Biden wants new rules to keep workers safe in heat waves. California could be a model
June was the hottest it has ever been in the United States this year, with deadly heat waves and wildfires ravaging the West Coast.
As hotter temperatures stretched into the fall, the White House sounded the alarm on heat-induced workplace problems.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration will draft a set of workplace standards this month on heat-illness prevention for indoor and outdoor workplaces, the Biden administration announced late last month.
The draft will initiate a comment period for the agency “to gather diverse perspectives, including existing laws and safety programs,” Acting Assistant Secretary for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Jim Frederick told The Sacramento Bee.
In the meantime, it plans to heighten heat-related interventions and inspections on days when the heat index exceeds 80 degrees Fahrenheit and create a working group to investigate better ways for reducing heat hazards.
Heat claims about 700 lives per year and sends more than 67,000 people to the emergency room on average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Between 1991 and 2019, 933 people died from heat-related issues in California, California Department of Public Health data shows: 29 people died in 2019, most of whom were over 45 years old. Fifty-three died in 2018.
Three states — California, Washington and Minnesota — have regulations to mitigate heat-related illnesses for workers. Oregon implemented emergency standards this summer after a farmworker died during the state’s heat wave in June. Other states have also moved toward adopting heat-related workplace rules.
“California has always been a leader when it comes to setting such standards and is a good example for the administration to look towards,” Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, told The Bee. “Frankly, if the federal regulations were to meet California standards that are already in place, it would go a long way towards benefitting workers across the country.”
California heat deaths
Seven people died from heat-related workplace issues in 2020, according to data tracked by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, better known as Cal-OSHA: one who worked in agriculture, two in construction, two in landscaping and two in other industries.
Fifty-one people died in the agriculture, construction and landscaping industries between 2005 and 2020 due to heat, according to the data. An additional 17 have died in other industries, including firefighting, transportation, corrections and manufacturing.
Sixty-one workers suffered from heat-induced illnesses in 2020, per the same data. Illnesses onset by heat include heat stroke, exhaustion, fainting and rhabdomyolysis, or muscle deterioration.
Cal-OSHA started tracking heat deaths and illnesses in 2005 when it implemented its heat standards.
The standards require employers to offer workers at least one quart of water per hour and encourage hydration and resting periods. Once temperatures reach 80 degrees, they must make shade accessible. Once temperatures reach 95 degrees, they must offer 10-minute cool-down breaks every hour and watch for signs of heat exhaustion.
Farmworkers are 20 times more likely than any other type of worker to die from heat-induced illness, according to the CDC.
But some federal legislators are concerned that repetitive laws would impede on employment and cause further issues for workers down the line.
“Although made in good faith, President Biden’s heat order appears to be duplicative of California state law that already fiercely protects our farmworkers, which would only place more bureaucratic burden on employers,” Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, told The Bee.
“California’s crumbling water infrastructure, storage issues and lack of operational flexibility causes farmers across the Central Valley to make difficult decisions like which fields to fallow and which workers to lay off,” he said.
Disproportionate climate impacts
Heat has a disproportionate impact on communities of color and low-income individuals, particularly those living in cities, where access to air-conditioning and other heat-reducing applications is limited.
The Biden administration wants to make air conditioning and public cooling centers more accessible by allowing a program that helps low-income people with home energy to use funding for heat issues. They hope to create more cooling centers at public schools.
In a White House memo sent last month that detailed forthcoming labor regulations and cooling centers, officials wrote that climate issues manifest in various and obvious forms, such as hurricanes, wildfires and floods.
“But heat is the nation’s leading weather-related killer,” the memo read.
It is part of the president’s broader aim to deal with climate concerns through various bills, executive orders and agency standards, such as recently announced electric vehicle goals and tighter emissions standards. Other legislation that would push Biden’s climate initiatives are in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill at the center of a congressional stalemate.
“Passing the president’s bipartisan infrastructure plan can deliver some of the resources we need to repair aging water infrastructure and finish construction on new water storage facilities,” Costa said. “We still have a long way to go to fixing a broken water system in California. In light of climate change, we must create a sustainable water system.”
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Biden wants new rules to keep workers safe in heat waves. California could be a model."
