Hopefully, everyone had a fun and safe Independence Day holiday. As we all come back to work, some of the warmest weather of the summer thus far is rolling across the country. As such, we all need to make sure that our workplaces are protected from heat-related safety issues, most especially for our co-workers who must be out of doors or who work in non-climate-controlled spaces. Let’s all be mindful of the risks and take action to reduce them. Here’s the week’s regulatory news:

OSHA

Speaking of heat-related safety, OSHA has provided an advance screening of its new heat safety rule proposal for the workplace. It should be making an appearance in the Federal Register shortly. Meanwhile, here’s a look at the advance copy.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway is a new requirement that affected employers (there’s a list of exemptions, which are mostly office and telework employee related) must develop and deploy a written heat safety plan. Once the formal proposal is published, there will be a comment period and plenty of opportunity to provide feedback to OSHA before any rule is finalized.

NFPA Battery Safety

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is proposing to develop a new standard, NFPA 800, devoted specifically to battery safety. While this action is not specifically regulatory in nature per se, NFPA standards are routinely incorporated by reference across the regulatory spectrum and appear widely as part of state and local fire codes. As such, it’s very likely that any future NFPA standard on battery safety will end up impacting operations at most American workplaces. For a chance to see what this development is about and perhaps provide some feedback to the NFPA.

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