Before the Biden administration could finalize the rule, Donald Trump was re-elected president, ushering in another era of deregulation. Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced plans to revise or repeal 63 workplace regulations that Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said “stifle growth and limit opportunity.”

OSHA’s heat-stress rule wasn’t among them. And though the new administration has the power to withdraw the draft regulation, it hasn’t. Instead, OSHA has continued to move it forward: the agency is currently in the middle of soliciting input from the general public about the proposed policy. Some labour experts say that this process, typically bureaucratic and onerous even in the absence of political interference, is moving along faster than expected – perhaps a sign that civil servants at OSHA feel a true sense of urgency to protect vulnerable workers from heat stress as yearly temperatures set record after record.

But labour advocacy groups focused on workers along the food supply chain – many of whom work outside, like farmworkers, or in poorly ventilated spaces, like warehouse and meat-processing facilities – say workers have waited too long for basic life-saving protections. Earlier this month, Senator Alex Padilla and Congresswoman Judy Chu, both from California, reintroduced a bill to Congress that, if passed, would direct OSHA to enact a federal heat standard for workers swiftly.

It’s a largely symbolic move, as the rulemaking process is already underway, and the legislation is unlikely to advance in a Republican-controlled Congress. But the bill signals that Democratic lawmakers are watching closely and urgently expect a final rule four years after OSHA first began drafting its proposed rule. The message is clear: however fast OSHA is moving, it hasn’t been enough to protect workers from the worst impacts of climate change. “Since OSHA started its heat-stress rulemaking in 2021, over 144 lives have been lost to heat-related hazards,” Padilla said in a statement emailed to Grist. “We know how to prevent heat-related illnesses to ensure that these family members are able to come home at the end of their shift.”

The lawmaker added that the issue is “a matter of life or death.”

Heat is the deadliest form of extreme weather, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 986 workers died from heat exposure on the job from 1992 to 2022, or about 34 per year.

This is very likely an undercount. Prolonged heat exposure can exacerbate underlying health problems like cardiovascular issues, making it difficult for medical professionals to discern when illness and death is attributable to extreme heat. As heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions continue to push global temperatures higher, experts expect heat-related illnesses and deaths to follow.

The life-threatening impacts of exposure to extreme heat in the workplace have been on the federal government’s radar for more than 50 years. Labour unions and farmworkers have long pushed for federal and local heat standards. In 2006, California became the first state to enact its own heat protections for outdoor workers, after an investigation by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health found 46 cases of heat-related illnesses the year prior. Legislative efforts to protect workers or nudge OSHA along often follow or name farmworkers who died from heat stress. Padilla and Chu’s bill from this year is named after Asunción Valdivia, a 53-year-old who died in California in 2004 after picking grapes for 10 hours straight in 105°F heat.

OSHA’s proposed heat standard would require employers to establish plans to avoid and monitor for signs of heat illness and to help new hires acclimate to working in high heat. “That should be implemented yesterday,” says Nichelle Harriott, policy director of HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance, a national coalition of food and farmworkers. “There really is no cause for this to be taking as long as it has.”

In late June and early July, OSHA held virtual hearings in which it heard testimony from people both for and against a federal heat standard. According to Anastasia Christman, a senior policy analyst from the National Employment Law Project who attended the hearings, employees from the agency seemed engaged and asked substantive questions. “It was very informative,” she says. OSHA didn’t respond to Grist’s request for comment.

As written, OSHA’s proposed heat rule would apply to about 36 million workers in the United States. Christman notes that sedentary workers – those who sit for most of the work day – are currently excluded from the federal standard. Ironically, at one point during the agency’s hearings, participants had to take an unscheduled break after the air conditioning stopped working in the Department of Labor building where OSHA staff were sitting. “They had to be evacuated because it was too hot to sit there and be on a Zoom call,” Christman says. She estimates that if sedentary workers were non-exempt, the number of U.S. workers covered by the rule would nearly double to 66 million.

From her point of view, OSHA is moving “very fast on this – for OSHA.” But Christman acknowledges that, even in a best-case scenario, regulations would not be on the books for another 12 to 14 months. At that point, OSHA would publish guidance for employers on how to comply with the regulation, as well as respond to any legal challenges to the final rule. That process, “in an optimistic world,” she says, could take between two and four years.

The life-threatening impacts of exposure to extreme heat in the workplace have been on the federal government’s radar for more than 50 years.

For many farmworkers, as well as other workers along the food supply chain, that’s too long to wait. “For decades, millions of workers have been waiting for federal heat standards that never came,” says Oscar Londoño, co-executive director of WeCount, a member-led immigrant rights organization based in South Florida.

The group has spearheaded multiple campaigns to draw public attention to how sweltering temperatures affect outdoor workers in the region, including plant nursery workers. Londoño says that some agricultural workers have told WeCount it already feels like the hottest summer of their lifetime.

In response to the news of Padilla and Chu’s bill, Londoño says, “We appreciate any step by a lawmaker trying to protect workers, especially as we’re seeing, once again, a record-breaking summer.” But he cast doubt on OSHA’s ability to enforce regulations around heat stress, particularly in the agricultural sector. “We know that there are employers across the country who are routinely violating the laws that already exist,” he says. “And so adding on new laws and regulations that we do need doesn’t automatically mean that workers will be protected.”

WeCount’s organizing is hampered by Florida’s Republican governor and state legislature, which passed a law last year prohibiting local governments from enacting their own heat standards. In the absence of politicians who will stand for workers, WeCount members are trying to publicize the risks that agricultural workers take on. Their latest campaign, Planting Justice, centres on local plant nursery workers, who grow indoor houseplants.

The goal is to try to educate consumers about the labour that goes into providing their monsteras, pothos, snake plants and other indoor houseplants. “If you buy indoor houseplants, it’s very possible that that plant came from workers in Florida,” Londoño says, “workers who are being denied water, shade and rest breaks by working in record-breaking heat, including 90- or 100-degree heat temperatures.”

Down the line, the nursery workers hope to solidify a set of demands and bring those concerns to companies like Home Depot and Lowe’s that sit at the top of the indoor-plant supply chain. Similar tactics have worked for agricultural workers in other sectors; the Fair Food Program, first established by tomato pickers in 2011 in Florida, has won stringent heat protections for farmworkers in part by building strong support for labourers’ demands among consumers.

“Right now we are looking at every possible solution or strategy that can help workers reach these protections,” Londoño says. “What workers actually need is a guarantee that every single day they’ll be able to go to work and return home alive.” This kind of worker-led organizing will continue, he says, whether or not OSHA delivers its own heat standard.

This article originally appeared in Grist. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Grist is a non-profit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at grist.org.

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On Tuesday, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, released the draft text of a proposed rule on preventing heat injury and illness amongst the U.S. workers. If finalized, the proposed rule would become the nation’s first-ever federal regulation on heat stress in the workplace. The development comes at the start of a summer that’s already seen record-breaking heat, and days after OSHA announced tens of thousands of dollars in proposed penalties for a case involving a 41-year-old farmworker who died of heatstroke while working in Florida last year.

In a press briefing on Monday, a senior Biden administration official described the draft rule’s requirements as “common sense.”

“The purpose of this rule is simple,” said the official, who offered comments on the condition of anonymity. “It is to significantly reduce the number of worker-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses suffered by workers who are exposed to excessive heat and exposed to these risks while simply doing their jobs.”

The draft rule requires employers to implement heat injury and prevention plans that grant workers access to drinking water, shade, rest areas, and breaks once the heat index hits 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Employers would also have to develop an acclimatization plan to help new employees to become accustomed to working in extreme heat, and train supervisors and employees in how to identify heat illness. (Notably, three out of four worker fatalities that stem from heat-related illness happen on the first week of the job.) Once the heat index exceeds 90 degrees F, additional breaks and increased heat-illness symptom monitoring would also be required. The proposed rule includes a requirement that employers evaluate these plans for potential updates at least once a year.

These regulations would apply to all employers overseeing outdoor and indoor work where OSHA has jurisdiction, which includes most private-sector employers and workers in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., but doesn’t cover some workers at state and local government agencies, self-employed workers, or independent contractors. The draft rule also exempts workplaces where there is no reasonable expectation of exposure to the initial heat trigger, and indoor working conditions where temperatures are kept below the 80 degree F threshold. Furthermore, it excludes situations where employees are exposed to temperatures over the standard threshold for short periods of time, among other exceptions.

Advocates who have been fighting for national heat regulation for years are praising the move. Ligia Guallpa, executive director of the nonprofit Worker’s Justice Project, a New York City worker center for low-wage, immigrant workers, said her group “applauds” the proposed rule.

“The Biden administration is moving to protect the lives of workers,” said Amy Liebman, chief program officer at the nonprofit Migrant Clinicians Network, which aims to reduce health inequities among immigrant communities. “This effort is particularly critical as states such as Texas and Florida are not only failing to protect workers from the heat but pursuing legislation that will cause undue harm to workers.” Last year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott passed a law that blocked cities from enacting their own heat protections for workers. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a similar law into effect this past spring.

OSHA first announced that the agency would begin developing a federal heat stress rule in 2021, following a summer of record-breaking temperatures. Typically, the federal rulemaking process is fairly lengthy, and experts and organizers who spoke to Grist last month worried that the Biden administration would let the proposed heat regulation linger under review for another year or longer — at which point, depending on the outcome of the presidential election in November, the rule could be nullified by a new administration or a Republican-controlled Congress. But the surprise release of the proposed rule this week appears to signal a readiness from the Biden administration to advance the regulation, potentially with the goal of finalizing it before the end of the year.

Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat from Texas, said he feels certain, following a visit from a top OSHA official to his home state in June, that finalizing a federal heat standard is the agency’s top regulatory priority. “I think it’s clear that President Biden and his administration are responding to the climate crisis, are responding to what workers are asking for, and they’re expediting this because workers just can’t wait seven or eight years,” Casar said.

Experts expect that the OSHA rule could face legal challenges. “There are always technical quibbles,” said Michael Gerrard, the founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, “and sometimes, some courts will pick up on those quibbles.” Gerrard pointed to the recent Supreme Court decision to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Good Neighbor” rule, which regulated smog by taking aim at smokestack emissions, as an example of a successful legal challenge based on the argument that federal officials neglected to address public comments on the draft plan. Potentially, going forward, “people who want to challenge rules will take a look at the comments on the draft rule and complain if any of the comments wasn’t thoroughly responded to.”

The draft heat rule is now subject to a public comment period and a subsequent final review by the White House. Given the highly politicized nature of heat regulation, it is likely that OSHA will receive a considerable amount of comments on the proposed standard, which could potentially draw out the process of finalizing the regulation. A spokesperson from OSHA said the agency “cannot speculate” as to when the rule may be finalized, but that it was moving “swiftly and responsibly” to ensure workers have necessary protections.

“All workers deserve safety and an advocate for their rights,” said Guallpa. “We are heartened to see the federal government stepping up to require basic protections from extreme weather.”

This article originally appeared in Grist. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. 

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