President Joe Biden on Thursday asked the U.S. Department of Labor to issue its first-ever hazard alert for heat and step up safety inspections of workplaces — such as construction and agriculture — with the highest risk of heat-related illness and injury.
The alert is intended to send a message that employers are responsible for the well-being of workers as parts of the country experience record-breaking heat waves. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is in the process of creating new, specific regulations for heat amid push back from some industries.
“I don’t know anybody who honestly believes climate change is not a serious problem,” said Biden, who delivered his remarks in Washington, D.C., alongside the mayors of San Antonio and Phoenix. The Arizona capital city has seen temperatures above 110 degrees for 27 days in a row, with Thursday’s high forecasted to reach 113. The planet just had its hottest ever June in 174 years of record-keeping, and July is on track to be its hottest month ever, according to the European Union climate monitor.
“We should be protecting workers from hazardous conditions, and we will,” Biden said.
In addition to a heat safety awareness campaign and inspections by the Department of Labor, Biden touted his administration’s investments in climate mitigation from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the health care and climate bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
Some Republicans and industry groups have said that additional regulations are unfair to businesses, which are already responsible for worker safety under a general duty clause of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. Texas recently passed a law barring cities from passing their own heat safety rules in the name of consistency across the state. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has urged OSHA to exercise caution in the creation of any new heat standard, while the National Federation of Independent Business has outright opposed any new rules, saying sufficient protections already exist.
Worker advocacy groups and Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have increased pressure on OSHA to issue new heat protections immediately. The agency is scheduled to hold panel discussions this summer to assess the impact of potential regulations on small businesses.
“While OSHA is able to educate employers and inspect workplaces for heat hazards, it is a band-aid for a problem that won’t be solved until employers are required to protect workers,” Juley Fulcher, worker health and safety advocate with Public Citizen, said in a statement. “Only a workplace heat standard will give OSHA the tools to fully protect workers.”
Democratic U.S. Reps. Nikema Williams and Hank Johnson from Georgia both signed onto a letter to the Department of Labor this week urging the new standard as a “matter of life and death.”
“This year has already brought record high temperatures that have led to preventable deaths in the workplace,” it said. “Urgent action is needed to prevent more deaths.”
