Workers Have Died in Extreme Heat as OSHA Has Debated Protections
Workers died in extreme heat while the OSHA debated protections
The Dome of the heat of June contributed to the death of at least three people. They died while federal regulators have assessed the opportunity to finalize the country’s first heat protection rule for workers
A construction worker drinks water at high temperatures at 90 degrees on June 20, 2025 in Boulder, CO.
Climatewire | High temperatures contributed to the death of at least three workers last week when a heat dome stifled a large part of the United States, illustrating the high issues of a public audience which took place at the same time to help determine the fate of the first heat protections of the country’s proposed workers.
The one -week hearing organized by occupational safety and health is part of the federal agency process to decide whether it should finalize, kill or modify the regulations drawn up by the Biden administration for companies to rest and aquatic breaks to their workers when temperatures reach dangerous levels. During the hearing, which started on June 16 and ended on Wednesday, OSHA officials faced industry pressure to weaken the rule.
Many groups in the industry have complained that the rule would force employers to give workers for 15 minutes of rest for every two hours of work when heat exceeds 90 degrees. They argued that although 90 degrees could seem hot in New England or in the northwest of the Pacific, workers in the South are used to much higher temperatures and do not need protections.
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“My South Texas Guys automatically examine this and say: Hey, a heat index of 85, 90 degrees below, there is a vacation compared to their 104 heat index that they obtain in the middle of the summer,” said Stephen Kinn, speaking on behalf of the General Contractors of America associated on June 18.
A few days later, several people died while they worked at hot temperatures, according to reports.
“There are far too many workers who still fall ill or who die from a heat -related disease,” Jordan Barab, former deputy assistant secretary of the OSHA, said on Friday during the Obama administration.
To see the need for heat protections, he added: “We don’t need to look at the data. We can simply recover the paper. “
The heat dome at the end of June which hovered over the south and the midwest was responsible for the death of a georgia construction worker, medical officials told CBS, with a doctor calculating that his hospital in Cumming, in Georgia, had seen a 20% increase in heat-related visits, most of which were due to working outside at high temperatures.
A heat index in the upper 90s was also responsible for the death of a baseball referee in the county of Sumter, in South Carolina, who died of a heat stroke on June 21. Witnesses told local journalists that Mitchell Huggins, 61, passed out while offering a softball tournament for young people and died later in the hospital.
On the same day, Jacob Taylor, an employee of American postal services, collapsed during the delivery of mail to Dallas, Texas, when temperatures reached 94 degrees. Managers investigate the role of heat in his death.
The OSHA did not respond to a request for comments.
Three days earlier, OSHA officials heard the testimony of Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Union, which represents postal service providers.
He described how the USPS has sometimes ignored its own policies that have been promulgated to protect heat workers, pushing them to continue to deliver mail even after starting to experience leg cramps, nausea and other early signs of heat disease.
“These injuries and deaths are completely avoidable,” he said.
At the time of his testimony, Heat had killed at least seven members of the union since 2012.
The postal service, he said, resisted the union’s calls to facilitate work on hot days, noting that letters transporters are undergoing more injuries at the start of hot periods. The OSHA rule, as it is currently written, would force that employees are offered water and receive break -in -rest paid every two hours when temperatures exceed 90 degrees. This would also help to acclimatize workers to heat.
“The postal service has shown that they are not willing to set up a kind of preventive measures beyond what is required by the OSHA,” said Renfroe. “This is where the importance of adopting this rule really lies.”
Reprinted with E & E News With the permission of politico, LLC. Copyright 2025. E & E News provides essential news to energy and environmental professionals.
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