In the summer of 2024, the Biden administration’s OSHA proposed a federal worker heat protection standard. While a strong federal standard would be the most protective, its strength is still in question, and its implementation—if it moves forward—is projected to take several years or more.  Therefore, it is crucial for cities, states, territories, companies, universities and other institutions to adopt their own standards and start protecting workers from heat now before another record-breaking summer.

Currently, seven states have heat regulations: California, Maryland and Oregon have heat rules protecting indoor and outdoor workers. Three states have heat rules covering a sector of workers: Colorado (agricultural), Minnesota (indoor) and Washington (outdoor). The weakest rule comes from Nevada where employers are only required to conduct a one-time review to determine if they should comply and there is no established heat threshold.

The BlueGreen Alliance is collaborating with Natural Resources Defense Council and the Federation of American Scientists to support state and local campaigns advocating for heat protections for workers. To that end, this Partnership to Protect Workers from Heat has launched a website to be a place for heat rule advocacy resources and to connect on campaigns: www.protectworkersfromheat.org includes a wide variety of resources from the groups that are working to protect workers from heat

BGA, NELP and NRDC have designed a Heat Rule Comparison Tool to equip heat rule drafters, worker heat protection advocates, and other stakeholders with practical language solutions to streamline the development of comprehensive heat regulations.

How to Use the Tool

Use this Heat Rule Comparison Tool to view details of and compare select state rules and the ANSI framework. The tool has two sections: General Provisions and HIIPP (Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Plan). Both sections consist of a table and a text box. In the table, ‘✓’  and ‘×’ symbols are used to indicate if the listed state or framework has (✓) or does not have (x) that provision in its rule. The textbox displays a full description of the provisions of any state rule or framework when selected from the table.

• Use the tool on this page or view the tool in a full screen window here.
• At the top of the tool, use the tabs to navigate between the General Provisions and HIIPP sections of the tool.
• In the body of the table, mouse over any ‘✓’ symbol to view the corresponding details as hover text.
• At the bottom of the table, use the horizontal scrollbar to see more columns.
• To the right of the textbox, use the vertical scrollbar to see more text.
• To view the full details about a particular state rules or framework, select it by clicking anywhere on the corresponding row in the table. Once selected, the details will appear in the textbox.
• To open the state rule or framework documents themselves, click on the state or framework names in the table.