ASA Comments on OSHA’s Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings Rulemaking

On Wednesday, January 26, 2022, ASA, along with the Construction Industry Safety Coalition (CISC) submitted comments to OSHA’s Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings Rulemaking.  As per our comments, “while the CISC appreciates OSHA’s rulemaking in this area and the hazards associated with working in extreme heat, the CISC has significant concerns with any regulatory approach that imposes complicated requirements on contractors and requirements that are triggered by threshold temperatures that are common in wide swaths of the country for much of the year.  CISC members feel strongly that a regulatory approach – if adopted – must be simple and should integrate the key concepts of ‘Water, Rest, and Shade.’  Because the construction environment is ever-changing and fluid, any regulatory approach must be simple and adaptable.  For the same reasons, the CISC encourages OSHA to consider a separate regulatory approach for the industry, as OSHA has done in other rulemakings, such as for Respirable Crystalline Silica.”

Additionally, we encouraged OSHA to actively engage with the Advisory Committee for Construction Safety and Health (“ACCSH”) in the development of any regulatory approach to heat illness and we requested that OSHA examine other existing state regulatory approaches to heat illness. Unfortunately, ASA, along with CISC membership, have found those approaches to be confusing and ineffective.