Congress blocks federal heat-safety rules for workers

What it does

This bill prohibits the Secretary of Labor from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing OSHA's proposed heat-injury prevention standard for outdoor and indoor work settings, which was published in August 2024. The bill blocks worker protections designed to prevent heat-related illness and injury across all work environments.

Why we flagged it

The bill's sole operative mechanism is to block a specific OSHA occupational safety standard. It does not amend, modify, or delay the standard—it prohibits its finalization and enforcement entirely, effectively killing the regulatory pathway to heat-injury prevention.

What the text implies

• Blocks not only the August 2024 standard but any 'substantially similar' standard, creating a legislative bar against future heat-safety rulemaking by OSHA without new congressional action.
• Removes federal baseline protections in states without their own heat-illness standards, leaving workers in those jurisdictions with no mandatory employer heat-safety requirements.
• Shifts occupational heat-illness risk management from regulatory requirement to voluntary employer practice, concentrating burden on individual workers to self-protect or litigate after injury.
• May increase workers' compensation and healthcare costs borne by workers and public systems if heat-related injuries rise without preventive standards.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

Workers lose access to federal heat-injury prevention standards that would have required employers to implement protections against heat illness and death. Heat-related workplace injuries and deaths are documented occupational hazards; removing the regulatory pathway to prevent them shifts risk entirely to workers and their families.

Who stands to gain

• labor-intensive industries (agriculture, construction, outdoor services, warehousing)
• employers in high-heat environments avoiding compliance costs

Named in the bill

Secretary of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Federal Register, 89 Fed. Reg. 70698, August 30, 2024

Where it stands

71 cosponsors: 71 Republicans.

• Nov 20, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Nov 20, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce”
• Jul 21, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
• Jul 21, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 18 - 15”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

6 lobbying clients named this bill on 8 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $3,834,938 in lobbying spend. A filing names 23 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 82% of bills with at least one filing.

Mark Messmer, the sponsor, reported $487,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• Nfib (national Federation of Independent Business) — $1,670,000 on 1 filing
• National Restaurant Association — $1,620,000 on 2 filings
• Associated General Contractors of America — $216,377 on 1 filing
• National Association of Letter Carriers — $140,000 on 1 filing
• University of Rochester — $108,561 on 1 filing

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.