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'Woefully insufficient': Federal judge accuses Justice Department of evading 'obligations' to comply with deportation flights request; WA caregivers rally against Medicaid cuts; NM's state methane regulations expected to thwart federal rollbacks; Governor, critics call out 'boilerplate' bills from WY 2025 session.

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Trump faces legal battles over education cuts, immigration actions, and moves by DOGE. Farmers struggle with USDA freezing funds. A Georgetown scholar fights deportation, and Virginia debates voter roll purges ahead of elections.

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Cuts to Medicaid and frozen funding for broadband are both likely to have a negative impact on rural healthcare, which is already struggling. Plus, lawsuits over the mass firing of federal workers have huge implications for public lands.

Biden administration's proposed heat rules would protect ID farmworkers

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Friday, July 5, 2024   

The Biden administration is proposing rules to protect workers from extreme heat.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said its proposed regulations would protect 36 million workers in outdoor and indoor settings.

Samantha Guerrero, community organizer for the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils, said protections are needed for the state's farmworkers.

"This would require worker access to clean drinking water and for access to shaded or indoor rest areas," Guerrero outlined. "And this would also allow the right to take regular rest breaks, which in Idaho law we currently don't have anything like that."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said 479 workers died from heat exposure between 2011 and 2022 and there were more than 33,000 heat-related illnesses and injuries reported in the same time frame.

A poll from the Rural Democracy Initiative found such of protections are popular, with 77% of rural voters supporting workers right to organize for safe working conditions.

Guerrero argued it is important for the federal government to step up in this area to fill in gaps in Idaho laws.

"There are a lot of farmworkers who are in danger of losing their lives in this extreme temperatures," Guerrero observed. "So far, we have seen no urgency from the state to enact or create any protections."

Guerrero emphasized protection from the heat for outdoor workers is overdue and the proposed rules are simply the minimum of what can be done. She added farmworkers are among the most affected by extreme heat and yet they have the fewest safeguards.

"They are continuously left out of having protections and out of conversations of what are their needs and how can we better serve them and make sure that we are protecting their lives," Guerrero asserted. "Because farm work is some of the most dangerous work on the planet."


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