meeting regarding the emergency rulemaking, and any interested party may attend in person or remotely and provide comments at the meeting or before/after the meeting to the Cal/OSHA Research and Standards Branch (RS@dir.ca.gov).⁸

Once OAL posts the notice of emergency action on its website, the public has five calendar days to submit comments⁹, though OAL may forgo this if the delay will go against public interest. Comments must be submitted to both OAL and Cal/OSHA, and OAL will only consider comments after verifying the adopting agency also received them.

In the meantime, employers in the stone fabrication industry should proactively ensure compliance with the STOP Act¹⁰ and review the warnings and safety data sheets (SDS) in tandem with Cal/OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard.

1. For its evaluation of the petition, OSHSB consulted one artificial stone manufacturer versus multiple outspoken proponents for banning artificial stone, including the petitioner, the California Department of Public Health, Cal/OSHA, and a law firm representing the majority of the stone fabricator plaintiffs in California silica litigation. Additionally, in its proposed decision, almost all of the experts OSHSB invited to the subcommittee of “scientific and medical experts whose independence cannot be reasonably questioned” authored articles against artificial stone cited in WOEMA’s petition, including articles about Australia’s ban of artificial stone or the need for artificial stone alternatives due to the rising number of silicosis cases in California’s stone fabrication industry. One specific expert has even provided a declaration in support of a motion for preferential trial setting for several plaintiffs in the silica litigation. ↩︎
2. See California State Auditor,Report 2024:115 The Division of Occupational Safety and Health, published July 17, 2025. ↩︎
3. See Assembly Bill No. 2321, 2025-2026 Reg. Sess. (Cal. 2026). ↩︎
4. As of June 29, 2026, AB 2321 was re-referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee. ↩︎
5. See Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to District Attorneys Anderson, Becton, Dickson, Hestrin, Hochman, Spitzer, and Stephan, Letter Re: Criminal Violations of Silicosis Regulation, dated February 27, 2026. ↩︎
6. Cal-OSHA Reporter, Vol. 53 No. 10, 00-14803, published March 13, 2026. ↩︎
7. See California Department of Public Health,Engineered Stone (ES) Silicosis Surveillance Dashboard. ↩︎
8. To be notified of updates to subject matter advisory meetings, interested parties should add themselves to DIR Email Notices and check the box labeled “DOSH Research and Standards Stakeholders.” For meeting details, seeState of California Department of Industrial Relations, Emergency Rulemaking to Prohibit the Fabrication of Engineered Stone Countertops Containing More than One Percent Crystalline Silica. ↩︎
9. Before Cal/OSHA submits the proposed emergency action to OAL, it must provide notice to every party that has filed a request for notice of regulations action with the agency. ↩︎
10. For additional information, see Senate Bill 20 Signed into Law: New Compliance Era for California’s Stone Fabrication Industry is Underway. ↩︎