(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



As Texas removes worker heat protections, Biden bolsters them [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-07-28  

Parts of Arizona have been so hot in recent weeks that people are arriving in emergency rooms with serious burns just from having fallen on the sidewalk. This comes in a month that has broken records—multiple times—for the hottest day ever measured on Earth.

President Joe Biden responded to this ongoing disaster on Thursday, announcing that the Department of Labor will issue the first ever hazard alert for heat. "Even those places that are used to extreme heat have never seen as hot as it is now for as long as it's been," he said. "Even those who deny that we're in the midst of a climate crisis can't deny the impact of extreme heat is having on Americans."

People affected by the extreme heat include "the farm workers, who have to harvest crop in the dead of night to avoid the high temperatures, or farmers who risk losing everything they planted for the year, or the construction workers, who literally risk their lives working all day in blazing heat, and in some places don't even have the right to take a water break," Biden said, taking a swipe at Texas, where state lawmakers recently passed a law overriding local ordinances giving construction workers mandatory water breaks. "That's outrageous."

The heat hazard alert, Biden said, “clarifies that workers have a federal heat-related—have federal heat-related protections. We should be protecting workers from hazardous conditions, and we will. And those states where they do not, I’m going to be calling them out, where they refuse to protect these workers in this awful heat.”

Additionally, Biden highlighted a series of programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that will help mitigate the effects of such heat. That includes expanding water storage capacity in California, Colorado, and Washington; grants to plant trees in cities and towns, reducing heat islands; money to make buildings more energy efficient and heat resistant; and money to open cooling centers.

Biden stopped short of declaring a climate emergency, which would give him expanded powers to address the causes of climate change, a move that advocates have pushed for. Rep. Ruben Gallego, who has pushed for legislation adding extreme heat to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s list of major disaster-qualifying events, called the moves Biden announced Thursday a “meaningful step,” but said, “We need a swift, immediate deployment of resources, and that requires FEMA declaring extreme heat an emergency.”

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/28/2183781/-As-Texas-removes-worker-heat-protections-Biden-bolsters-them

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/