On a Florida roof in August, heat comes from every direction.

The sun beats down from above. The shingles radiate heat from below. Humidity makes it harder for sweat to evaporate, preventing the body from cooling itself. For roofers, construction workers, landscapers, delivery drivers, farmworkers, utility crews, and countless others, extreme heat is not an inconvenience. It is an occupational hazard.

The science is not ambiguous. The Environmental Protection Agency identifies heat as the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States. In 2024 alone, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded 48 workplace deaths caused by environmental heat exposure.

Florida’s heat is also becoming harder to dismiss as ordinary summer weather. According to the Florida Climate Center, most reporting stations across the Florida Peninsula experienced one of their ten warmest summers on record in 2025. Gainesville and Fort Pierce experienced their warmest summers in decades of recordkeeping.

Yet Florida’s state government did not respond by guaranteeing workers shade, recovery breaks, emergency plans, or protection from retaliation.

It stopped local governments from requiring them.