As Cole Porter crooned in 1948, “It’s too darn hot.”
California and other parts of the American West are heading into another week of excessive heat that not only threatens public health and safety but also power shortages, which would cut millions off from the energy they need to fuel their lives.
Workers, particularly those who work outdoors, are at special risk. Many are now forced to make the impossible choice between protecting their lives or their livelihoods.
Indeed, heat stress and other heat-related illnesses can cause heat exhaustion, stroke, and even death. More than 65,000 people visit the emergency room for heat-related stress a year, and about 700 die from heat exposure, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). Between 1992 and 2017, heat stress injuries killed 815 U.S. workers and seriously injured more than 70,000, the CDC found.
Farmworkers and construction workers suffer the highest incidence of heat illness. By the end of the century, U.S. farmworkers will work an average of 62 days in unsafe conditions, studies show.
Falling Down on the Job
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) — the federal agency charged with ensuring healthy and safe working conditions for all Americans — has failed for years to adopt a heat standard to protect these workers.
States are falling down on the job too. Twenty-two run their own OSHA-approved workplace health and safety programs — but only three have adopted their own heat standard.
In 2015, California implemented a Heat Illness Prevention Standard, which requires employers to provide training, water, shade, and planning. A temperature of 80°F triggers the requirements.
And Washington state enacted an Outdoor Heat Exposure Rule. The requirement to act is set when temperatures are at or above 89 degrees Fahrenheit. The emergency heat rules combined with existing rules require employers to:
Provide enough sufficiently cool water available for each employee to drink at least a quart an hour;
Provide sufficient shade that is large enough for and close enough to workers;
Encourage and allow workers to take paid preventative cool-down breaks as needed; and
Require a 10-minute, paid cool-down break every two hours.
A few cities — but far too few — have also acted to protect workers.
In 2011, a Central Texas municipality in Central Texas implemented a heat-related illness prevention program for outdoor municipal workers. Afterward, the number of heat-related illnesses decreased City workers’ compensation costs for heat-related illnesses also decreased by 50 percent.
Pending Legislation
We are all discomforted by the many more very hot days that the country is experiencing, but we are not all at risk of health stress or stroke when we go to work.
Outdoor workers cannot wait any longer. Our climate is changing, getting hotter by the day.
Without any sign that OSHA will act any time soon, Congress must require the agency to do what it should have done previously — but it too not acting fast enough.
Last year, lawmakers introduced legislation that would require OSHA to establish an enforceable standard to protect workers. It would ensure workers have paid breaks in cool spaces, access to water, limitations on time exposed to heat, and emergency response for workers with heat-related illness.
The U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor approved the bill in July, but the full House has yet to vote on it —and only 16 lawmakers have signed on as cosponsors. A similar bill was introduced last year in the U.S. Senate, but that chamber has yet to act.
Now is the time for action, before this Congress comes to a close — and potentially changes hands. For endangered workers, “It’s too darn hot” to go without protections.
Stay tuned to our blog, follow us on social media, and subscribe to our email list for more information and developments about protecting workers from heat stress.
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Marcha Chaudry, Sidney A. Shapiro | September 26, 2022
As Cole Porter crooned in 1948, “It’s too darn hot.” California and other parts of the American West are heading into another week of excessive heat that not only threatens public health and safety but also power shortages, which would cut millions off from the energy they need to fuel their lives. Workers, particularly those […]
Daniel Farber | September 22, 2022
Since 1981, cost-benefit analysis has been at the core of the rulemaking process. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the so-called “regulatory czar” in the White House, must approve every significant regulation based on a review of its cost-benefit analysis. But cost-benefit analysis has had a major blind spot. It embodies techniques for analyzing possible harmful outcomes when the probability of those outcomes can be quantified with reasonable confidence. When those probabilities cannot be quantified (“deep uncertainty”), the analytic path is more difficult. This issue is especially important in the context of climate change, given the potential for tipping points to produce disastrous outcomes.
Allison Stevens | September 13, 2022
The founding of the United States was far from perfect, reflecting the deep flaws and exploitative practices of the founders themselves. But there was one thing they got right: They created a government charged, in part, with protecting the general welfare. That includes you, me, the American people writ large, and our environment. We at […]
Katlyn Schmitt | September 12, 2022
At the end of August, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a draft rule to better protect people who live near industrial facilities with hazardous chemicals on site. The rule would strengthen EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP), which regulates more than 12,000 facilities in the United States that store, use, and distribute significant amounts of dangerous chemicals.
Daniel Farber | September 9, 2022
States have played a critical role in U.S. climate policy. The federal government is now supporting that role with federal funding for states. In the meantime, a number of states have moved a step further in plans to phase out gas and diesel vehicles. Two key states have ramped up their plans for carbon neutrality, while offshore wind made a big step forward in the Midwest.
Sophie Loeb | September 8, 2022
The Center for Progressive Reform recently launched the Campaign for Energy Justice to ensure that North Carolina’s transition to a clean energy economy serves all North Carolinians regardless of wealth or background. The campaign puts equity at the center of the state’s transition to clean sources of energy like wind and solar power. Unfortunately, a plan submitted to the North Carolina Utility Commission (NCUC) by Duke Energy to reduce carbon emissions fails to take equity into account.
Sophie Loeb | September 8, 2022
In the spring of 2022, Duke Energy submitted a Carbon Plan to help North Carolina achieve goals laid out in recently enacted laws to curb climate change. The plan ostensibly aims to achieve the state's climate goals to curb carbon emissions. Under this plan, however, low-wealth North Carolinians, who are disproportionately people of color, risk losing access to reliable, affordable electricity.
Clare Henry | September 7, 2022
From family farmers to biofuel investors, over 900 people and advocacy groups submitted comments on California’s draft plan for achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. In their comments, environmental advocates and justice groups expressed three major concerns with the state’s draft “scoping” plan. First, the plan fails to recognize the urgency of transitioning to a clean energy economy. Second, it relies too heavily on unproven technology. And third, it fails to specify concrete implementation measures.
David Hunter, Shade Streeter, William Snape, III | September 1, 2022
Our hemisphere’s shared natural heritage is threatened. The Convention on Nature Protection and Wild Life Preservation is a low-risk, high-reward pathway for the Biden administration to strengthen our strategic relationships in the hemisphere.