The world is getting hotter, and workers need protection from the heat. But at a hearing Monday about a proposed heat regulation from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Elizabeth Milito of the National Federation of Independent Businesses said that heat exposure is “not characterized properly as an occupational hazard.” Tell that to the nine workers who, as Claire Brown reported Monday in The New York Times, died last August from working in high temperatures.

The heat rule was proposed last year by the Biden administration, and for good reason: According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, heat-related deaths have risen 117 percent in this century. When the rule came out, I predicted that if Donald Trump won the election he’d kill it. He hasn’t killed it yet, and indeed OSHA (to which Trump applied a meat ax in his proposed 2026 budget) went ahead this week with its hearings on the heat standard. But that doesn’t mean the rule will be unmolested by Trump’s deregulatory spree.

My guess is that Trump plans to follow the Chamber of Commerce line, which is typically less coarse than the NFIB’s. The Chamber says that while of course “employers should protect employees from heat-related injuries and illnesses,” the rule OSHA........

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