Imagine if tomorrow you woke up and heard a news report stating that a few states had passed laws which ban local governments from requiring workzone barriers like cones or concrete blocks? Or what if you heard they forbid localities from requiring a flagger for road work? Your first reaction might be to fact-check the report, because it doesn't sound like something any person in a position of authority would do.
However, something exactly like this has quietly been taking place, endangering the lives and wellbeing of our most vulnerable workers in the industry, while basically incentivizing employers, foremen, and contractors to expose their employees to jobsite scenarios with elevated levels of danger. Recently, a handful of sunbelt states passed laws forbidding their own cities and counties from enacting ordinances which require added breaks for workers exposed to extreme heat environments.
It might surprise you to know that extreme heat is already the deadliest weather hazard in the U.S., responsible for roughly 2,000 deaths each year (more than hurricanes, floods, or tornadoes). This might be why, over the past few years, you've heard a lot about this topic, and the trending data doesn't paint a cooler future. The number of extreme-heat days has been steadily on the rise.
And since the vast majority of heat related health impacts can be strategically mitigated, the men and women of our industry, now more than ever, need their government officials to strengthen safety rules protecting them. Rather than put laws into place that might punish those who fail to protect their crews, these bans invite undue risk, endangering those whom we depend on to build and maintenance vital infrastructure.
States Blocking Local Heat Protections
In 2023, Texas, under the leadership of Governor Greg Abbot and a deeply entrenched Republican majority in the State legislature, enacted a new law which eliminated local requirements for added water and shade breaks for construction workers. House Bill 2127 was a sweeping preemption law that nullified local ordinances which made these breaks mandatory for any outdoor workers. Most notably, it overturned rules for construction work in Austin and Dallas that added new ten minute breaks for every four hours of work, in addition to existing shift rules.
Texas leads the nation in heat fatalities for workers with 334 individuals dying as a direct result of heat-related factors in 2023, a more than 16% increase from the 279 deaths recorded in 2022.
While those deaths aren't specifically worker related, according to federal data, at least forty-two workers died from environmental heat exposure in Texas in the decade from 2011-2021, which doesn't include the last three years, the hottest in its history, following the local rule ban. Union organizations spoke out against the measure, but Texas isn't the only state rolling back safety measures.
For the State of Florida, a similar preemption measure was put into effect in 2024 by Governor Ron DeSantis, barring counties or cities from the same sorts of requirements that Texas prohibited the year prior. This was directly in response to Miami-Dade County's attempt to protect workers who are primarily outside. The language of the law prevents any heat-safety regulations beyond what is already required by State or Federal law, which sounds good on paper, but there are currently no such laws on record to fall back on.
Florida experienced 84 heat-related deaths in 2023 according to provisional data from the Center For Diseases Control (CDC), more than double that of 2022.
Georgia went somewhat of a step further in 2022 when they passed SB 331 that preempts local labor regulations, again, preventing any city or county from setting its own rules on a private employers' work hours, scheduling, or employee breaks, which would obviously include heat-related protocols.
Between 2018-2021 Georgia averaged about 15 heat-related deaths per year, but that has crept up to 20 in 2022, and public health authorities suspect that this official numbers may be severe undercounts, a concern not isolated to Georgia alone.
While there seems to be no shortage of political willpower to protect businesses from being held accountable for their workers' exposure to prolonged heat waves, there are even more states which have simply declined the opportunity to enshrine any new protections. Across the hottest regions in the country, while summer temperatures continue to soar to new records, many leaders are content to talk about workzone safety in a more hypothetical sense.
Florida, Texas, and Georgia all openly promote Work Zone Awareness Week, which took place this year from April 21-25, with social media posts and press releases. In 2021, Ron DeSantis even signed a special order, excerpted here, stating:
WHEREAS, workers diligently continue to improve, rebuild, and maintain roadways so that motorists can safely and efficiently travel; and
WHEREAS, roadway construction work and repairs must be done at all times of the day and are open to traffic, putting workers at risk; and...
WHEREAS, work zone safety continues to be a serious concern in Florida and is everyone's responsibility... this year's work zone awareness week slogan states, Drive Safe. Work Safe. Save Lives.
While the focus on work zone safety in this manner is absolutely critical to raising awareness, only focusing on the aspect related to drivers and auto accidents does potentially cast an empty and performative light on all the press releases, Facebook posts, and Instagram reels from various State officials, while they actively pass legislation that increases work zone danger.
By contrast, a few states have taken the opposite approach. For instance, in March 2024 Phoenix, Arizona unanimously passed a city ordinance requiring employers to provide rest, shade, water and cooling for outdoor workers. Arizona’s state government did not intervene to block Phoenix’s ordinance. However, such local protections remain rare.
Extreme Heat Days Are Getting Worse
Climate data clearly depicts an upward trend in not only the number of dangerously hot working days per year, but also an increase in their intensity and longevity. Here are some recent facts:
- More frequent heat waves: The average number of heat waves per year in major U.S. cities has tripled, from about 2 per year in the 1960s to 6 per year in the 2010s and early 2020s. Heat waves are also lasting longer (about a day longer on average) and stretching over a longer season than decades ago.
- Hotter days than in the past: 81% of 241 U.S. locations analyzed now experience significantly more extremely hot days each year than they did in 1970 (an increase of about 11 additional very hot days per year on average). In other words, dangerous heat days that used to be rare are increasingly routine.
- Sun Belt seeing the greatest increases: Many of the biggest jumps in extreme heat are occurring in the South. For example, Austin, Texas now endures about 47 more days above 100°F each year than it did in 1970, and Montgomery, Alabama sees about 31 more days above 95°F annually than in the past. Summers are not only hotter but also longer – the season of high heat starts earlier and ends later than it used to.
In 2023, the United States experienced its hottest summer on record, with persistent heat domes in states like Texas, Florida and Arizona and all-time high temperatures in many areas. Extreme heat is no longer a rare event – it’s a regular reality, especially in regions like the Southeast and Southwest. Which is why these recently passed laws restricting mandated additional breaks and protocols is concerning, especially if you are someone working on or around hot mix asphalt (HMA). And during a recent congressional hearing, experts testified that younger workers are actually at a greater amount of risk.
Richard Juang, who serves as Senior Manager for Environmental Justice Policy at Ceres said, “Notably, and perhaps counterintuitively, it was younger workers under the age of 35 and workers new to their jobs who reported the highest rates of heat-related illness. This suggests, perhaps a lack of preparedness in both demographics to simply self-manage heat stress. It further indicates a need to provide greater clarity with regards to heat protection for up and coming workforce.”
As our industry struggles to recruit and retain new labor, this could jeopardize not only their wellbeing, but a company's ability to find and keep quality workers.
The Blacktop Effect
Working in close proximity to HMA can dramatically increase heat stress and its effects on paving crew members. Freshly laid asphalt comes out of the back of a dump truck and lands in the paver anywhere between 300–350°F, and this extreme surface heat radiates into the surrounding environment. Studies and industry data confirm that pavement and other dark surfaces can run far hotter than ambient air on sunny days, raising local temperatures substantially.
For example, the EPA noted that pavement surface temperatures on a hot sunny day can be 50–90°F higher than the air temperature. This means that if the air is 90°F (not unusual for a summer day in southern states), the blacktop surface might reach 140–180°F, and it effectively acts as a giant radiant heat source for those working near it. To those workers, the localized “felt” temperature could easily be dozens of degrees higher than the official air temperature. A recent field study in 2023 quantified perceived temperature for road crews and found that:
- Radiant heat boost: On asphalt road sites, the workers’ perceived temperature was about 7–16°C higher than the ambient air temperature for young adults, and up to ~15°C higher for older workers. In Fahrenheit, this means the work environment felt roughly 13–29°F hotter due to the asphalt’s radiant heat load.
- “Feels-like” above 100°F: In that study, even at moderate air temps, asphalt workers experienced “very hot” conditions (>40°C/104°F perceived) throughout the day. Importantly, the radiating heat from HMA prolonged workers' effective exposure to dangerous heat levels throughout the work day, except during the coolest morning hours.
Taking this all into account, it essentially means that the number of "extreme heat days" officially recorded is much, much lower than what would be the direct experience for asphalt workers who are in close proximity to HMA. Being near 300°F+ asphalt significantly elevates the heat index in the work zone. The extra heat load can push a worksite from merely hot to extremely dangerous as the human body more readily absorbs radiant heat rising from the asphalt beneath workers, than from ambient air temperatures. I've had direct experience with this phenomena.
In July 2024, I worked on a paving job in Fredericksburg, VA, where the temperature reached 92°F by 10:00 AM. Out of curiosity, we took a heat reading while I operated a finish roller, which indicated temperatures ranging between 102-106°F. As you may know, since I was finish rolling, the temperature of the mat was nowhere near its peak paving temps. One can only imagine what the crew on the paver were feeling, but since I watched the owner/operator wearing shorts at the time, and that told me a lot. [Editor's Note: Please wear proper PPE when working on any jobsite.]
When Push Comes To Shove
Speaking with a few laborers and contractors, under the condition of anonymity, I asked what they thought would happen on a real-world jobsite. If it came down to following extreme-heat based protocols, or pushing through those safety precautions to either meet a deadline (whether a hard deadline or self-imposed I didn't specify), what would they expect to happen. Every person I asked said basically the same thing: push through.
It's important to note here, that all of them also added caveats that there should always be a way to both meet any safety needs and your deadlines for contractors working at a high level responsibly. It should never be "either/or", so if your foreman is having to choose between worker safety (including extreme-heat safety) and deadlines, then there are likely other things not as they should be.
But no jobsite is perfect. Things go wrong, delays happen, and if you work in this industry long enough, you may find yourself in a position where the pressure is on. It's those non-ideal cases where the people with the least amount power are most vulnerable. If your boss tells you to keep working, and it's that or lose a job, who could afford to say "no," even if they felt unsafe. The laws should protect those in the weaker position.
As reported by the Texas Tribune, Governor Abbot said of HB 2127, the ban on extreme-heat requirements enacted by localities, "[Would] provide a new hope to Texas businesses struggling under burdensome local regulations."
Thankfully, the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) has a free template which contractors can download and adapt for their crews available at https://www.asphaltpavement.org/expertise/health-safety/health-safety/heat-illness-prevention-plan-hipp and California, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state have all adopted their own extreme-heat guidelines.
On September 30, 2025, OSHA will conclude its final public comment period for a proposed federal rule regarding "Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings," but before that, you can visit https://www.regulations.gov/docket/OSHA-2021-0009 to submit public comment or evidence which will be taken into account and used by the agency to make an ultimate decision regarding new specific regulations.
Any new protections or requirements issued by OSHA would be unimpeded by laws like HB 2127 or SB 331.
