#regulation rollback

The Biden administration took steps to shield workers from extreme temperatures. The Trump administration is taking a gentler approach with employers.

The New York Times | By Scott Dance | Aug. 1, 2026 | Gift 🎁 Link (no paywall)

Republicans in Washington are taking steps to roll back federal workplace heat protections as summer temperatures surge.

The Trump administration is moving to rewrite Biden-era rules that would mandate breaks and access to water and shade for workers, in a step businesses lauded but that labor groups said could weaken already limited federal protections. Congress is considering legislation that would go a step further, prohibiting the Labor Department from adopting the Biden-era heat plan or similar rules.

A​t the same time, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is curtailing workplace inspections that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s appointees had increased to raise awareness of heat-related illnesses. [....] The proposed revisions would also reverse momentum toward codifying extreme heat as a workplace hazard. Stretches of record heat have persisted across the country this summer, punctuating decades of steadily climbing summer temperature highs and more frequent spells of dangerously hot conditions. Another “heat dome” is bringing extreme temperatures to the South and Midwest this week. [....] Heat is linked to hundreds of workplace deaths each year, but labor groups say the true toll is unknown because heat-related illnesses are not properly tracked or reported. In 2024, the death toll was at least 530, according to data compiled by the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Trump Doesn't Care About Worker Health & Safety

For Trump, it is all about helping corporations make more money for shareholders.

Worker safety is Trump's last concern.

The Trump administration is quietly carrying out a plan that aims to kill hundreds of bans on highly toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” and other dangerous compounds in consumer goods. The bans, largely at the state level, touch most facets of daily life, prohibiting everything from bisphenol in children’s products to mercury in personal care products to PFAS in food packaging and clothing. If successful, the public would almost certainly be exposed to much higher levels of chemicals linked to a range of serious health issues such s cancer, hormone disruption, liver disease, birth defects, and reproductive system damage, the plan’s opponents say. The Trump Environmental Protection Agency move involves changing the way the agency carries out chemical risk evaluations, which would also pre-empt state laws that offer the one of few meaningful checks on toxic chemicals in consumer products. The plan could also largely undo California’s effective Proposition 65 law, and could spell the end of meager federal prohibitions, including an early 2024 ban on asbestos. “This will increase health risks to consumers by exposing them to toxic chemicals,” said an EPA employee who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “It also allows the market for toxic chemicals to continue, because it maintains the financial incentive for them to be made for all these consumer products.” Although the risk presented by most chemicals in individual consumer products is often low, the public is typically exposed to a wide range of toxic substances throughout the day, and those combined daily exposures over the long term present a serious health risk.