Biden Administration Announces First National Heat Protection for Workers

The Biden administration will propose first-of-its-kind regulations on Tuesday to protect agricultural and construction workers, cooks and millions of other Americans exposed to dangerous heat on the job.

President Biden is expected to discuss these worker protections during his visit to the District of Columbia’s emergency operations center, where he will also receive a briefing from federal scientists on the extreme temperatures expected this summer.

The proposed regulations come as a heat wave sweeps across California this week, with triple-digit heat expected to scorch Portland over the Fourth of July weekend. That follows an early heat wave last month that roiled much of the country.

Last year was the hottest year on record, and the United States had 2,300 heat-related deaths. That’s probably too low. At the same time, emergency room visits for heat illnesses increased.

The proposed rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would for the first time require employers to monitor workers and provide rest areas and water when the heat index reaches 80 degrees or higher. Employers would also be required to develop heat safety plans. The rule could apply to about 35 million Americans who work both indoors and outdoors, senior administration officials said in a call with reporters Monday.

The heat index is a combination of air temperature and humidity.

Biden will also announce nearly $1 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure bill to help communities build resilience to weather-related disasters.

It will be Mr. Biden’s first policy event since Thursday’s presidential debate, where his shaky performance raised questions about his advanced age. The 81-year-old president and his campaign have been working to convince donors that he can defeat former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and serve another four years in the White House.

Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University who focuses on environmental policy, said that by combining climate change and worker protections, Biden is moving into his “comfort zone” for an easy political victory.

“He likes being ‘Lunchbox Joe’ and being on the side of the working class and the working class,” Mr. Brinkley said. “It’s a good topic for Joe Biden. It reminds environmentalists that he’s an ally and rings the climate bell, but also shows that he’s with the labor movement and supporting its health.”

This year’s presidential election will have important implications for the implementation of the workplace rule, which could be struck down if Mr. Trump wins the White House in November. The Supreme Court has also unleashed a wave of decisions in the past week that together drastically reduce the authority of federal agencies to regulate industries and the workplace. The decisions are expected to make it easier for companies and industries to undo federal regulations.

The proposed heat rule is already facing opposition from industry groups that say it would increase costs and be burdensome to administer. Opponents have signaled they plan to challenge the rule’s legality once it is implemented, possibly late this year.

Jonathan Berry, who served as a senior Labor Department official under Trump, said the combined Supreme Court decisions “clearly reflect a judicial mood that would be very hostile to this rulemaking.”

Marc Freedman, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, wrote that such a rule would pose significant challenges for employers, saying “it would be extremely difficult for them to determine when heat poses a hazard because every worker experiences heat differently.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, both Republicans, have signed an agreement legislation to prevent local authorities from requiring heat protection for outdoor workers.

Workers’ rights groups support the proposed federal regulations.

“This regulation will save lives,” said Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions. “The families of people who lose their lives to heat illness don’t see this as an overly burdensome regulation.”

David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University and head of OSHA during the Obama administration, said the proposed regulations could prompt some employers to begin planning and implementing worker protections before a final version is in place.

“There is a long history of OSHA-proposed standards having consequences before they go into effect,” he said.

Heat waves are lasting longer now than they did decades ago, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency also due Tuesday. In recent years, heat waves in major U.S. metropolitan areas have lasted about four days on average, a full day longer than the average in the 1960s, the report found.

The proposed workplace rule includes two so-called heat triggers, with each threshold requiring employers to implement different protections for workers. A first trigger would be set at a heat index of 80 degrees Fahrenheit and would require employers to provide access to drinking water, break rooms where workers can cool off and rest breaks when needed.

Workers would also be entitled to so-called acclimatization plans, which allow new employers who are not yet well adapted to extreme heat to gradually increase their hours as they adjust to the conditions.

A second trigger, set at a heat index of 32 degrees Celsius, would require 15-minute breaks every two hours and would require employers to monitor workers for symptoms of heat illness.

Employers who fail to comply with the new standards could face fines of more than $16,000, depending on the violation.

A recent research found that the risk of work-related accidents increases by 5 to 6 percent when the maximum daily temperature exceeds 32 degrees Celsius. The effect is stronger in the south and for construction workers.

In addition to the health impact, heat is also taking an economic toll. California’s insurance commissioner released a report this week showing that heat waves have cost Californians at least $7.7 billion and killed nearly 460 people over the past decade. In 2021, there were more than 2.5 billion hours of labor in U.S. agriculture, construction, manufacturing and service sectors was lost due to heat exposure, according to data compiled by The Lancet. Another report found that In 2020, labor losses due to heat exposure cost the economy about $100 billionan amount expected to grow to $500 billion annually by 2050.