Regulations rejected.

The seven-member Occupational Health and Safety Standards Board--all appointees of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger--rejected a series of emergency amendments by the governor's administration to the state's heat illness prevention regulation.

The proposed amendments were triggered by inspections during an April heat wave that found several agricultural employers in the Central Valley were not properly following heat illness prevention regulations passed three years ago.

The amendments added details to the requirement that employers provide shade to workers, and set a trigger of 85 degrees for the regulation to take effect. Besides agricultural companies, the amendments would have impacted the construction, landscaping and road maintenance industries.

By giving the amendments "emergency" status, the Schwarzenegger administration hoped they would be applied in time for the summer crop-picking season.

The amendments first came before the standards board in June, but questions immediately arose over the selection of 85 degrees as the threshold. The board voted to consider the amendments until its next meeting in July so that staff workers could respond.

According to Dean Fryer, spokesman for the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees the standards board, board members raised additional problems with the emergency amendments at the July 16 meeting. They questioned the need to apply the amendments to all industries when the problems flagged during inspections were concentrated in the agricultural sector.

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Board members also wanted consideration of exemptions for some construction projects where building shade canopies may not be feasible.

In the end, the board split 3-3, with one member absent, effectively quashing the implementation of the emergency amendments. Instead, the amendments will now go through the normal drafting and comment process, returning to the board early next year.

"We hope to have these amendments in place for next summer," Fryer said.

Staff reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [e-mail] or at [phone], ext. 227.