Sponsors (12)
Official title: Prohibit the Secretary of Labor from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing a proposed standard with respect to heat injury and illness prevention, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 29, 2026 by Bill Cassidy · Last progress April 29, 2026
The bill reduces federal regulatory burden and preserves agency/employer flexibility, but at the cost of leaving many workers without uniform, specific federal heat protections—raising heat-illness risks and producing uneven, state-by-state safeguards.
Small-business owners and employers avoid new federal compliance costs and administrative burdens that would come from a prescriptive national heat-safety regulation.
Federal agencies (e.g., Secretary of Labor/OSHA) retain regulatory flexibility instead of being forced to implement the specific August 30, 2024 heat standard, preserving agency discretion to tailor rules or guidance.
Some workplaces and supervisors could continue using tailored, non–one-size-fits-all heat-protection practices that better fit particular industries, climates, or job tasks, potentially reducing confusion for workers and supervisors in those contexts.
Outdoor and indoor workers (including construction, delivery, and other manual laborers) remain without the proposed federal protections, increasing their risk of heat-related illness and death during extreme heat events.
Blocking or preventing a prescriptive OSHA heat rule risks eliminating specific, evidence-based protections (e.g., mandated rest breaks, trigger temperatures, and acclimatization requirements) that reduce heat-illness incidents.
Opposing a federal prescriptive standard shifts regulatory complexity to states and employers, creating patchwork protections, legal uncertainty, and potentially higher compliance costs for multistate employers while leaving worker protections uneven across the country.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Blocks OSHA from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing the named 2024 federal heat-protection rule and any substantially similar standard.
Prohibits the Secretary of Labor from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing OSHA's proposed "Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings" published Aug 30, 2024, or any substantially similar standard. It also states congressional findings that the proposed rule is overly prescriptive, burdensome to businesses, confusing for workers, and unworkable across industries and geographies. The bill effectively blocks this specific federal heat-protection regulation and any substantially similar OSHA rule, leaving employers without that federal prescriptive framework and preserving flexibility for employers, industry groups, or states to adopt their own approaches.