Employees of cities, counties and states might have cheered a Biden administration plan to protect workers from extreme heat. But they are out of luck if they think it applies to them. President Joe Biden stood before a bright-orange U.S. heat map in early July to propose a first-ever federal rule that would guarantee the right to water, rest and shade under searing temperatures. The draft rule is undercut, however, by a 50-year-old loophole that leaves out nearly 8 million public workers,Ariel Wittenberg reports. Congress in 1972 authorized the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to make rules for private companies, not public employers. Though a state can opt in to federal safety rules, 23 states never opted in — which means the OSHA safeguards for heat exposure would not protect their county road crews, garbage collectors, city gardeners or other public employees. States without OSHA coverage are among the hottest places in the nation, including Florida, Texas and much of the Deep South. “If they aren’t covered by OSHA, they have no right to a safe workplace,” Jordan Barab, who was deputy assistant secretary for the agency during the Obama administration, told Ariel. “If someone gets hurt or killed, there is no investigation, no citation, no lessons learned.” The proposed regulation is estimated to cover 35 million workers. It marks a milestone for OSHA, which for decades ignored calls to implement heat safety regulations. ‘The D.C. bubble’ Even with its glaring loophole, the OSHA proposal is attracting heat from Capitol Hill. The plan is “idiotic,” said Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas. “The problem is, they have no concept of what it’s like in the real world; they live in the D.C. bubble,” he said of federal regulators. “You can’t be pouring concrete and the temperature hits a spot and it’s like, ‘OK, time out, concrete — wait, we’re going to take a water break.’ It’s ridiculous.” Republican Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana agreed. He said it was unnecessary for “government to come in and be overly prescriptive.” High temperatures killed an estimated 815 workers between 1992 and 2017 and seriously injured some 70,000 more, according to federal estimates. This is another record-breaking year for heat, with temperatures surpassing single-day records. Heat records have been broken in California, Arizona and Oregon. The regulation won’t be final until 2026 at the earliest. Vice President Kamala Harris, the potential Democratic nominee for president, is pressing a climate and pro-labor agenda. Former President Donald Trump has pledged to ax climate regulations if he returns to the White House. Whether this Biden rule makes it across the finish line is up to the voters in November.
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