'Appropriately Marked' Is Not Enough: Building a Floor-Color System OSHA Won't Fight You On

On July 1, 2025, OSHA published a proposed rule to strike its Safety Color Code for Marking Physical Hazards from the Code of Federal Regulations, along with color-code references in the textiles, sawmills, and shipyard standards.[^1] The proposed rule removes 29 CFR 1910.144, paragraph (c)(8) of the Textiles Standard, 29 CFR 1910.262, paragraph (c)(11) of the Sawmills Standard, 29 CFR 1910.265, and the Safety Color Code for Marking Physical Hazards for Shipyard Employment Standard, 29 CFR 1915.90.[^1] OSHA's stated rationale is that these standards are addressed through other state and local building and fire codes and are covered through 1910.145, the specifications for accident prevention signs and tags.[^1] If you run a warehouse floor, the takeaway is blunt: the one federal rule that names specific colors for hazards is the rule OSHA wants gone. What replaces it in practice is your own discretion, and this paper argues that a documented, internally consistent color system is the compliance object that survives whether or not 1910.144 does.