Trump’s War on OSHA Could Spell the End for Biden-Era Heat Protections

In July 2024, the Biden administration proposed a rule to address heat-related illness that it claimed would protect 36 million workers.

The directive would have required companies to monitor workers for heat stress, provide them with cool-down breaks in shaded or air-conditioned areas, and ensure that they were given ample water.

“The purpose of this rule is simple,” a White House official told reporters at the time. “It is to significantly reduce the number of worker-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses suffered by workers exposed to excessive heat … while simply doing their jobs.”

The rule would have represented the first federal standard aimed at regulating the increasing dangers of climate change, but it was never finalized. And now, with Donald Trump in the White House, there is very little hope that it will be implemented.

The Nomination of David Keeling to Head the OSHA

In February, Trump nominated David Keeling to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Keeling has yet to be confirmed, but seeing as he is a former executive for Amazon and UPS, most assume that he won’t be embracing the proposed heat rule.

Keeling oversaw health and safety protocols at those companies, and, according to an investigation by The Lever’s Sam Pollak, they collectively received over 300 workplace safety citations while he was in charge, which added up to $2 million in OSHA fines. The citations included multiple heat-related incidents.

Republicans aren’t waiting until Keeling takes power to challenge the Biden administration’s proposed regulations. On March 19, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Michigan), chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, sent a letter to newly confirmed Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer calling for the Department of Labor (DOL) to withdraw from the rule and rescind several additional OSHA directives.

“The committee recognizes that many burdensome regulations were developed at DOL during the Biden-Harris administration,” Walberg wrote.

When the GOP-controlled committee held a hearing on May 15, the subject was OSHA’s alleged “overreach” on heat regulations. The Republicans showcased testimony from a number of pro-business witnesses including Felicia Watson, senior counsel at Littler Mendelson, which backs employers and has a history of defending union-busting.

“I’ve talked to people in New Mexico who say 80 degrees is a great day to build — it’s perfect weather and you might have something completely different in Florida,” claimed Watson.

These sentiments were echoed by another Republican witness, Jake Parson, an executive at a building materials company who testified on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers. Parson told the Congress members that, “When it comes to heat, what makes sense for Maine will not make sense for Texas.”

Both witnesses were challenged by Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), a committee member who went on a thirst strike in 2023 to highlight the need for a federal workplace heat standard.

“It sounds like what you’re saying is we have different conditions in Maine than in Texas,” said Casar. “But what I’m confused about is if it’s 90 degrees in Austin or 90 degrees in Maine, 90 degrees is still 90 degrees.”

State Regulations

Without strong guidelines at the federal level, workers have to rely on the rules of their state.

California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington have all adopted workplace heat protections of some kind and similar efforts are being pushed Arizona, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Rhode Island.

“Policymakers don’t have to start from scratch,” notes a recent report from the Center on American Progress. “Current state policies and the Biden administration’s draft heat standard provide guidance for adopting or adapting occupational heat standards and can strengthen protections for outdoor and indoor workers.”

This fight has proved to be an uphill battle in states run by anti-regulation Republicans.

In April 2024, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation barring Florida localities from requiring companies to provide outdoor workers with rest, shade, and water. The move effectively killed a Miami-Dade effort to establish such protections in the county.

At a press conference, DeSantis admitted that the GOP plan was developed to invalidate the Miami victory.

“There was a lot of concern out of one county, Miami-Dade. And I don’t think it was an issue in any other part of the state,” the governor explained. “I think they were pursuing something that was going to cause a lot of problems down there.”

Labor advocates in Austin faced a similar setback in 2024, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott passed the “Death Star” law, killing a rest-break ordinance passed by the city.

Texas AFL-CIO Organizing and Advocacy Director Ana Gonzalez told Truthout that such developments highlight the need to build bargaining power in the workplace.

“OSHA standards are the bare minimum when it comes to workplace safety. Any lawmaker who wants to undo them just wants their billionaire backers to make another cent,” said Gonzalez. “Texans have weathered worse storms, but with hotter summers, we must unionize every workplace to demand better safety standards. Otherwise, our state will keep leading the nation in workplace fatalities and injuries.”

Trump’s Wider War on OSHA

The Trump administration’s war on workplace safety, is certainly not limited to heat regulations.

President Trump has effectively shut down the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, closed multiple local OSHA offices, allowed Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” initiative to access sensitive OSHA files, and paused a rule on silica exposure, which can lead to severe health problems such as lung cancer.

A recent report from the Economic Policy Institute points out that between 5.2 million to 7.8 million workers already suffer work-related injuries and illnesses each year, a number that is likely to rise under the Trump administration.

The report also notes out that weakened workplace regulations disproportionately impact workers of color, immigrant workers, and older workers. Over 33 percent of 2023’s workplace fatalities occurred among workers 55 and older, while 67 percent of those killed were immigrant workers. Black and Latino workers are more likely to die while working than white workers.

“The bad news is we are facing a national workers’ rights crisis, fueled by Trump administration attacks on long-standing worker health and safety protections and OSHA enforcement capacity, all while climate change is intensifying risks of deadly exposures to extreme heat in indoor and outdoor workplaces across the country,” the report’s coauthor, Jennifer Sherer, told Truthout.

“The good news is that states don’t need to wait to act, and can craft strong, effective heat standard policies that draw on decades of research and evidence-based best practices for preventing workplace deaths and boosting productivity,” she added.

The consumer rights group Public Citizen estimates that heat exposure results in 600 to 2,000 worker fatalities every year, and about 170,000 work injuries. The situation threatens to get much worse as temperatures rise as a result of climate change — 2024 was the warmest year on record. According to the World Meteorological Organization, there’s an 80 percent chance that at least one of the next five years will exceed that mark.