One of the federal government’s only tools for protecting workers from extreme heat is set to expire this month, and the Trump administration hasn’t said whether it will extend the effort.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s National Heat Emphasis Program, established in 2022, has increased workplace inspections in industries where workers are at “high risk” for heat exposure. The Biden administration in its final days extended the program one year, to April 8.
The nation has already experienced record-high temperatures in 2026, with an unprecedented March heat wave across the Southwest.
Congressional Democrats are urging the administration to extend the program, telling Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and OSHA Chief David Keeling that letting it expire will deprive workers of “tools they need to be safe and productive on the job.”
“Construction workers, farm workers, warehouse workers and workers in many other industries will be forced to choose between speaking up and risking their jobs or staying silent and risking their health and their lives,” a group of 43 House Democrats and three Senate Democratis, led by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) wrote in a letter shared exclusively with POLITICO’s E&E News.
Heat is the number one weather-related killer in the U.S. and can be particularly dangerous for laborers because their exertion makes it more difficult for their bodies to stay cool.
OSHA has no workplace standards for heat. Workers are protected broadly by OSHA’s so-called “general duty clause,” which requires employers to ensure workplaces are safe from “recognized hazards.”
Though OSHA had recommended workers be provided with water, rest and shade, enforcement is difficult without specific heat standards. OSHA has generally cited employers only after heat has killed or hospitalized workers.
The Biden administration initiated the emphasis program in 2022 to create an incentive for employers to protect workers from heat while OSHA developed regulations requiring heat protections. The program became a key tool for addressing extreme heat by allowing OSHA inspectors to visit workplaces before they receive complaints or workers are injured by heat.
“We needed to have something that would immediately respond to the needs of workers and make clear to the regulated community that we expected them to take action under their existing obligations while we crafted a rule,” former OSHA Chief Doug Parker said.
The program prompted roughly 8,000 heat-related inspections from its start to the end of the Biden administration. In 2024, heat-related inspections accounted for 9 percent of OSHA’s 34,600 overall site visits, according to agency information released in the final days of the Biden administration.
Parker signed an order extending the program on Jan. 16, 2025, knowing the incoming Trump administration had “different priorities” and could cancel or not renew it.
“The heat is only getting hotter, so the need for this is greater than ever,” Parker said.
Democrats urge ‘robust inspections’
The fate of the program under the Trump administration is unclear.
OSHA has not answered E&E News’ repeated questions about its plan for the program, saying in February and March only that it had no updates. OSHA spokesperson Kim Darby did not respond to an email about the future of the program.
While OSHA’s communications office has previously shared information about inspections under the emphasis program, the agency would not provide data for heat-related inspections in 2025 when asked this winter. Darby said the agency’s “current policy now requires requests for such information to be submitted through the federal Freedom of Information Act.”
Congressional Democrats in their letter requested information about the number of OSHA heat-related inspections in 2025. They demanded “robust inspections of potentially unsafe working conditions” including “at least as many heat related inspections as was done between 2022 and 2024.”
They cited data released by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in February showing that the total number of OSHA inspections between April 2025 and September 2025 were 19 percent lower than they had been during the same period in 2024.
OSHA’s decision about the program could be the first indication of whether the Trump administration considers heat to be a danger to workers, said Jordan Barab, who served until 2017 as the agency’s deputy assistant secretary.
“Emphasis programs send an important message to the industry that OSHA is serious about an issue,” Barab said. “If they don’t renew this or there is a serious delay in renewing it, it will be a message that they are going the other way and not taking heat as seriously as they need to be.”
The initiative was part of a broader Biden administration push to address heat following the devastating 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Dome, which killed dozens of people. The emphasis program was meant to help protect workers while OSHA simultaneously developed rules employers must follow to keep their employees safe from heat-related illnesses like dehydration and heat stroke.
OSHA issued a draft regulation in July 2024 that would require employers to provide workers with water and cool places to rest with increasing frequency as combined temperatures and humidity rose above 80 degrees.
The Trump administration has taken no action on the proposed rule since holding a two-week long hearing in June at which industry and environmental health groups weighed in on the draft. Industry representatives pushed OSHA to finalize a weaker version of the proposed regulation.
