Biden taking steps to protect workers from extreme heat

Dive Transient:

• President Joe Biden on Thursday introduced plans to extend protections for employees going through excessive warmth, as temperatures throughout the U.S. soar and enormous swaths of the nation face warmth advisories. Greater than 400 employees have died from environmental warmth exposures since 2011. Hundreds extra are hospitalized yearly, making warmth the No. 1 reason behind weather-related deaths within the U.S., the White Home mentioned.
• Biden requested the U.S. Division of Labor to difficulty its first hazard alert for warmth, which can give employers data on tips on how to shield employees and inform employees of their rights underneath federal regulation. The DOL additionally will up its enforcement of warmth security violations by rising its inspections in industries like development and agriculture.
• The federal authorities additionally will make investments as much as $7 million to enhance nationwide climate forecasts and $152 million to enhance water storage and supply protected ingesting water in California, Colorado and Washington, the White Home mentioned.

Dive Perception:

The U.S. lacks a federal customary on office warmth security, however Biden mentioned OSHA continues to work on a rule.

Advocacy teams, just like the Nationwide Council of Occupational Security and Well being, have referred to as for a nationwide customary defending employees from local weather change’s results, together with smoke, warmth stress and extreme climate occasions, like wildfires— because the nation continues to cope with excessive warmth and air air pollution from wildfires in Canada and the western U.S.

In the meantime, the U.S. continues to see excessive temperatures with no indicators of the warmth abating. Within the U.S., practically 2,400 warmth information have been damaged up to now month alone, in line with the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.