RENO, Nev. — School transportation departments may not be legally required to comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards but ignoring them is a risk few districts can afford to take, explaiend school transportation safety expert Jeff Cassell.

Speaking Monday at STN EXPO West, Cassell urged transportation leaders to voluntarily adopt OSHA safety practices for maintenance facilities, technicians and even drivers, arguing that the true measure of safety is not regulatory compliance but systematically removing risk before it leads to injury, litigation or loss of life.

“The loss that costs the least is the one that was prevented,” Cassell told conference attendees.

For school district transportation departments facing staffing shortages, aging facilities and evolving vehicle technology, Cassell said implementing OSHA-based procedures is one of the most effective ways to reduce operational risk while protecting employees and students.

Drawing on his experience as former vice president and corporate risk manager for Laidlaw, where he oversaw insurance, claims and safety programs across roughly 480 locations in North America, Cassell recounted how a mechanic’s death beneath a collapsing school bus exposed widespread deficiencies in shop safety.

Following the fatality, OSHA inspections resulted in significant fines, but Cassell said the larger lesson was that many maintenance facilities simply lacked consistent safety procedures.

“We asked who was OSHA compliant, and at least half argued it didn’t apply because they were exempt,” he said. “Legally, many school districts may be exempt. That doesn’t mean it’s the right way to operate.”

Unlike private school bus contractors and other businesses, government-operated transportation departments generally are not subject to federal OSHA enforcement, though some states have their own workplace safety requirements. Cassell emphasized that districts should view OSHA not as a regulatory burden but as a proven framework for preventing injuries.

The Definition of Safety

Central to his presentation was a simple definition that shaped the remainder of the session.

“Safety means freedom from risk,” he said. “If you reduce risk, you’re safer. If you remove risk, you’re safe.”

That philosophy shifts attention away from simply reacting to accidents and toward identifying the conditions that create them.

Cassell argued that risk typically stems from two sources: Unsafe equipment and unsafe behaviors.

Faulty jacks, damaged lifting equipment, unsecured ladders, worn electrical cords and improperly stored chemicals all create unnecessary hazards, he said. But he estimated that most workplace risk results from what he called “conscious and deliberate unsafe behaviors,” including skipping procedures to save time, working beneath unsupported vehicles, failing to use spotters when backing buses, or ignoring lockout/tagout requirements.

“The rewards for taking risks are minimal and short-term,” he said. “The consequences can be permanent and catastrophic.”

Throughout the presentation, Cassell reinforced his message with real-world incidents, including mechanics killed beneath buses, propane explosions that severely burned employees, tire explosions that permanently disabled technicians, and injuries caused by high-pressure grease equipment.

He said each case, including one that occurred earlier this month in Pennsylvania when a bus rolled over a mechanic reportedly working on the brake line, shares a common thread: Established safety procedures either were absent or ignored.

Additionally, maintenance shops remain among the highest-risk environments in pupil transportation.

Rather than focusing on blame after an incident, Cassell encouraged transportation leaders to build systems that prevent errors before they occur.

That includes documented policies, annual refresher training, leadership accountability and regular facility inspections covering everything from housekeeping and fire prevention to hazardous materials, electrical systems, personal protective equipment and emergency response planning.

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Related: School Bus Maintenance Process Recommendations Influenced by Technology
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Cassell outlined 26 OSHA subject areas applicable to maintenance personnel and three additional topics for drivers. He said the material can be effectively delivered through approximately four hours of annual training broken into manageable sessions.

Equally important, he added, is documenting that training.

“If something goes wrong, you can show you made the best effort to stop it happening in the first place,” Cassell said.

Leadership ultimately determines whether safety becomes part of an organization’s culture, he added.

“If it matters to the boss, it matters to you,” Cassell said, encouraging managers to establish clear expectations, enforce policies consistently and never allow unsafe shortcuts simply because operations are busy.

For transportation departments balancing budget pressures and operational demands, Cassell acknowledged that implementing comprehensive safety programs requires commitment. But he argued the investment is small compared with the financial and human costs of workplace injuries.

Whether OSHA enforcement applies or not, he concluded, the goal should remain the same.

“I’m a great believer in it,” Cassell said. “Whether it’s the law or not the law, you should be doing it.”

Written with the assistance of AI from a session transcript.

The post Safety by Choice: Why School Districts Should Embrace OSHA Standards appeared first on School Transportation News.

The Trump administration is continuing its pushback against state artificial intelligence laws that it views as ideologically biased, proposing a new Federal Trade Commission policy.

The proposed policy statement, which is open for public comment through July 31, would affect how the FTC regulates AI companies. The agency said it’s meant to address concerns that “AI companies that distort their systems’ outputs to achieve undisclosed ideological objectives” could be deceiving consumers in violation of federal law.

“The FTC wants to hear from businesses and consumers about their experiences and concerns regarding the subversion of AI systems for ideological ends,” Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said in a statement.

The proposal specifically mentions a first-of-its-kind Colorado law that had banned “algorithmic discrimination,” or AI output that might lead to decisions disfavoring people on jobs, loans or healthcare based on their race, religion, gender and other protected categories. But the Colorado legislature already has repealed that provision. The revamped law instead focuses on regulating technology that results in “consequential decisions” for consumers. 

The controversial law prompted a lawsuit from xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which the U.S. Department of Justice supported.

In December 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting state AI laws, including creation of a Department of Justice AI Litigation Task Force to challenge state AI laws. His order also directed the FTC to issue a policy statement on regulation of state laws that “require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models.” 

Stateline asked the FTC if there were any state and city laws that officials felt were currently in violation of federal laws, but received no response.

Tyler Thompson, a Denver-based lawyer with firm Reed Smith who tracks emerging technology law, said the FTC proposal is important because it raises the possibility that companies could face deceptive-practices claims based on how they tune, weight or steer AI models, which could also prompt state policy on the issue.

“Just the fact that companies could be tweaking their models and that could lead to a deceptive trade practice, I think is huge news,” Thompson said.

Thompson believes the legal battle and the FTC’s focus on restricting similar laws will lead to “a more niche” policy focus on AI – such as deepfakes, nonconsensual sexual content, children’s safety, companion chatbots and data centers — areas where there is bipartisan agreement.

Noah M. Kenney, founder and principal consultant of Digital 520, an AI governance, security and privacy consultancy, who also responded to the FTC’s request for public comment, said the proposed statement carries more political pressure rather than being an enforceable federal regulation.

“The real effect of this statement is signaling and pressure, not legal preemption, especially paired with the December executive order’s AI litigation task force.”

Kenney said there is also an irony in the federal government’s argument.

“A federal effort to dictate what counts as a ‘neutral’ or ‘accurate’ output raises its own First Amendment concerns about compelled speech,” he said.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

Democrats are seizing the mantle of states’ rights to oppose the agenda of President Donald Trump, who has sought to reset Washington’s relationship with the states. 

While the party out of federal power has always pushed its agenda in statehouses, Democrats across the country have recently demanded more autonomy for governors and state lawmakers. Liberals, longtime proponents of a stronger central government, are now championing an ideology that evokes odious memories of slavery and segregation.  

Many state leaders hope that a renewed focus on federalism could help lower the national political temperature. By shifting more political decisions to the states, they envision a nation less subject to blue-red swings that change the entire course of federal law enforcement, environmental policy and business regulation. 

“Otherwise we just end up fighting every four years over red king-blue king,” said Utah state Rep. Ken Ivory, a Republican. “And our entire nation goes entirely one way, and then 180 degrees the other way.”

Ivory said the pendulum swinging is “ripping our nation apart” politically and costing untold dollars as national policy reverses depending on who is in power. He leads Utah’s Federalism Commission, a bipartisan legislative group assessing state-federal boundaries and working to educate leaders across the country on federalism issues. 

While he’s been pushing for a smaller federal government and heightened role for the states for years, he said the fiery policy debates in Trump’s second term have given the effort unprecedented momentum. 

Last June, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said the White House had violated his state’s sovereignty in deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles without the governor’s consent. In a lawsuit the state ultimately won, California cited arguments made by founding father James Madison in the Federalist Papers calling for ratification of the Constitution more than 200 years ago. 

And this winter in Minnesota, Democrats pushed for more state oversight of the federal government after immigration officers killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. 

“This is a matter of states’ rights,” said Democratic state Senate leader Erin Murphy. “And while we can’t impact — except for next November – the makeup of Congress, we can impact and bring relief for the people of Minnesota.”

Many of the most high-profile conversations surrounding states rights’ have proven predictably partisan. Yet Democrats and Republicans behind the scenes have been quietly building momentum for a rebalancing of state-federal authority.  

Conservative state lawmakers who have long pushed for a smaller federal government are welcoming liberal counterparts to a growing movement underscoring the importance of federalism, the uniquely American system created by the framers of the Constitution to share power between Washington, D.C., and the states.

As the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary, Stateline is exploring how the Trump era is transforming the relationship between the states and the federal government. This article is the third in an occasional series examining the fraught moment and what evolving — and often deteriorating — state-federal ties mean for the country, now and in the future.

In Utah, the Republican House speaker called Rep. Ivory several days after Trump’s 2024 election, noting that even California’s liberal governor was talking about federalism.

“He says, ‘We have the opportunity of our lifetime. … We need to get out and work with other states, get them together,’” Ivory recalled. 

“I said, Mr. Speaker, I agree with you. But if Gavin Newsom does something that we believe is state jurisdiction, even if we don’t like the policy, we’ve got to stand with him. And he said, ‘I know,’ and that had never happened before.”

‘An inflection point’

The debate over how much power states should wield is as old as the nation itself: Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, the forebears of our two-party system, famously argued for larger and smaller federal roles, respectively. 

In Trump’s second term, Democrats have leaned on federalism principles as a means of checking federal power, said Troy Smith, a professor of constitutional federalism and director of the Constitutional Federalism Initiative at Utah Valley University in Orem. 

The American federalist system is always evolving as states and the federal government tussle over authority and the two parties come in and out of national power. Smith said state governments, namely governors, have grown increasingly partisan since the 1990s. But that may be changing as Republicans and Democrats embrace states’ rights.

“I think we’re in an inflection point now that looks like it has the potential to go in that direction as the states start recognizing they have many things in common that transcends party and cooperation could be to their benefit,” Smith said.

Federalism scholars took note of December’s inaugural meeting of the Assembly of State Legislative Leaders, a bipartisan gathering of lawmakers from 30 states. Though not highly publicized, that group signed off on a 449-word declaration on the importance of states’ ability to legislate independently. 

“I think that’s pretty unique and telling in this moment that Republican and Democratic leaders came together and unanimously approved that resolution,” Smith said. 

The group of lawmakers has yet to publicize any more meetings and its leader, Ohio’s Republican House Speaker Matt Huffman, declined an interview request.

But New Hampshire House Speaker Sherman Packard, who attended that gathering, said it was clear that concerns over the size and scope of the federal government transcend parties.

“It’s strictly a bipartisan issue,” said Packard, a Republican. “It isn’t an issue that’s dominated by one blue state or one red state. It’s an issue that I think almost every state legislature is dealing with, and red or blue, it’s worth telling the federal government, ‘enough is enough.’”

Tennessee Democratic state Rep. Karen Camper, though, is skeptical that the states will mark meaningful progress during Trump’s term. 

“Bipartisan has become a nasty word for this president,” she said. “So it’s going to have to be after he’s gone, because he will kill it. That’s what I’ve seen from this president.”

Camper, the Tennessee state House minority leader, pointed to May’s special legislative session in which the GOP pushed through a controversial congressional redistricting plan. It splits the state’s only majority-Black congressional district in Memphis across three districts, diluting that area’s vote as Republicans attempt to flip the state’s only Democratic-held district. 

“Look at what just happened in our state,” Camper said, highlighting Trump’s push for redistricting. “That was a chance for our Republican supermajority to say, ‘We’re not going down this road.’” 

Camper is also the chair of the Black Legislative Leaders Network, a national group of Black lawmakers who lead state chambers, caucuses and committees. She said she worries that too much focus on state autonomy could jeopardize important freedoms that were won at the federal level, including civil rights and voting rights.

“So we’re going to be fighting, refighting some of the same stuff, some of the same things that we fought for,” she said. “…We should be protected by these rights, regardless of where we go in this country, but in states’ rights, there’s a chance that you won’t.”

A complicated history

The debate over states’ rights is inextricably tied to race, equality and segregation. 

And some Southerners continue to argue that conflicts over states’ rights — rather than slavery — drove secession ahead of the Civil War. Historians, though, note the only significant right under debate at that time was the right to enslave people.

In the Jim Crow era, Southern states continued the siren call of states’ rights as they defended racial segregation and fought civil rights movements.

While the concept can still evoke those deeply divisive times, liberals in recent years have found political value in embracing states’ rights, said Paul Nolette, professor and director of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University and co-editor of a national academic journal on federalism. 

That’s particularly true of Democratic attorneys general, who have been aggressively challenging the White House in the past year with scores of lawsuits over its immigration enforcement efforts, environmental policies and the withholding of federal funds from states.

“If states were just this weak link, then they would be able to do nothing,” Nolette said. “You know, it would just be the federal government getting whatever it wants. But in fact, the states have a lot of tools themselves to push back on the federal government.”

Though the federal government has grown in scope over the decades, Nolette noted, state bureaucracies have also expanded influence. Many federal programs, including the national food stamp program and safety net health insurance, are administered by state governments.

“So the nature of federal policy over the last few decades has actually given states additional powers to have a say in national policy,” he said. 

Nick Brown, Washington state’s Democratic attorney general, acknowledged his view of states’ rights has evolved over the years. 

Like many others, the phrase to him frequently evoked the Southerners who championed states’ rights in their efforts to oppose racial integration. The state’s first Black attorney general, Brown previously spent years working in the U.S. Department of Justice, a federal agency he admired for its role in pursuing civil rights cases. 

But he said the Trump era demands a different role for states as the president continues to flout congressional appropriations and punish political opponents.   

“I think certainly we have to look differently at what states’ authorities are in this moment,” he said. 

Brown said a heightened focus on states is welcome after years of outsized attention on national politics. That’s because the issues most important to most people — taxes, schools and public safety — are most affected by local policy decisions, he said. 

Changing the structure 

In Utah, state officials are looking to lead a national movement to bring more authority back to the states. 

While fears over the Trump administration’s overreach have fueled Democratic interest, Ivory, the Republican representative leading that effort, said the initiative is more focused on governmental structure than politics. 

Ivory likened the current federal-state dynamic to a bicycle with a bloated front tire threatening to bust and a back tire so flat it’s about to chew the rubber off the rim.

“Well, the answer is not to get a different rider or a stronger rider or to steer the bike to the left or to the right. It’s to fix the balance in the tires,” he said. “Our structure, our vehicle of government was two spheres with very specific balance, and we haven’t been paying attention to that for a long time.”

This discussion comes naturally in Western states that have for generations feuded with Washington over the proper use and ownership of federal lands. Over 90% of federal lands are located in the West, according to the Congressional Western Caucus, with the federal government owning 1 of every 2 acres. 

Utah’s commission aims at connecting state lawmakers and agency staff from across the country to better adjudicate federal and state jurisdiction on everything from land management to law enforcement. Ivory said the group would also like to help fill the void left after the 1996 disbandment of the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, an entity that put state and local governments in direct contact with federal agencies. 

Utah Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Dailey-Provost acknowledged her initial skepticism of the GOP’s federalism push there because of its historic ties to slavery and segregation.

“I’m pretty liberal,” she said. “Federalism is something that was always viewed, I think for not unjustified reasons, as something that was hostile to equality and equitable outcomes and fairness.”

But after a 90-minute conversation with her Republican colleague, she began to see the value — especially now — of pushing for an expanded role for states. Now a member of the state’s federalism commission, she said she envisions a better structure where states stand together, regardless of party affiliation, to counterbalance the federal government.

“States are oftentimes too wrapped up in whether we’re blue states or red states to really have each other’s back,” she said. “And it’s been hard, politically, to convince a red state like Utah to vocally say blue-state California wants to do things its way, we have to have their back and say that they have the right to do things that way, even if it’s not how we would do things.”

As a member of the political minority in Utah, she acknowledged how difficult that can be. Utah’s Republican party holds all statewide offices and enjoys supermajorities in both legislative chambers. And Dailey-Provost said the state’s LGBTQ+ population has been subjected to “constant attacks” from the GOP there. 

Still, she said, she would rather have that debate locally than rely on the federal government to protect those residents. 

“So, I don’t like the current policy outcomes, but I see more opportunity to continue to work with communities and try to fix it over time here at the state level,” Dailey-Provost said. “… At least I feel like there’s a path forward at the local level.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. States Newsroom reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@statesnewsroom.com.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump both a win and a loss Monday in allowing his firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, but ruling that he cannot remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors.

The 6-3 decision in Trump’s favor in the Federal Trade Commission case essentially expands the president’s authority over agency governing panels, further calling into question which bodies are independent of the executive branch.

The court, split along its familiar ideological divide, held that requiring for-cause removal for political appointees on the FTC’s five-member panel is “contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.”

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion.

“The FTC has the power to promulgate substantive rules carrying the force of law, investigate businesses and enforce statutes through in-house adjudications, and file civil suits on behalf of the United States in federal court,” Roberts wrote. “The FTC unquestionably exercises executive power and must therefore be controlled by the Chief Executive.”

The decision nullifies the court’s 1935 unanimous decision, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which overruled President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s removal of William Humphrey from the commission. The framework of the nearly century-old ruling “has not withstood the test of time,” Roberts wrote.

“If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, the Court overrules it. Humphrey’s has for decades been a result in search of a rationale …” he continued.

Trump hailed the decision in a post on his Truth Social platform Monday.

“To show the importance of the Slaughter Case, 90 years of precedent has been COMPLETELY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY OVERRULED, greatly increasing Presidential Power at a time when it is most needed!” Trump wrote. 

Dissent presses for independence

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Sotomayor wrote that the structure of executive boards that manage nuclear energy, consumer products and workplace safety, among others, “allows the agencies to address complex problems while enjoying some independence from Presidential removal and thus absolute partisan control.”  

Trump fired Slaughter on March 28 in an email that said her “continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with my administration’s priorities.” Slaughter sued and won in federal district court and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Slaughter has served as an FTC commissioner since 2018, during Trump’s first term. President Joe Biden reappointed her and the Senate unanimously confirmed her for a second term in 2023.

Alvero Bedoya, who served as FTC commissioner under Biden, said the decision reduces the commission to a “little lap dog” for Trump’s allies. 

Bedoya delivered the remarks during a press call organized by the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative.  

“The idea that putting the FTC under the direct control of Donald Trump is going to make people’s lives easier is laughable, and it is only going to make things worse,” Bedoya said. “The only people who are going to be helped by this are this president’s billionaire donors who are actively being sued by the Federal Trade Commission.”

Bedoya noted the commission is in litigation with Amazon and Meta, whose leaders, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, each donated $1 million for Trump’s inauguration. 

Cook firing disallowed

But the president’s power over firing members of governing boards falls short when it comes to the Federal Reserve, and when the targeted appointee is in the midst of a separate legal battle.

In a 5-4 opinion, also delivered by Roberts, the court denied the Trump administration’s application to stay a lower court ruling allowing Cook to remain a board governor while litigation plays out.

Trump fired Cook in August 2025 via post on social media after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, now Trump’s acting head of national intelligence, accused Cook of mortgage fraud.  

“The ultimate question of whether the President can remove Cook for cause will depend in part on the underlying facts,” Roberts wrote. “In this opinion, we have not addressed the facts, as they have yet to be found or analyzed under the relevant legal standards.”

Trump, critics note ‘procedural’ basis

Trump said the justices sent the case back to the lower court on a “strictly procedural basis.”

“We will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!” he wrote on Truth Social. 

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented. 

Thomas argued the court’s decision violates a president’s constitutional powers to remove executive officers at will.

“Cook’s office was not her ‘property’ because, in this country, government officials do not own the public offices in which they serve,” Thomas wrote. “Apparent mortgage fraud was a ‘cause’ to remove Cook. And, the statute authorizing the President to remove Cook for ‘cause’ says nothing about notice or a hearing, so it does not require notice and a hearing.”

Graham Steele, former assistant secretary of financial institutions at the Treasury Department, said during the Groundwork Collaborative call that the decision is “cold comfort.”

“It was a 5-4 decision,” Steele said. The “majority rests on a narrow set of procedural grounds, and it should have been obvious to members of the court how illegal the president’s actions were in trying to remove Governor Cook. And yet this was, to use a technical legal term, ‘a squeaker’ of a case when it came down to the opinions themselves.”

Trump and the Fed

The Cook ruling is a setback in Trump’s ongoing interest in exerting influence over the central bank. 

The Senate approved Trump’s new pick for Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, last month.

Justices heard oral arguments in January over whether Trump overreached his authority in firing Cook. The arguments drew a high-profile appearance of then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell to the court.

Even conservative justices showed skepticism that Trump’s social media firing Cook was within his powers under the Federal Reserve Act, which stipulates presidents can only remove board governors “for cause.”

Trump claimed his firing of Cook, which accused her of “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter,” was not reviewable in court.

Cook, a Biden appointee, denied any wrongdoing and challenged the termination, arguing that an “unsubstantiated allegation about private mortgage applications,” submitted prior to her Senate confirmation, does not amount to cause for removal. 

Cook also argued that Trump denied her due process in not giving her notice or a chance to respond to the allegations.