CLIMATEWIRE | Florida lawmakers are moving to block local heat protections for outdoor workers under an industry-backed bill that Republicans say is necessary to safeguard the Sunshine State’s economy.
The bill passed a state House committee last week on party lines after the Republican chair limited public testimony to 60 seconds per person — outraging opponents who accused the GOP of rushing legislation that would endanger workers’ lives. A companion bill has also advanced through state Senate committees.
Laura Munoz of Florida Student Power choked back tears as she told lawmakers her father died after working outdoors in the heat: “He left every morning, and I watched him take his water and his ice — and he did everything he could to be able to go back home to us,” she said.
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“OSHA failed us,” she said, referring to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “The private market and private employers failed us. And I’m here to ask you, did my father not deserve better? Did I not deserve better? How much profit was worth his life?”
The bill’s sponsor, GOP state Rep. Tiffany Esposito, said her husband has worked in South Florida’s construction sector for two decades — and that’s how she knows the industry takes worker safety seriously.
“It was a very hot summer, and I experienced that in my household with my husband going to work everyday, so I have empathy for this,” she said, adding that the best thing for Florida workers is for the state’s economy to grow.
“This is very much a people-centric bill,” Esposito said. “If we want to talk about Floridians thriving, they do that by having good job opportunities. And if you want to talk about health and wellness, and you want to talk about how we can make sure that all Floridians are healthy, you do that by making sure that they have a good job. And in order to provide good jobs, we need to not put businesses out of business.”
Florida’s proposal is part of a nationwide push and pull between states and cities over heat standards. One reason for the turmoil is because federal rules have remained bogged down for more than a decade, even as temperatures rise to record highs. Some states, such as Washington and Oregon, have set their own heat standards for outdoor workers.
But in Republican-governed states, local efforts to set heat standards are sparking a backlash from conservatives and business groups. Texas last year passed a law to preempt local heat protections after Austin and Dallas started requiring 10-minute breaks every four hours for construction workers. A court has ruled that law unconstitutional, but it remains in effect as the state appeals the decision.
In Florida, Miami-Dade County has proposed requiring 10-minute breaks in the shade for every two hours that construction and farm workers spend outdoors. Spurred by two farmworker deaths amid last year’s extreme heat, the county has postponed a vote on those standards until March.
Florida is projected to experience more days of extreme heat — when temperatures are at least 95 degrees — under 2 degrees of global warming, compared to averages over the last 30 years, according to the Florida Climate Center at Florida State University. The level of increase depends on both location and the amount of warming, with inland Florida projected to see 40-plus additional days of extreme heat annually under a high emissions scenario.
Republican lawmakers warned that heat regulations would harm the state’s economy by imposing rules that would be harder for small businesses to follow. The construction industry also claimed that local standards would make workers less safe by creating a patchwork of rules that could confuse managers.
“Accidents are more likely to happen where there’s inconsistencies in regulations and uncertainty of expectations,” said Carol Bowen, a lobbyist for the Florida chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors.
Under HB 433, local heat standards would be outlawed, including rules for shade breaks, water availability and first aid as well as protections for workers who report heat stress.
Florida cities and counties would be barred from imposing heat protections on any employers; that would extend even to their own contractors, and the bill would bar local governments from inquiring about a company’s heat standards when soliciting bids.
Florida currently has no statewide standard for heat protections. The bill directs the state Department of Commerce to create a heat rule if no federal regulation has been adopted by July 2028, but it offers little guidance on what that rule should do. It would require the legislature to approve it, too.
Some Republican lawmakers cast doubt on the value of heat regulations at all, saying outdoor work is inherently difficult and citing their own experience with manual labor.
Republican state Rep. Webster Barnaby noted that in some of the stories of workers injured or killed by heat, preexisting conditions such as diabetes could have played a role.
“We've heard a lot of hyperbole here today,” he said. “I understand the importance of us having compassion for our workers. … But we must continue to do the hard work — that's what we do on this committee — of making sure that our economy is an economy that's growing, it's an economy that is attractive.”
Opponents of the bill said if Republicans believed the bill would help workers, they wouldn’t have limited public testimony on it.
“How can you sit in this air-conditioned room paid for by our tax dollars and be so incredibly dismissive of the needs of working Floridians, some of whom are sitting in front of you?” said Yenisbel Vilorio, Florida director of the progressive group State Innovation Exchange Action.
Her remarks were cut short by the panel’s chair, Republican Rep. Bob Rommel, who also interrupted another lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Dotie Joseph, when she questioned why public testimony was limited.
“If you want to debate the bill, debate the bill, not the way I run the committee,” said Rommel. “We try to run an efficient meeting.”
Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.