National Heat-Safety Programs Slashed May 31, 2025

Heat Season Is Here

Arizona Takes the Heat Seriously. The New Administration? Not so Much

New Heat Regulations for Arizona’s Outdoor Workers

Summer in the desert can be as intimidating and dangerous as winter in other parts of the country: Sleet or heat, it’s just not safe to go outside. In the desert, early risers escape from being trapped inside all day, in the home or office, by getting out at daybreak to jog, garden, walk their dogs, do daytime chores, anything to avoid high noon.

Last summer, the City of Tucson passed an ordinance that will help protect its own outdoor workers from the increasing danger of rising temperatures, primarily by giving them a jump on the day by an hour, 5 a.m. Early enough to stay cool and to leave before the afternoon bake off.

Phoenix and Mesa have also passed  5 a.m. in-the-summer laws to help workers endure the hottest place in America, Maricopa County.

Now the state is joining suit. This past month Gov. Hobbs signed a law that provides Arizona’s outdoor workers across the board the same relief: clock in at 5 a.m. on weekdays May 1 through Oct. 15.

About half of Arizona’s cities have early start times already. The governor’s move, according to the bill’s author, Phoenix Democrat Sen. Analise Ortiz, provides “consistency” across the state.

Regulations do make the difference.

“I think employers appreciate having specificity and certainty in terms of what they need to do in certain conditions,’’ Dennis Kavanaugh, chair of the Industrial Commission of Arizona, told Arizona Capital Media.

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Historic OSHA Heat Regulations Under Fire

A Dream for a Late Congressman, Trump Plans to Defund OSHA’s New Heat Standards for Outdoor Workers

The late Rep. Raul Grijalva, long a champion of workers, was unwavering in his determination to provide farmworkers and others who labor outside the federal protection they desperately need against the growing intensity of summer heat, and he got it. Known initially as “Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness, Injury, and Fatality Prevention Act of 2023,” after years of pushing it forward the bill was passed in Biden’s Administration and awaits the final step in the process: the public hearing.

Unless something changes between now and then, and it could, the full hearing of OSHA’s official “Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings” rule will be held virtually for the public on June 16, 2025, the final step before becoming law. The deadline for speaking or submitting comments has closed, but PSR will pass along the link to the proceedings as soon as the information is posted. 

The only barrier moving forward is the real threat of not becoming a law after all. The Economic Policy Institute, a labor think tank, reported last month that the Trump administration “is expected to block a critical new OSHA standard on extreme heat exposure” that would have protected an estimated 36 million workers.

Now in its 54th year, cuts to OSHA and the heat protection bill are “blatant attacks on workers that will result in thousands of preventable deaths, injuries, and illnesses,” according to the labor policy institute. It added that as Trump’s attacks “escalate” against workers’ rights, “states must take action to shore up their own worker health and safety protections wherever possible.”

The problem is that not all states are like Arizona or California, which have and continue to consider workplace heat-safety ordinances. A federal standard would prevent what has happened in Florida and Texas. Two of the nation’s hottest states, neither has bothered to enact heat standards. Instead, they’ve blocked jurisdictions from pursuing them.

Read “Too many workers die on the job every year. Trump’s attacks on OSHA will kill more” on  the institute’s Working Economics Blog.

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Safety Net for Avoiding Heat-Caused Deaths Is Severed

LIHEAP Saved Lives for 44 Years. Now Trump Wants to Kill It.

News that the Trump administration is putting the brakes on the 44-year-old safety net for low-income Americans is a heartbreaker. Since 1981, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, better known as LIHEAP, has saved lives by helping pay for ever-increasing utility bills when household funds run short.

Until recently, LIHEAP focused more on heating homes than cooling them. As climate change began warming Earth, heat, sometimes in excessive amounts, has become an equivalent threat to staying safe inside.  

If the program survives the recently passed budget reconciliation bill now on its way to the Senate, eligible households in Arizona would receive approximately $640 a year for energy bills, with an additional $500 available help pay past due bills — hopefully to avoid utility company shut-offs.

Whether it’s not being able to afford utility costs or having broken or old equipment, heat is killing Arizonans in greater numbers.

In 2012, heat-caused deaths numbered 97 in the state and heat-related deaths numbered 156. In 2023, the numbers rose to 460 for heat-caused fatalities and 990 for heat-related deaths such as heart attacks exacerbated by high temperatures.

“With record-breaking temperatures becoming more frequent, access to LIHEAP funding can mean the difference between life and death, particularly for seniors and individuals with preexisting health conditions,” said Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly in a letter to HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy written and signed by colleagues Sen. Ruben Gallegos, Rep. Greg Stanton, and Rep. Yassamin Ansari.

While LIHEAP has been funded through the end of summer 2025, the Trump administration has placed the program’s entire staff on administrative leave as part of an expansive reorganization at the Department of Health and Human Services, Scientific American. 

The LIHEAP staff is set to be fired on June 2, reported Scientific American.

“In 2023 alone, LIHEAP funding helped more than 27,000 Arizona households afford their utility bills, nearly three-fourths of whom received cooling assistance,” Kelly said.

Arizona is slated to receive $30.59 million in LIHEAP funding when the fiscal year begins, but funding is “now in limbo without federal staff to distribute it.”

The administration’s rationale for the cut in energy-related funding was summed up in the budget itself, which is heavy on energy, specifically of the fossil, nuclear, even coal kind.

The solution to supporting low-income individuals is not financial help, the bill confirms, “is through energy dominance” that will bring lower prices.

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Heat by the Numbers

The State of Arizona is a leader in heat education and safety, as it should be. We have the nation’s first chief heat officer, Dr. Eugene Livar. And the Department of Health and Safety has one of the country’s most expansive, data-driven resources for staying healthy in our beautiful, toasty summers.

Start here to learn what’s needed to stay safe.

The Numbers: Why You Should Pay Attention

990 heat-related deaths occurred in Arizona during 2023.

65% of the heat-related deaths occurred in Maricopa County.

63% of the heat-related deaths were people age 50 years or older.

3 out of every 4 heat-related deaths are among males.

A significant proportion of heat-related deaths occurred during the months of May, June, July, August, and September,

60% of the annual heat-related deaths occurred in July.

52% of heat-related deaths involved substance use in 2023.

The rate of heat-related, not caused, deaths among Arizona residents per 100,000 population is highest among La Paz, Mohave and Pima counties.

Of the known locations, the majority of heat-caused deaths are in the home.

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Take Your Medicine, but Keep It Cool  

Why are pill bottles orange?

Pharmaceutical companies use orange and opaque white pill bottles to keep dangerous UV light from damaging medications. Excessive heat and light can decrease the potency of some medications. Anxiety medications lorazepam and diazepam can decrease in potency by 75% and 25%, respectively, if they are exposed to temperatures above 98 degrees, according to Health Digest.

Inhalers require attention in the heat. An albuterol inhaler could possibly explode in temperatures exceeding 120 degrees. Consider that it takes 60 minutes in the sun for  your car to reach 160 degrees. Inside. 

Download a full list of medications that can potentially cause “adverse health impacts” during excessive heat. From the Arizona Department of Health Services.

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Karen Peterson