Sponsors (145)
The bill substantially strengthens enforceable heat-protection standards for millions of outdoor and high-heat workers—reducing heat illness and clarifying employer duties—at the cost of significant compliance, administrative, and implementation burdens for employers and federal agencies that could raise costs for businesses and taxpayers and limit some avenues for judicial review.
Outdoor and high-heat workers (construction, agriculture, transportation, healthcare, and other manual laborers) would gain enforceable, nationwide heat-illness protections (engineering controls, rest breaks, shade/cooling, hydration, PPE and paid break time) that reduce heat-related injury, illness, and death.
Employees receive clearer, nationwide rights: mandatory written heat-illness prevention plans with employee participation, multilingual training/materials, whistleblower protections, and statutory clarity of covered persons and agency authority.
Reducing heat injuries and requiring paid rest/cooling breaks can lower lost workdays and boost productivity and income stability for workers and employers.
Employers—especially small businesses and agricultural employers—face substantial new compliance costs (engineering controls, cooling, PPE, scheduling/staffing for rest breaks, training and potential medical monitoring) that could be passed to consumers, reduce business revenue, or discourage hiring.
Mandating rapid interim standards and expanding enforcement could strain OSHA/Department of Labor capacity, increasing regulatory workload and diverting inspection and enforcement resources from other workplace hazards.
Employers will face ongoing administrative burdens—recordkeeping, multilingual training, plan maintenance, reporting and responding to inspections—which can be especially onerous for small firms and shift resources away from operations.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal worker heat protection standard requiring employers to implement engineering, administrative, PPE, medical, and training measures to prevent heat-related illness and death.
Official title: To direct the Secretary of Labor to promulgate an occupational safety and health standard to protect workers from heat-related injuries and illnesses.
Introduced July 16, 2025 by Judy Chu · Last progress July 16, 2025
Requires the Secretary of Labor to issue a federal worker heat protection standard that sets the maximum measures employers must take to prevent heat-related illness, injury, and death. It imposes a duty on employers to provide workplaces free from conditions that can reasonably be expected to cause serious harm from heat stress and lists categories of engineering controls, administrative controls, PPE, medical protocols, and training that the standard may require. Gives the new heat standard the same legal effect as OSHA standards, extends OSHA-style recordkeeping, reporting, and whistleblower protections, directs updates to the National Agricultural Workers Survey to track heat-related illness, authorizes appropriations, and includes standard severability and definitions. It creates enforcement and procedural rules (statute of limitations, deference to the Secretary by the review commission) but leaves technical design, specific requirements, and funding levels to the Secretary and later rulemaking.