President Biden on Tuesday called it “really, really stupid” to deny the effects of climate change and said extreme heat and other weather disasters fueled by rising global temperatures have cost billions of dollars and thousands of American lives.
“Ignoring climate change is deadly, dangerous and irresponsible,” Biden said. He warned that temperatures have already broken records this summer and are expected to rise, and proposed new protections for workers exposed to dangerous heat on the job.
Mr. Biden spoke at the District of Columbia’s emergency operations center, where he and Cabinet members were briefed on the evolving extreme weather patterns across the country. His remarks were among his strongest on climate change, and he used the opportunity to denounce Republican lawmakers who oppose his plan. Strategies.
“How can you deny climate change for God’s sake?” Mr. Biden said. “They must be living in a hole somewhere.”
“Anyone who willfully denies the impacts of climate change is condemning the American people to a dangerous future and is either really, really stupid or has some other motivation,” he said.
The proposed rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration comes as a heat wave sets in across California this week and triple-digit heat is also expected to hit Portland, Oregon, over the Fourth of July weekend. It follows an early heat wave last month that sweltered across much of the country.
Mr. Biden noted that extreme heat is the deadliest weather hazard in the United States, responsible for more deaths than floods, hurricanes and tornadoes combined. Climate change, driven by the burning of oil, gas and coal, is making heat waves last longer. Last year, the hottest on record, led to 2,300 heat-related deaths in the United States, a figure likely undercounted because heat exacerbates other health problems, while emergency room visits for heat-related illnesses have increased.
If implemented, the rule would for the first time require employers to monitor their workers and provide them with rest areas and water when the heat index reaches 80 degrees or higher. Employers would also be required to create heat safety plans. The rule could apply to an estimated 35 million Americans who work both indoors and outdoors.
The heat index takes into account both air temperature and humidity.
Mr. Biden also announced nearly $1 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure bill to help communities build resilience to weather-related disasters.
Environmental groups and labor unions welcomed the proposed regulations. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement that protecting heating workers “couldn’t be more urgent.”
She called on Congress to codify the new protections into law.
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-focused climate advocacy group, called the measures “a major victory for the movement and the kind of action young people are expecting from President Biden.”
This year’s presidential election will have major implications for the implementation of the workplace rule, which could be scrapped if Mr. Trump wins the White House in November. Mr. Trump has vowed to roll back Mr. Biden’s entire environmental agenda and has regularly mocked the science and effects of climate change.
The Supreme Court also issued a series of decisions over the past week that together significantly reduce the authority of federal agencies to regulate industries and workplaces. These decisions should make it easier for businesses and industries to get federal regulations struck down.
The proposed heat regulation already faces opposition from industry groups who say it would increase costs and be difficult to enforce. Opponents have said they plan to challenge the regulation’s legality as soon as it is implemented, possibly later this year.
Jonathan Berry, who served as a senior Labor Department official under Mr. Trump, said the Supreme Court’s combined decisions “clearly express a judicial mindset that would be very hostile to this regulation.”
Marc Freedman, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group, wrote that such a rule would present enormous challenges for employers and that “it is extremely difficult for them to determine when heat is dangerous because every employee experiences heat differently.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans, signed legislation to prevent local governments from requiring thermal protection for outdoor workers.
It was one of Biden’s first events since Thursday’s presidential debate, where his faltering performance raised questions about his age, and he used the opportunity to go on the attack. The 81-year-old president and his campaign team are trying to reassure donors that he can beat former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and last four more years in the White House.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University who specializes in environmental policy, said that by combining climate change with worker protections, Mr. Biden was moving into his “comfort zone” for an easy political victory.
“He likes to be ‘Lunchbox Joe’ and be on the side of working people and the working class,” Brinkley said. “This is a good issue for Joe Biden. It reminds environmentalists that he’s an ally and sounds the climate alarm, but also shows that he supports and protects the labor movement.”
Heat waves are lasting longer today than they did decades ago, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency also due out Tuesday. In recent years, heat waves in major U.S. urban areas have lasted an average of about four days, a full day longer than the average in the 1960s, the report said.
The proposed workplace regulations include two heat trigger thresholds, with each threshold requiring employers to implement different protective measures for workers. The first threshold would be set at a heat index of 80 degrees Fahrenheit and would require employers to provide access to potable water, break areas where workers can cool off and rest breaks when needed.
Workers would also be entitled to acclimatization plans, which would allow new employers who are not as accustomed to extreme heat to gradually increase their working hours as they adjust to the conditions.
A second trigger, set at a heat index of 90 degrees Fahrenheit, would require 15-minute rest breaks every two hours and require employers to monitor their workers for symptoms of heat illness.
Employers who fail to comply with the new standards could face fines of more than $16,000, depending on the violation, a senior administration official said.
Beyond its health impact, heat also has economic consequences. The California State Insurance Commissioner released a report this week that found that heat waves have cost Californians at least $7.7 billion over the past decade and killed nearly 460 people. In 2021, more than 2.5 billion hours of work in the U.S. agriculture, construction, manufacturing and service sectors were lost due to heat exposure, according to data compiled by The Lancet. Another report found that in 2020, labor losses due to heat exposure cost the economy about $100 billion, a figure that is expected to reach $500 billion annually by 2050.
Coral Davenport contributed from Washington.
News Source : www.nytimes.com
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