Trump fires heat experts as summer begins

Politico

2 days ago

The Trump administration's purge of federal personnel poses the latest threat to a rule meant to protect workers from extreme heat.
As part of an agency reorganization, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the research team tasked with studying the deadly effects of high temperatures and how to safeguard against them, writes Ariel Wittenberg.
The layoffs take effect this week, just before the start of a summer that is forecast to be hotter than normal across the United States.
The nation has suffered a string of record-breaking temperatures in recent years as climate change driven by burning fossil fuels supercharges heat waves. Extreme heat kills more U.S. residents each year than hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined, federal data shows.
The heat team will disappear just days before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is scheduled to hold a hearing on the government's first-ever proposal to protect workers from extreme heat.
Drafted under the Biden administration, the long-delayed rule would require employers to offer outdoor workers paid water and rest breaks when combined heat and humidity exceed 80 degrees. Almost every aspect of the proposed rule has a citation that leads back to research conducted by the heat team within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Advocating for the rule without the experts on hand is 'like going to trial without your expert witness,' Doug Parker, who led OSHA during the Biden administration, told Ariel.
Congress created the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health — which housed the heat team — in 1970 to recommend safety standards to regulators. The OSHA regulation relied on the team to define heat stress, to explain how heat affects the human body and to describe how hydration helps prevent heat-related dangers, which include kidney damage and sudden death from heat stroke.
Oil and gas industry lobbyists have urged Trump to ax the proposal. Rebecca Reindel, safety and health director at the AFL-CIO, said she worries that without the heat team's testimony, the Trump administration will be more likely to kill the rule.
The heat team's demise has already led to a halt in public communications on heat. In past years, the agency used social media campaigns and in-person presentations to raise awareness about staying safe in extreme heat.
The team's social media accounts have been silent since April 1, when Kennedy announced the layoffs.
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