Occupational safety and health standards: heat illness: wildfire smoke.

Existing law grants the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which is within the Department of Industrial Relations, jurisdiction over all employment and places of employment, with the power necessary to enforce and administer all occupational health and safety laws and standards. The Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, an independent entity within the department, has the exclusive authority to adopt occupational safety and health standards within the state. Existing law, the California Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1973 (OSHA) , requires employers to comply with certain safety and health standards, as specified, and charges the division with enforcement of the act. Under OSHA, certain knowing, negligent, or willful violations of safety and health standards are punishable as a misdemeanor. The existing Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez heat illness standard provides for the prevention of heat-related illness of employees in outdoor places of employment, as prescribed. There is also an existing standard for workplace protection from wildfire smoke. This bill would require the division, before December 1, 2025, to submit to the standards board a rulemaking proposal to consider revising the heat illness standard and wildfire smoke standard. The bill would require the division, in preparing the proposed regulations, to consider revising the heat illness standard to require employers to distribute copies of the Heat Illness Prevention Plan, as provided. The bill would similarly require a rulemaking proposal to consider revising the wildfire smoke standard, with regard to farmworkers, to reduce the existing air quality index threshold for PM2.5 particulate matter at which control by respiratory protective equipment becomes mandatory for farmworkers. The bill would require the standards board to review the proposed changes and consider adopting revised standards on or before December 31, 2025. The bill would further require the division to consider regulations, or revising existing regulations, relating to protections related to acclimatization to higher temperatures, as provided.