Biden admin to roll out first federal safety standard for workers in excessive heat
A wildfire spreads uphill west of Petaluma, California, on Friday, June 30, 2023. The Biden administration will announce the nation’s first-ever federal safety standard for excessive heat in the workplace at a time when millions of Americans are under extreme heat warnings and advisories. (Photo credit: Kent Porter/AP via CNN Newsource)
(CNN) — The Biden administration on Tuesday will announce the nation’s first-ever federal safety standard for excessive heat in the workplace at a time when millions of Americans are under extreme heat warnings and advisories.
The rule from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposes employees have new requirements to identify heat hazards for workers, how workers develop heat illness and how employers would respond to keep their employees safe.
Also on Tuesday, President Joe Biden will be briefed on an extreme weather forecast, wildfire season and this year’s hurricane outlook, senior administration officials said, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is announcing it will award nearly $1 billion for over 650 climate resilience projects, funded as part of the 2021 infrastructure law.
Climate change-fueled heat and weather has made its mark around the country this spring and summer. In the past few weeks alone, multiple regions in the US have suffered under scorching temperatures, some of which have broken records.
“Tens of millions of Americans are experiencing the effects of extreme weather events,” a Biden senior administration official told reporters on a press call. “The Fourth of July holiday week is expected to feature dangerously hot conditions from multiple regions across the country.”
The South Fork Fire, which grew more than 4,000 acres in a single day on June 17, forced every resident of Ruidoso, New Mexico, to flee their home.
The hot and dry conditions have fueled deadly wildfires in New Mexico and other parts of the western US, and exceedingly warm ocean temperatures have helped fuel Hurricane Beryl’s quick strengthening from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane – becoming the earliest Category 5 on record in the Atlantic Ocean and the only Category 5 in the month of June.
Stacked on a deadly and costly spring tornado and thunderstorm season, summer disasters are piling up. The administration recently requested an additional $9 billion to help replenish FEMA’s disaster relief fund in a supplemental budget request it sent to Congress last week, the senior administration official said.
“Whether [the disaster relief fund] will be in the red just all depends on the scope, scale and number of disasters that we have,” the official said. “It’s why it is imperative that we get that replenishment as part of the supplemental package.”
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