During Thursday's House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing, Rep. Mark Messmer (R-IN) questioned Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer about the national heat standard.
00:00For his five minutes of questioning, the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Messmer.
00:03Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Secretary, for being here today.
00:07Of course. Glad to be here.
00:09I appreciate your phone call earlier this week.
00:11In my 36 years as a prior business owner of a family business that's been in a business for 54 years in the construction industry,
00:19in that time dealing with hundreds of employees,
00:22we've never had an incident where we had an employee deal with a heat-related issue on the job.
00:27I cannot believe that my experience is unique, and I question the need for the proposed heat rule
00:33that was rolled under the Biden administration.
00:35It's an onerous, one-size-fits-all program that fails to take and impact geographic variability,
00:43exertion levels required on the job, and indoor versus outdoor environments that people work in.
00:50You mentioned earlier on a labor-related question from my colleague from South Carolina
00:55that a one-size-fits-all program does not work.
00:58In the context of the proposed heat rule,
01:01do you also agree that a one-size-fits-all program is not workable?
01:06Absolutely.
01:08One-size-fits-all usually is a pretty standard practice that doesn't always work.
01:12Everybody geographically in different parts of the country will address this.
01:16What the workforce also, as you mentioned in your company, for years and years and years have not had an incident.
01:23And again...
01:24Under current OSHA rules that require water accessibility to employees at all times,
01:29and you deal with the heat and you let people take breaks.
01:33OSHA's goal is to uphold those standards.
01:35We want to keep our workers safe.
01:36We want to work with our businesses and our companies so that whatever rulemaking and litigation comes forward,
01:42that we're protecting, one, the American worker, and the compliance is there, and that we can determine that.
01:47And I would look to Congress, but as this is under active rulemaking, I hate to say it again.
01:53I can't have a full, detailed discussion with you, but we will continue to work with all the stakeholders,
01:58including companies like yourself and businesses, in order to gather that information,
02:02go through those transcripts, and then report back as we move through the rulemaking process from the Department of Labor.
02:07Well, I appreciate that.
02:09As the Department moves forward with their public hearings, will we be able to share that information gathered back to myself and the members of the committee?
02:17Absolutely.
02:18Okay.
02:19And will you please commit to working with me as this issue moves forward?
