While President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act aims at limiting greenhouse gas emissions through billions in clean technology investments, less salient but nonetheless far-reaching policies are now emerging to limit not emissions but damages already occurring from extreme heat and flooding traceable to climate change.

On August 30, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced that it was proposing first-ever regulations to protect an estimated 36 million workers from heat injury and illness in both outdoor and indoor employment settings. Its proposal comes after the agency first broached heat regulations in 2021.

OSHA’s notice describes heat as “the leading cause of death” in the United States “among all weather-related phenomena.” An average of 40 deaths a year occurred from heat exposure, along with an estimated average of 3,890 annual work-related heat injuries and illnesses, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data OSHA cites—adding that the numbers are “likely vast underestimates.”

Under the rule, any covered employer would be required to develop a “Heat Injury and Illness Prevention Plan” that would establish safety measures to follow when regular temperature monitoring reveals work-area heat thresholds have been surpassed.

Comments are due December 30, but among comments already submitted, the 50,000-member Utility Workers Union of America said it strongly supports OSHA’s proposed rule. The industry is “already experiencing the impacts of climate change,” with more frequent and severe heat events, the union noted, and urged OSHA to maintain standards that account for increasing climate risks “as environmental conditions evolve.”

More than 100 Democratic members of Congress also support the rule. In a July letter to OSHA, the lawmakers called for “the fastest possible implementation” of the rule. On average, OSHA health and safety rules take seven years to complete. A few days later, California Representative Judy Chu and other Democrats reintroduced a House bill directing OSHA to promulgate worker heat protections.

But large agriculture and business groups are fighting both state and federal heat standards, arguing against their feasibility and citing such rules’ complexity. In 2023, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a law eliminating local ordinances mandating water breaks for workers, although government data show Texas is where the most workers have died from high temperatures.

Workers are not alone in feeling heat’s impacts. In September, the New York Times reported on engineering experts’ concerns that extreme heat, together with flooding, poses a growing threat to U.S. bridges. With extreme heat, bridges can fall apart, a vulnerability that Department of Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg said is appearing “everywhere across the country.”

As flooding worsens under changing climate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency in July published a rule implementing a federal flood risk management standard, or FFRMS, first proposed in 2015. It will require all public infrastructure rebuilt using FEMA money after a flooding disaster—such as bridges, public housing, hospitals, fire stations, and highways—to be elevated at least two feet above the local flood level. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, commenting that flooding is the top threat the agency responds to, told reporters the new rule is “a really big deal and historic for us,” saving lives and taxpayer dollars.

Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney for environmental health Joel Scata notes that, besides FEMA, the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Health and Human Services have all adopted the FFRMS. So, the standard applies to any infrastructure built by these agencies, which would include new assets, not just rebuilding flood-damaged ones. However, FEMA’s expenditures are mostly “post-disaster,” Scata says. Since the 1990s, it has spent more than $103.5 billion repairing public infrastructure damaged by floods and flood-related events, like hurricanes and severe storms, compared with only about $18 billion on pre-flood projects.

Moreover, federal agencies that are big infrastructure funders, like DOT and the Energy Department, haven’t issued rules or guidance concerning the FFRMS, Scata says. Under the new infrastructure act and the IRA, federal agencies are now investing hundreds of billions of dollars to construct major public works, including DOT’s nearly $150 billion just for the National Highway Performance Program to construct new facilities. If these agencies don’t apply the FFRMS, new infrastructure will be at potential risk of flooding or extreme heat.

With weather-related disasters costing the United States about $150 billion a year, on average, surely new rules for climate impacts are overdue.