July was the hottest month on record in the United States, with three heat domes — slow-moving, high-pressure systems that trap heat and humidity in place — afflicting large swaths of the country. The most recent of these contributed to an 18-day extreme heat warning in Phoenix, Arizona, the state’s second-longest stretch on record. Yet, in the face of these extreme heat events, representatives in Congress last month advanced a bill that would block the nation’s workplace regulator from finalizing a rule to protect workers from heat stress. What gives?
H.R. 6213 was introduced last year by Representative Mark Messmer from Indiana, who celebrated the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s recent vote in support of the legislation. The bill seeks to undermine a proposed federal rule that has been languishing under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. The rule — which would ensure workers have access to rest, shade, and water on the job — was drafted under the Biden administration. Messmer has described the proposed rule as “unnecessary,” saying it would present a burden to employers.
In response to a request for comment, the communications director for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Audra McGeorge, did not share a timeline for a full vote on the bill. “The Committee doesn’t control the Floor schedule,” she said. But labor advocates are nevertheless alarmed by the progress H.R. 6213 has made, especially at a time of record-breaking summer temperatures.
“The passage of this bill would set a terrible precedent,” said Juanita Constible, a senior advocate on environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It signals a shift away from our current deliberate, data-driven process to kind of a Wild West, where Congress decides whether workers are at risk or not. And I don’t think that’s its role.”
Since OSHA first went public with its proposed rule on preventing heat illness and injury in 2024, the agency has been through multiple comment periods, including public hearings. Experts say the proposed rule’s requirements are relatively straightforward and commonsense. Objections tend to come from pro-business groups, which argue that such regulation would be onerous, stifle growth, and cost too much money. But advocates like Charlotte Brody, vice president of health initiatives at the BlueGreen Alliance, insist that “the OSHA rule, like most OSHA rules, is based on good science.”
For example, the proposed rule would require employers to develop safety plans for workers that would kick in when the heat index reaches 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the point beyond which the vast majority of heat deaths in the workplace occur. (The heat index, which takes into account humidity as well as air temperature, is sometimes referred to as the “feels like” temperature.) When the heat index surpasses 90 degrees, additional measures would then be required. The rule would also instruct employers to create plans to acclimatize workers to laboring under extreme heat. As Brody noted, 3 out of 4 occupational heat deaths happen within the first week of work.
The vote in the Republican-controlled committee fell along party lines. In a statement to Grist, Representative Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, argued that H.R 6213 erases “the progress we’ve made to establish one, uniform national heat standard,” she added. Before being elected to Congress last year, Grijalva spearheaded a heat safety ordinance for Pima County, Arizona — a first of its kind in the state — while serving on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. Representative Mark DeSaulnier, a Democrat from California, referred to the outcome of the vote as “just another example of how the balance of power between capital and labor has become dangerously skewed in this country, increasingly favoring the interests of big corporations over the safety of workers.”
In a press release, Messmer stated a federal rule as “rigid” and “one-size-fits-all” as the Biden-era standard is redundant when states can pass and enforce their own workplace safety regulations. But that isn’t necessarily true. Texas and Florida, for example, have preempted municipalities within their states to create standards that would keep workers safe from heat illness and injury. Representatives for Representative Messmer did not respond to a request for comment.
Texas and Florida notwithstanding, Constible says, the fight to ensure worker safety during extreme heat has shifted to the state level. Virginia, for example, recently kicked off its own rule-making process on this issue. Unions and labor groups also have an important role to play, she added.
“At the state level, they’re hearing loud and clear from workers that it’s dangerous and scary out there and that they should be doing something about it,” Constible said. “Certainly the hot weather we’ve had the last two years has helped, I think, change hearts and minds on this issue.”
Legal experts say it is surprising that Congress would move to prohibit OSHA from enacting a rule that hasn’t even been finalized yet. In fact, OSHA had already indicated the agency was pivoting away from the Biden-era heat rule and would publish a supplemental proposal toward the end of this year. As Jordan Barab, a former OSHA deputy assistant secretary, noted on his blog, a supplemental proposed rule is used when OSHA seeks to make “significant substantive changes” to an original proposal. Representatives for OSHA did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s unusual, I would say,” said Romany M. Webb, deputy director at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. “It would not be beyond the Congress’ authority to do something like this. It just doesn’t normally do this.”
