Clarksburg, California —One sunny August morning in this farming town, before the temperature rose to 103 degreesU.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra stood in front of a small public library.

He came to talk about the Biden administration’s efforts to protect farm workers from extreme heat AND smoke from a forest firetwo new public health issues in the foreground climate crisis.

“There is still not enough protection for workers harvesting the food we eat,” Becerra told a group of local reporters and government officials, who outnumbered farm workers in the audience.

Becerra, whose father worked in the fields, had just returned from visiting women grape pickers who protected themselves from the sun by wearing sweaters, long pants and scarves covering their noses and mouths. Summers are long and intense in Clarksburg, a town of about 300 on the Sacramento River, which supplies California Wine Industry with petite sirah, sauvignon blanc and other grapes picked by hundreds of farmhands.

“It’s going to be a hot day,” he added. “But they’re still dressed like it’s winter.”

The nation’s top health official, who is considering a run for governor, has become one of the Biden administration’s leading voices on climate change, focusing attention on low-income and other marginalized workers who are hit hardest by extreme weather. In March, HHS released voluntary safety guidelines and educational materials that farms can use to protect their workers from smoke and heat.

Becerra’s appearance before reporters outside the library was brief and timed to coincide with Farmworker Appreciation Day, near his home in Sacramento, where his wife, a doctor specializing in high-risk pregnancies, works. He was advertising educational materials on risk of heat-related illness and when temperatures might be too high to work. But he acknowledged there’s only so much he can do because workplace safety is overseen by the Department of Labor.

“Most of our jurisdictions do not reach out to these workers directly,” Becerra said after meeting with grape pickers. “We owe it to everyone who works to put food on our table to do our part to provide the safest working conditions possible.”

His colleagues distributed a press release that listed a number of resources, including free workplace health screenings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; training on heat and smoke hazards from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; and planned awards to 77 health care providers in high-need areas totaling $50 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme heat, which is already the No. 1 problem weather related killer in the U.S., as well as fueling wildfires across the country. There is no official tally of weather-related farmworker deaths, but heat-related deaths have risen in recent years, jumping from 1,722 in 2022 to about 2,300 last year.

The U.S. Department of Labor published a proposed workplace heat standard in July that would require employers to provide rest breaks, water and shade or air conditioning to workers exposed to excessive heat, but the final rule likely won’t appear for several years. It’s unclear whether it would replace state laws.

Five states have heat protections for workers who work outside or inside. In California, for example, employers must provide workers with water, cooling off areas and breaks when the temperature inside reaches 82 degrees or outside 80 degrees. The other states are Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon and Washington, and Maryland is set to finalize an overheating standard this year.

Although Becerra said states can create their own workplace safety regulations, a federal heat safety standard would provide protection nationwide by forcing states like Florida and Texas — whose Republican governors have signed laws banning the use of overheat protection — to meet minimum standards.

Becerra hopes states will take advantage of the programs offered by his health department, even though they are optional. Even California, which has one of the strictest heat protection standards in the country, could benefit workers.

Lizbeth Mastache, who previously met privately with Becerra, said the days she spends in grape-picking fields shrouded in wildfire smoke and extreme heat are not just more and more frequentbut they also make her sick.

She had headaches, fatigue and nausea from the heat, and ended up in the emergency room when the smoky skies triggered her asthma. She and other farmworkers told Becerra they needed guaranteed sick leave — to take care of themselves if the smoke and heat made them sick — and affordable health insurance.

“I had to work harvesting grapes during forest fires and they didn’t give us masks,” said Mastache, who has worked in agriculture for 14 years.

She added that some farms did not allow workers on their property to teach them how to prevent heat illness.

That’s a problem because many seasonal workers who move between states to work don’t know that California requires employers to provide them with water, breaks and training.

About three years ago, researchers at the University of California-Merced’s Community and Labor Center found that 15% of farmworkers in California did not receive minimum rest breaks, and more than 40% said their employer never provided a heat illness prevention plan. More than a third of farmworkers said they would not file a report against their employer, most of them out of fear of retaliation.

The California Farm Bureau, which represents about 29,000 farmers, disputes the center’s findings, saying there have been few cases of heat-related illnesses among its member workers. Bryan Little, director of employment policy for the bureau, said his organization has trained hundreds of farmers and ranchers on how to protect workers from heat-related illnesses, such as by providing water and portable shaded areas in the field where workers can cool off.

“They are taking action every day to make sure that we can avoid exposing people to these threats to the greatest extent possible,” Little said.

While farmworker rights advocates praise Becerra for calling attention to the harmful and sometimes fatal consequences because of heat and smoke from the wildfires, they worry that federal money won’t reach the most vulnerable. For example, there’s no guarantee that most of the $50 million earmarked for health care will go to health centers that serve farmworkers, said Amy Liebman, chief program officer at the Migrant Clinicians Network, which has been working on migrant safety and health for more than two decades.

“We need to make sure our health centers are prepared and our physicians are prepared,” Liebman said. “That means there needs to be a change not only in the emphasis but also in the funding.”

After Becerra left the podium, which was marked “Protecting Communities from Extreme Heat,” he disappeared into the library and minutes later headed to Stockton to promote another issue with Democratic Rep. Josh Harder, who represents a competitive Central Valley congressional district — lower prescription drug prices.

This article was written by KFF Health Newsa nationwide newsroom that does in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of the main operational programs KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. KFF Health News is the publisher California Healthlineeditorially independent service California Health Care Foundation.