We are breaking past heat records, but they will not stand for long. Summer heat now arrives earlier, lasts longer, spikes higher, and lands in places that never planned for it.

For the tens of millions of Americans who work outdoors, and the millions more in warehouses, kitchens, and factories without air conditioning, there is still no federal standard requiring an employer to give a worker water, shade, rest, or training on a day when the heat can kill.

Between 1992 and 2019, more than 900 workers died from heat on the job, and every year tens of thousands more are sickened or injured—farmworkers collapsing in fields, roofers baking on exposed surfaces, laundry and dollar store workers laboring in buildings that trap heat like ovens. Those official numbers are undercounts, because heat deaths are chronically underreported.

Heat illness is not a scientific mystery. Heat stroke can kill in minutes, but staying safe is mostly about staying cool, hydrated, and getting help fast when confusion or dizziness sets in.

No one should be sent into a hotter, more volatile climate with nothing but the occasional popsicle and luck.

We protect workers from ladder falls, electric shocks, even excessive noise, with clear and enforceable rules. Yet there is still no federal standard requiring employers to provide the basics on dangerously hot days.

We came close. In 2024, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) proposed the first-ever national heat safety standard. In 2025, the agency heard weeks of testimony from workers, doctors, unions, and employers. Then the progress on a strong rule stalled.

Now, some in Congress want to bury it for good. The House Education and the Workforce Committee recently voted to advance the Heat Workforce Standards Act, which would bar the Labor Department from finalizing or enforcing the heat rule.

This isn't a pause. It's a lock on the door, designed to stop not just this administration but any future one from protecting workers from heat. The bill's sponsor called workplace heat a problem that doesn't need solving. Easy to say when you spend every day in air conditioning. Impossible to accept when your loved one........

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