Today, Americans are feeling the heat and will be feeling even more as this July becomes the hottest month ever recorded on our planet.
Over 150 million people in the U.S. were under heat alerts yesterday as dozens of states around the nation face major challenges from the unprecedented heat, especially as the country’s largest power grid that covers 13 states and Washington D.C. begins to strain.
From Miami to California, and all the way to Minnesota, folks and businesses are getting hit hard. In Arizona, at least 25 people died from the heat, while at least two farm workers died in Florida. The Biden administration is calling for the labor department to issue a nationwide heat advisory for workers, but some protections fall on states.
President Biden said, “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.”
Florida remains one of those states without explicit heat protections for workers, but Miami-Dade County took the first step toward creating its own heat protections for outdoor workers on July 18. A heat standard bill was introduced that would require companies to better protect their outdoor workers and give them water and shade breaks every two hours when the heat index is over 90 degrees.
