"Employers to OSHA: Don’t Kill The Heat Rule. Weaken It."

"Business interests have shifted strategies now that President Donald Trump is back in office." 

"Seeking to secure weakened federal heat standards for workers, industry representatives this month asked the Trump administration to model federal heat rules after an untested Nevada standard.

Nevada’s regulation protecting workers from heat illness was finalized late last year and took effect in April. It’s unclear, however, whether the new requirements will reduce workplace heat injuries because they are so new and because the guidelines are much more vague than proposed federal rules.

Despite the ambiguity, the state’s newly minted rule has been mentioned every day of a weeks-long public hearing held by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that began June 16. At the hearing, industry representatives said the federal government should make serious changes to its heat rule to bring it more in line with Nevada’s, which forces employers to have plans for protecting employees from heat but has relatively few specific requirements for how to do that compared to the standard one proposed by the Biden administration."

Ariel Wittenberg reports for E&E News June 30, 2025.

Source: E&E News, 07/02/2025