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California workplace safety officials will try again to pass a long-delayed rule to protect inmate workers from extreme heat this summer, separate from correctional officers and other prison staff.

The Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, announced today that plans to revise a proposed indoor heating rule for all workers statewide to create “state and local correctional facilities.”

That would temporarily resolve cost concerns raised by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and allow the rule to be formally approved this summer for all other workers. The rule is intended to benefit those who work indoors without air conditioning, as rising temperatures increase Californians’ risk of heat illness. Industries most likely to be affected include warehouses, restaurants and manufacturing.

The proposed rule requires employers to attempt to cool workplaces that heat above 87 degrees indoors or take other steps to reduce the risks of heat illness, such as slowing production, changing schedules or requiring more breaks.

California has had a heat illness prevention rule for outdoor workers since 2005, when it rushed to implement regulations after the deaths of four farmworkers. If the new rule is finalized, California would join two other states that have a workplace indoor heating rule. A 2016 state law set a 2019 deadline for the rule.

Eric Berg, deputy director of Cal/OSHA, announced the new plans at today’s meeting. from an independent labor regulations board, a month after that board was originally expected to approve the rule.

But in a last-minute move the night before the scheduled vote, the administration withdrew a required fiscal approval, saying the rule could cost the state prison system billions of dollars more than labor agencies had estimated. That forced the state to miss an administrative deadline at the end of March to implement the rule.

Speaking today before the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, Berg said the agency found a time extension in state law that will allow it to revise the rule to exempt prisons and add the administration’s fiscal approval. The revised rule will likely take at least a few weeks to be approved because it requires a 15-day public comment period and must be voted on again by the safety board.

“We are committed to working with the board and board staff to maintain an expedited timeline to ensure Californians have protections from the dangers of indoor heat this summer,” Berg said.

Cal/OSHA, Berg said, will next separately propose a new rule to address heat for jail and prison workers. That process will likely require a separate cost analysis and public hearing, and could take anywhere from a few months to a few years.

He said he doesn’t anticipate the agency will make any further changes to the general indoor heating rule, which has already undergone several revisions since Cal/OSHA began developing it in 2017.

But employer groups during today’s meeting continued to urge changes, calling the proposed rule confusing and costly.

“To the extent the Department of Corrections has the ability to address their concerns, good for them,” said Bryan Little, director of labor affairs for the California Farm Bureau. “Sometimes I worry that maybe some of the concerns we’ve raised haven’t been heard or acted upon in a meaningful way.”

Worker advocates said they were most interested in the rule becoming official this summer, but were disappointed to see correctional workers left out.

“It is a grave concern that correctional workplaces are being excluded from the heat standard, leaving not only guards but also nurses, janitors and many other correctional workers throughout California unprotected from the heat, not to mention all workers imprisoned people also vulnerable to these dangerous conditions. ”said AnaStacia Wright, a lawyer for the advocacy group Worksafe.

The administration has not provided a public explanation for its prison cost estimates or why its concerns were discovered so late.

Both the finance and corrections departments have only said that the labor agency’s estimate (about $1 million in costs in the first year of the rule) was inaccurate, but neither has stated exactly how much they believe it will cost.

Corrections spokesman Albert Lundeen said last month that the rule would require “immediate infrastructure investments at CDCR facilities across the state and would require the department to immediately ask the Legislature to appropriate billions of dollars for extensive prison improvements.” capital”.

In response to a pending public records request filed by CalMatters for prison cost estimates, Finance officials have said they will retain some records under an exception for “records that are part of the Governor and Chief Financial Officer’s deliberative process” on budgetary and political decisions. . That decision was made by Finance Senior Staff Advisor Donna Ferebee.

The growing risks of extreme heat have confronted the Department of Corrections, which has several prisons in desert cities, for years. State prisons are mostly cooled by evaporative coolers or fans, Lundeen said.

A project to install evaporative cooling units at the California Institution for Men in Chino is currently expected to cost the state $18 million in planning and construction. A project at Ironwood State Prison in Blythe to replace an aging HVAC refrigeration system has been under construction since 2018 and is estimated to cost $187 million.

For private industry, a 2021 RAND Corp. economic impact report estimated the indoor heating rule’s costs for employers statewide totaled $215 million in the first year and about $88 million annually. then primarily for employers to install air conditioning or fans or provide cooling. low areas. The analysis also indicated that employers would save money because the standard would reduce heat injuries in indoor workplaces by 40% by 2030.