Cal/OSHA Standards Board Publishes Further Modifications of Draft Indoor Heat Illness Prevention Standard

Quick Hits

• On December 22, 2023, the Cal/OSHA Standards Board published additional modifications of the draft indoor heat illness standard.
• The proposed standard would “not apply to incidental heat exposures where an employee is exposed to temperatures at or above 82 degrees Fahrenheit and below 95 degrees Fahrenheit for less than 15 minutes in any 60-minute period,” though crucially, this exception would not apply to “[v]ehicles without effective and functioning air conditioning” or to “[s]hipping or intermodal containers during loading, unloading, or related work.”
• The carve-outs to the regulation exception would likely impose a greater compliance burden on certain warehouse operations.
• A vote on whether to adopt the standard will likely occur at the March 2024 Standards Board meeting.

This is the third draft of the regulation and initiates a new fifteen-day comment period.

The only further change in this version is the clarification of exceptions to the regulation:

“This section does not apply to incidental heat exposures where an employee is exposed to temperatures at or above 82 degrees Fahrenheit and below 95 degrees Fahrenheit for less than 15 minutes in any 60-minute period. This exception does not apply to the following:

1. Vehicles without effective and functioning air conditioning; or

2. Shipping or intermodal containers during loading, unloading, or related work.”

The carve-outs to the regulation exception would create a greater burden on warehouse operations where workers may enter shipping containers for loading and unloading operations.

The draft standard now enters its third fifteen-day comment period for the latest modification, which will end on January 12, 2024. The vote on whether to adopt the regulation will likely occur at the March 2024 Standards Board meeting. At a Standards Board meeting in May 2023, a California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) representative indicated that the Standards Board would like for the new regulation to be in effect by June 2024.

Ogletree Deakins’ Workplace Safety and Health Practice Group will continue to monitor developments with respect to the proposed Cal/OSHA heat illness prevention in indoor places standard and will provide updates on the firm’s California and Workplace Safety and Health blogs as additional information becomes available.

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