Employers Heat Illness Prevention

Nevada OSHA Adopts New Heat-Illness Prevention Regulation: What Employers Need to Know

Beeta B. Lashkari 3 Comments

By Beeta Lashkari and Andrea Chavez

As previously reported, on November 15, 2024, Nevada adopted heat illness prevention regulation R131-24AP, aiming to protect workers from heat-related hazards in both indoor and outdoor environments. Nevada OSHA has since released guidance on implementing the regulation, with enforcement set to begin on April 29, 2025—90 days after the guidance release on January 29, 2025.

Overview and Application of the Regulation

The regulation applies to employers with more than 10 employees in industries under Nevada OSHA’s jurisdiction, as well as employers in explosive manufacturing, regardless of size. It generally does not apply to employees working indoors in climate-controlled environments, including motor vehicles with functioning climate control systems. However, if such a system fails, employers must make good-faith efforts to reestablish an effective climate control system as soon as practicable and implement interim measures to mitigate heat illness risks.

Generally, under the new regulation, covered employers are required to: Continue reading →

OSHA Conducts Comprehensive Heat Illness Prevention Stakeholder Meeting

Eric J. Conn 3 Comments

By Beeta B. Lashkari and Eric J. Conn

On Tuesday, May 3, 2022, OSHA held a virtual stakeholder meeting to discuss and receive public input about OSHA’s various initiatives designed to protect workers from heat-related hazards.  Below is a summary of the stakeholder meeting, as well as the comments we presented on behalf of our Employers Heat Illness Prevention Coalition.  If you would like to view the entire meeting, or view the agenda or some of the heat illness-related materials OSHA made available, they are available on OSHA’s Heat Forum Public Stakeholder Meeting website.

The meeting ran for approx. 6 hours (from noon to 6 PM).  More than 3,000 stakeholders signed up for the meeting, and more than 500 people requested to speak, including OSHA representatives, an OSHA leadership panel, and four batches of public comment.  Public commenters were each allotted a strictly enforced 3-minute window to speak.

Opening Remarks from Heads of DOL/OSHA

The Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, Doug Parker, kicked off the meeting with opening remarks.  Mr. Parker began by explaining that heat-related hazards do not Continue reading →

Coalition to Work on OSHA’s Heat Illness Prevention Rulemaking

Eric J. Conn 4 Comments

By Eric J. Conn, Chair of Conn Maciel Carey LLP’s National OSHA Practice

While we and employers across the nation have been focused on OSHA’s issuance of its second COVID-19 emergency temporary standard in six months, earlier this month, OSHA published in the Federal Register an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking initiating a new formal rulemaking focused on “Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings” (the ANPRM).  The ANPRM provided this summary of OSHA’s action:

“OSHA is initiating rulemaking to protect indoor and outdoor workers from hazardous heat and is interested in obtaining additional information about the extent and nature of hazardous heat in the workplace and the nature and effectiveness of interventions and controls used to prevent heat-related injury and illness. This ANPRM provides an overview of the problem of heat stress in the workplace and of measures that have been taken to prevent it. This ANPRM also seeks information on issues that OSHA can consider in developing the standard, including the scope of the standard and the types of controls that might be required.”

And while everyone still has most of our focus on OSHA’s Vaccination, Testing, and Face Coverings emergency temporary standard, it is critical that those industries and employers potentially impacted by an OSHA heat illness regulation focus on this important active agency rulemaking.  In fact, long after COVID-19 is a just bad memory in the rearview mirror, a heat illness standard will have lasting and potentially enormous impacts on your organization.

To that end, Conn Maciel Carey LLP is organizing a new fee-based coalition of employers and trade groups to participate in OSHA’s Indoor and Outdoor Heat Illness Rulemaking with a goal of helping to shape any heat standard that OSHA ultimately promulgates in such a way that the rule is palatable to Industry. Continue reading →