Oil Industry Opposes a Planned Rule to Limit Heat Deaths among Workers

Scientific American

3 days ago

CLIMATEWIRE | The oil and gas industry is pushing the Trump administration to kill a proposed rule that would protect workers from extreme heat, arguing that it jeopardizes the president's vision of achieving 'energy dominance.'
The opposition comes as people who work in U.S. oil and gas fields face increasingly dangerous conditions as global temperatures swell with rising levels of climate pollution. The industry is among the nation's leading workplaces for heat-related deaths and injuries.
The American Petroleum Institute is one of several industry groups that has called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to abandon the regulation, which was proposed under former President Joe Biden and requires employers to offer water and rest breaks when temperatures rise above 80 degrees. The federal protections were drafted for the first time last year as global temperatures reached their highest levels ever recorded by humans.
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'API Ask: Do not proceed on the currently proposed Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Standard,' the group wrote to the Department of Labor in December, in a memo that has not previously been made public. It lists the proposed heat rule as one of four priorities in a 'vision for American energy leadership.'
'The oil and gas industry is poised to fully realize its potential under a new era of energy dominance,' the group wrote, adding that its priorities are 'essential to achieving this energy potential.'
Heat has killed 137 workers nationwide since 2017 and hospitalized thousands more, according to an analysis of OSHA data by POLITICO's E&E News. Construction and agriculture workers bear the brunt of heat injuries and fatalities, but people who extract fossil fuels in oil and gas fields, or those in support service jobs, also succumb to extreme temperatures. The fossil fuel industry accounts for 4 percent of heat-related deaths in the U.S. and nearly 7 percent of worker hospitalizations, according to federal data.
That makes the industry the third-highest sector for hospitalizations from heat and among the top five for heat-related deaths. Workers have fallen ill or died while operating oil and gas drilling rigs, installing pipes, and delivering odorants.
Strenuous activity can amplify the dangers of high temperatures, leading to kidney damage, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, a condition that results in organ failure and death in a matter of minutes.
The string of record-breaking temperatures year after year foreshadows what could be a deadly summer, as climate change fueled by the combustion of fossil fuels turbocharges heat waves around the world. Texas has already sweltered under 100-degree heat, a record for May, and the rest of the nation is on track to experience warmer-than-normal temperatures.
OSHA cited the death toll from heat, and the role of climate change in causing them, when it proposed the protections in July. They cover some 35 million people.
Many of the rules' requirements mirror recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the 1970s.
Now the rule is in the hands of the Trump administration, which has launched a concerted effort to terminate government climate offices, repeal regulations for lowering greenhouse gases and roll back billions of dollars in climate funding. President Donald Trump rejects the basic tenets of climate science.
One of the first signs of whether the rule might survive will come in June, when OSHA officials are scheduled to hold a hearing to collect public comment on the proposal.
API spokesperson Charlotte Law declined to answer questions about heat illness rates in the oil and gas industry, saying in a statement, 'we don't have anything further to add beyond the memo.'
The document takes issue with rest break requirements in the draft rule, saying it 'unreasonably requires reduce work/exposure hours for experienced workers, potentially leading to operational difficulties with no clear safety improvement.'
Heat rules 'stifle … creativity, innovation'
OSHA has identified six heat-related fatalities involving fossil fuel workers since 2017.
One construction worker collapsed at a gas-fired power plant, and multiple people have died from heat as they tried clearing clogged wells and pipes. Others became ill and died while pressure-washing equipment in the hot sun, and one became fatally sick as he was sweeping up spilled metallurgical coke, according to OSHA records.
Some 149 workers in the oil and gas industry have been hospitalized for heat exposure since 2017, compared to nine workers in the wind and solar industries.
One OSHA citation described how a Texas worker began complaining of cramps and nausea — symptoms of heat illness — while trying to clear two obstructed well holes in 2017.
Instead of being offered a break, the employee was 'encouraged to continue to work,' the OSHA citation said. He later died after experiencing convulsions and without receiving medical attention. OSHA issued fines amounting to $21,367 to the employer, Patco Wireline Services, for three serious violations. The fines were later dropped in a settlement.
Officials with Patco, based in Houma, Louisiana, couldn't be reached for comment.
OSHA has issued citations in each of the six industry heat deaths since 2017. The fines came under legal requirements that employers keep workplaces free of 'recognized hazards' — a general provision that would be replaced by the more detailed heat rule, if it's ever finalized.
The draft heat rule outlines specific steps employers must take to prevent workers from falling ill. In addition to offering water and rest breaks, companies would have to train managers and workers to identify symptoms of heat illness and when to get medical attention.
'There are a lot of places where workers can't say, 'Oh, it's getting hot out here, I need to drink some water,' and this would help protect them before they are so ill they need to go to the hospital or die,'' said Jordan Barab, former deputy assistant secretary for OSHA during the Obama administration.
Oil and gas groups disagree. API collaborated with the American Exploration and Production Council, the International Association of Drilling Contractors, and others on a letter to OSHA in January that called the rule 'flawed.'
The groups argued that it applies 'a one-size-fits all prescriptive standard to arguably the most prevalent hazard ever faced by employers across the US.'
'Unless the heat rule is substantially changed, OSHA would create unnecessary burdens and stifle the creativity, innovation and individualized performance-oriented solutions that the oil and gas industry seek to foster,' they said. 'Our hope therefore is that this version of a proposed heat rule will not move forward through the rulemaking process.'
The groups take particular issue with temperature triggers in the proposed rule, which requires employers to provide water and rest breaks when combined heat and humidity reach 80 degrees. At 90 degrees, workers would get 15-minute breaks to rest and drink water after every two hours of work. They would be paid during the breaks.
Such 'unbridled access to breaks' is unworkable, the industry argued. 'Employers should be allowed to set break schedules based on their specific workforce operations,' the groups wrote.
They added that the rule would be a burden in cold and warm climates — from Alaska's North Slope to the Permian Basin in Texas. Eighty-degree days are so uncommon in Alaska, they argued, that 'the cost of imposing the Heat Rule's requirements are not justifiable and would be unduly burdensome and difficult to consistently apply.'
It would also 'be a significant burden' in Texas because temperatures regularly exceed 80 degrees, 'requiring employers to comply with the initial heat requirements nearly half the time,' the letter said.
'Campaign of deception'
The fossil fuel industry is not alone in opposing the proposed rule. Representatives of the construction and manufacturing industries made similar arguments at a hearing this month of the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.
But the oil and gas industry may carry extra weight during the Trump administration.
Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office aimed at 'unleashing American energy' that directed federal departments to review existing regulations and policies that 'impose an undue burden on the identification, development or use of domestic energy resources.'
Neither OSHA nor the Department of Labor responded to questions about whether they have completed the review. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has expressed support for the fossil fuel industry, but hasn't publicly remarked on the heat rule.
'Unleashing American energy will create good-paying jobs and lower costs for business and families,' she wrote in an April post on X about the department's efforts to train workers 'to secure American Energy Dominance.'
She also toured an oil and gas facility in Bakersfield, California, that's owned by California Resources to mark 'President Trump's first 100 days of economic success.'
As the Trump administration weighs whether to kill OSHA's heat rule, more workers could die — and not just in the fossil fuel industry.
Shana Udvardy, a senior climate analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has advocated for worker heat protections, argued that the fossil fuel industry's role in heat deaths goes deeper than the climate pollution it releases.
'If not for the fossil fuel industry's concerted, multidecade campaign of deception, the U.S. and the world may have taken much more ambitious action to curb the worst effects of climate change,' she said.
'If the industry were paying its fair share toward the cost of climate damages and climate adaptation,' she added, 'we'd have more public resources and capacity to protect workers.'