Public health insurance programs, especially Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), are more likely to cover populations at increased risk from extreme heat, including low-income individuals, people with chronic illnesses, older adults, disabled adults, and children. When temperatures rise to extremes, these populations are more likely to need care for their heat-related or heat-exacerbated illnesses. Congress must prioritize addressing the heat-related financial impacts onthese programs. To boost the resilience of these programs to extreme heat, Congress should incentivize prevention by enabling states to facilitate health-related social needs (HRSN) pilots that can reduce heat-related illnesses, continue to support screenings for the social drivers of health, and implement preparedness and resilience requirements into the Conditions of Participation (CoPs) and Conditions for Coverage (CfCs) of relevant programs. 

Extreme Heat Increases Fiscal Impacts on Public Insurance Programs

Healthcare costs are a function of utilization, which has been rapidly rising since 2010. Extreme heat is driving up utilization as more Americans seek medical care for heat-related illnesses. Extreme heat events are estimated to be annually responsible for nearly 235,000 emergency department visits and more than 56,000 hospital admissions, adding approximately $1 billion to national healthcare costs. 

Heat-driven increases in healthcare utilization are especially notable for public insurance programs. One recent study found that there is a 10% increase in heat-related emergency department visits and a 7% increase in hospitalizations during heat wave days for low-income populations eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare. Further demonstrating the relationship between increased spending and extreme heat, the Congressional Budget Office found that for every 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries, extreme temperatures cause an additional 156 emergency department visits and $388,000 in spending per day on average. These higher utilization rates also drive increases in Medicaid transfer payments from the federal government to help states cover rising costs. For every 10 additional days of extreme heat above 90°F, annual Medicaid transfer payments increase by nearly 1%, equivalent to an $11.78 increase per capita. 

Additionally, Medicaid funds services for over 60% of nursing home residents. Yet Medicaid reimbursement rates often fail to cover the actual cost of care, leaving many facilities operating at a financial loss. This can make it difficult for both short-term and long-term care facilities to invest in and maintain the cooling infrastructure necessary to comply with existing requirements to maintain safe indoor temperatures. Further, many short-term and long-term care facilities do not have the emergency power back-ups that can keep the air conditioning on during extreme weather events and power outages, nor do they have emergency plans for occupant evacuation in case of dangerous indoor temperatures. This can and does subject residents to deadly indoor temperatures that can worsen their overall health outcomes.

The Impacts of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1) will have consequential impacts on federally-supported health insurance programs. The Congressional Budget Office projects that an estimated 10 million people could lose their healthcare coverage by 2034. Researchers have estimated that a loss of coverage could result in 50,000 preventable deaths. Further, health care facilities and hospitals will likely see funding losses as a result of Medicaid funding reductions. This will be especially burdensome to low-resourced hospitals, such as those serving rural areas, and result in reductions in available offerings for patients and even closure of facilities. States will need support navigating this new funding landscape while also identifying cost-effective measures and strategies to address the health-related impacts of extreme heat.

Advancing Solutions that Safeguard America’s Health from Extreme Heat

To address these impacts in this additionally challenged context, there are common-sense strategies to help people avoid extreme heat exposure. For example, access to safely cool indoor environments is one of the best preventative strategies for heat-related illness. In particular, Congress should create a demonstration pilot that provides eligible Medicare beneficiaries with cooling assistance and direct CMS to encourage Section 1115 demonstration waivers for HRSN related to extreme heat. Section 1115 waivers have enabled states to finance pilots for life-saving cooling devices and air filter distributions. These HRSN financing pilots have helped several states to work around the challenges of U.S. underinvestment in health and social services by providing a flexible vehicle to test methods of delivering and paying for healthcare services in Medicaid and CHIP. As Congress members explore these policies, they should consider the impact of H.R. 1’s new requirements for 1115 waiver’s proof of cost-neutrality.

To further support these efforts for heat interventions, Congress should direct CMS to continue Social Drivers of Health (SDOH) screenings as a part of Quality Reporting Programs and integrate questions about extreme heat exposure risks into the screening process. These screenings are critical for identifying the most vulnerable patients and directing them to the preventative services they need. This information will also be critical for identifying facilities that are treating high proportions of heat-vulnerable patients, which could then be sites for testing interventions like energy and housing assistance.

Congress should also direct the CMS to integrate heat preparedness and resilience requirements and metrics into the Conditions of Participation (CoPs) and Conditions for Coverage (CfCs), such as through the Emergency Preparedness Rule. This could include assessing the cooling capacity of a health care facility under extreme heat conditions, back-up power that is sufficient to maintain safe indoor temperatures, and policies for resident evacuation in the event of high indoor temperatures. For safety net facilities, such as rural hospitals and federally qualified health centers, Congress should consider allocating resources for technical assistance to assess these risks and the infrastructure upgrades.

This memo addresses HUD’s learning agenda question, “How do the impacts, costs, and resulting needs of slow-onset disasters compare with those of declared disasters, and what are implications for slow-onset disaster declarations, recovery aid programs, and HUD allocation formulas?” We examine this using heat events as our slow-onset disaster, and hurricanes as declared disaster.

Heat disasters, a classic “slow-onset disaster”, result in significant damages, which can exceed damage caused by more commonly declared disasters like hurricanes due to high loss of life from heat. The Federal Housing and Urban Development agency (HUD) can play an important role in heat disasters because most heat-related deaths occur in the home or among those without homes; therefore, the housing sector is a primary lever for public health and safety during extreme heat events. To enhance HUD’s ability to protect the public from extreme heat, we suggest enhancing interagency data collection/sharing to facilitate the federal disaster declarations needed for HUD engagement, working heat mitigation into HUD’s programs, and modifying allocation formulas, especially if a heat disaster is declared.

Challenge and Opportunity

Slow-Onset Disasters Never Declared As Disasters

Slow-onset disasters are defined as events that gradually develop over extended periods of time. Examples of slow-onset events like drought and extreme heat can evolve over weeks, months, or even years. By contrast, sudden-onset disasters like hurricanes, occur within a short and defined timeframe. This classification is used by international bodies such as the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

HUD’s main disaster programs typically require a federal disaster declaration , making HUD action reliant on action by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under the Stafford Act. However, to our knowledge, no slow-onset disaster has ever received a federal disaster declaration, and this category is not specifically addressed through federal policy.

We focus on heat disasters, a classic slow-onset disaster that has received a lot of attention recently. No heat event has been declared a federal disaster, despite several requests. Notable examples include the 1980 Missouri heat and drought events, the 1995 Chicago heat wave, which caused an estimated 700 direct fatalities, as well as the 2022 California heat dome and concurrent wildfires. For each request, FEMA determined that the events lacked sufficient “severity and magnitude” to qualify for federal assistance. FEMA holds a precedent that declared disasters need to have a discrete and time-bound nature, rather than a prolonged or seasonal atmospheric condition.

“How do the impacts, costs, and resulting needs of slow-onset disasters compare with those of declared disasters?” 

Heat causes impacts in the same categories as traditional disasters, including mortality, agriculture, and infrastructure, but the impacts can be harder to measure due to the slow-onset nature. For example, heat-related illness and mortality as recorded in medical records are widely known to be significant underestimates of the true health impacts. The same is likely true across categories.

Sample Impacts

We analyze impacts within categories commonly considered by federal agencies–human mortality, agricultural impacts, infrastructure impacts, and costs for heat, and compare them to counterparts for hurricanes, a classic sudden-onset disaster. Other multi-sectoral reports of heat impacts have been compiled by other entities, including SwissRe and The Atlantic Council Climate Resilience Center.

We identified 3,478 deaths with a cause of “cataclysmic storms” (e.g., hurricanes; International Classification of Disease Code X.37) and 14,461 deaths with a cause of heat (X.30) between 1999-2020 using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC). It is important to note that the CDC database only includes death certificates that list heat as a cause of death, while it is widely recognized that this can be a significant underaccount. However, despite these limitations, CDC remains the most comprehensive national dataset for monitoring mortality trends.

HUD can play an important role in reducing heat mortality. In the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Dome, most of the deaths occurred indoors (reportedly 98% in British Columbia) and many in homes without adequate cooling. In hotter Maricopa County, Arizona, in 2024, 49% of all heat deaths were among people experiencing homelessness and 23% occurred in the home.  Therefore, across the U.S., HUD programs could be a critical lever in protecting public health and safety by providing housing and ensuring heat-safe housing.

Agricultural Labor

Farmworkers are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat, and housing can be part of a solution to protect them. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), between 1992 to 2022, 986 workers across industry sectors died from exposure to heat, with agricultural workers being disproportionately affected. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, farmworkers in California are about 20 times more likely to die from heat-related stress, compared to the general population, and they estimate that the average U.S agricultural worker is exposed to 21 working days in the summer growing season that are unsafe due to heat. A study found that the number of unsafe working days due to extreme heat will double by midcentury, increasing occupational health risks and reducing labor productivity in critical sectors. Adequate cooling in the home could help protect outdoor workers by facilitating cooling periods during nonwork hours, another way in which HUD could have a positive impact on heat.

Infrastructure and Vulnerability

Rising temperatures significantly increase energy demand, particularly due to the widespread reliance on air conditioning. This surge in demand increases the risk of power outages during heat events, exacerbating public health risks due to potential grid failure. In urban areas, the built environment can add heat, while in rural areas residents are at greater risk due to the lack of infrastructure. This effect contributes to increased cooling costs and worsens air quality, compounding health vulnerabilities in low-income and urban populations. All of these impacts are areas where HUD could improve the situation through facilitating and encouraging energy-efficient homes and cooling infrastructure.

Costs

In all categories we examined, estimates of U.S.-wide costs due to extreme heat rivaled or exceeded costs of hurricanes. For mortality, the estimated economic impact of mortality (scaled by value of statistical life, VSL = $11.6 million) caused by extreme heat reached $168 billion, significantly exceeding the $40.3 billion in VSL losses from hurricanes during the same period. Infrastructure costs further reflect this imbalance. Extreme heat resulted in an estimated $100 billion in productivity loss in 2024 alone, with over 60% of U.S. counties currently experiencing reduced economic output due to heat-related labor stress. Meanwhile, Hurricanes Helene and Milton together generated $113 billion in damage during the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

Crop damage reveals the disproportionate toll of heat and drought, with 2024 seeing $11 billion in heat/drought impacts compared to $6.8 billion from hurricanes. The dairy industry experiences a substantial recurring burden from extreme heat, with annual losses of $1.5 billion attributed to heat-induced declines in production, reproduction, and livestock fatalities. Broader economic impacts from heat-related droughts are severe, including $14.5 billion in combined damages from the 2023 Southern and Midwestern drought and heatwave, and $22.1 billion from the 2022 Central and Eastern heat events. Comparatively, Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton produced $78.7 billion and $34.3 billion in damages, respectively. Extreme heat and drought exert long-term, widespread, and escalating economic pressures across public health, agriculture, energy, and infrastructure sectors. A reassessment of federal disaster frameworks is necessary to appropriately prioritize and allocate funds for heat-related resilience and response efforts.

Resulting Needs

Public Health and Medical Care: Immediate care and resources for heat stroke and exhaustion, dehydration, and respiratory issues are key to prevent deaths from heat exposure. Vulnerable populations including children, elderly, and unhoused are particularly at risk. There is an increased need for emergency medical services and access to cooling centers to prevent the exacerbation of heat stress and to prevent fatalities.

Cooling and Shelter: Communities require access to public cooling centers and for air conditioning. Clean water supply is also essential to maintain health.

Infrastructure and Repair: The use of air conditioning increases energy consumption, leading to power outages. Updated infrastructure is essential to handle demand and prevent blackouts. Building materials need to include heat-resistant materials to reduce Urban Heat Island effects.

Emergency Response Capacity: Emergency management systems need to be strengthened in order to issue early warnings, produce evacuation plans, and mobilize cooling centers and medical services. Reliable communication systems that provide real-time updates with heat index and health impacts will be key to improve community preparedness.

Financial Support and Insurance Coverage: Agricultural, construction, and service workers are populations which are vulnerable to heat events. Loss of income may occur as temperatures rise, and compensation must be given.

Social Support and Community Services: There is an increasing need for targeted services for the elderly, unhoused, and low-income communities. Outreach programs, delivery of cooling resources, and shelter options must be communicated and functional in order to reduce mortality. Resilience across these sectors will be improved as data definitions and methods are standardized, and when allocations of funding specifically for heat increase. 

“What are implications for slow-onset disaster declarations, recovery aid programs, and HUD allocation formulas?”

Slow-onset disaster declarations

No heat event–or to our knowledge or other slow-onset disaster–has been declared a disaster under the Stafford Act, the primary legal authority for the federal government to provide disaster assistance. The statute defines a “major disaster” as “any natural catastrophe… which in the determination of the President causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance to supplement the efforts and available resources of States, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused thereby.” Though advocacy organizations have claimed that the reason for the lack of disaster declaration is because the Stafford Act omits heat, FEMA’s position is that amendment is unnecessary and that a heat disaster could be declared if state and local needs exceed their capacity during a heat event. This claim is credible, as the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a disaster without explicit mention in the Stafford Act.

Though FEMA’s official position has been openness to supporting an extreme-heat disaster declaration, the fact remains that none has been declared. There is opportunity to improve processes to enable future heat declarations, especially as heat waves affect more people more severely for more time. The Congressional Research Service suggests that much of the difficulty might stem from FEMA regulations focusing on assessment of uninsured losses makes it less likely that FEMA will recommend that the President declare a disaster. Heat events can be hard to pin down with defined time periods and locations, and the damage is often to health and other impacts that are slow to be quantified^. Therefore, real-time monitoring systems that quantify multi-sectoral damage could be deployed to provide the information needed. Such systems have been designed for extreme heat, and similar systems are being tested for wildfire smoke–these systems could rapidly be put into use.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) plays a critical role in long-term disaster recovery, primarily by providing housing assistance and funding for community development initiatives (see table above). However, HUD’s ability to deploy emergency support is contingent upon disaster declaration under the Stafford Act and/or FEMA activation. This restriction limits HUD’s capacity to implement timely interventions, such as retrofitting public housing with cooling systems or providing emergency housing relief during extreme heat events. 

Without formal recognition of a heat event as a disaster, HUD remains constrained in its ability to deliver rapid and targeted support to vulnerable populations facing escalating risks from extreme temperatures. Without declared heat disasters, the options for HUD engagement hinge on either modifying program requirements or supporting the policy and practice needed to enable heat disaster declarations.

HUD Allocation Formulas

Congress provides funding through supplemental appropriations to HUD following major disasters, and HUD determines how best to distribute funding based on disaster impact data. The calculations are typically based on Individual and Public Assistance data from FEMA, verified loss data from the Small Business Administration (SBA), claims from insurance programs such as the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), and housing and demographic data from the U.S Census Bureau and American Community Survey. CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT typically require that at least 70% and 50% of funds benefit low and moderate income (LMI) communities respectively. Funding is limited to areas where there has been a presidentially declared disaster.

For example, the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2025 (approved on 12/21/2024) appropriated $12.039 billion for CDBG-Disaster Recovery funds (CDBG-DR) for disasters “that occurred in 2023 or 2024.” HUD focused its funding on areas with the most serious and concentrated unmet housing needs from within areas that experienced a declared disaster within the time frame. Data used to determine the severity of unmet housing needs included FEMA and SBA inspections of damaged homes; these data were used in a HUD formula. 

Opportunities exist to adjust allocation formulas to be more responsive to extreme heat, especially if CDBG is activated for a heat disaster. For example, HUD is directed to use the funds “in the most impacted and distressed areas,” which it could interpret to include housing stock that is unlikely to protect occupants from heat.

Gaps

Extreme heat presents multifaceted challenges across public health, infrastructure, and agriculture, necessitating a coordinated and comprehensive federal response. The underlying gap is the lack of any precedent for declaring an extreme-heat disaster; without such a declaration, numerous disaster-related programs in HUD, FEMA, and other federal agencies cannot be activated. Furthermore, likely because of this underlying gap, disaster-related programs have not focused on protecting public health and safety from extreme heat despite its large and growing impact.

Plan of Action 

Recommendation 1. Improve data collection and sharing to enable disaster declarations.

Because lack of real-time, quantitative data of the type most commonly used by disaster declarations (i.e., uninsured losses; mortality) is likely a key hindrance to heat-disaster declarations, processes should be put in place to rapidly collect and share this data.

Health impacts could be tracked most easily by the CDC using the existing National Syndromic Surveillance System and by expanding the existing influenza-burden methodology, and by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association’s Emergency Medical Services Activation Surveillance Dashboard. To get real-time estimates of mortality, simple tools can be built that estimate mortality based on prior heatwaves; such tools are already being tested for wildfire smoke mortality. Tools like this use weather data as inputs and mortality as outputs, so many agencies could implement–NOAA, CDC, FEMA, and EPA are all potential hosts. Additional systems need to be developed to track other impacts in real time, including agricultural losses, productivity losses, and infrastructure damage.

To facilitate data sharing that might be necessary to develop some of the above tools, we envision a standardized national heat disaster framework modeled after the NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) policy. By establishing consistent definitions and data collection methods across health, infrastructure, and socioeconomic sectors, this approach would create a foundation for reliable, cross-sectoral coordination and evidence-based interventions. Open and timely access to data would empower decision-makers at all levels of government, while ethical protections—such as informed consent, data anonymization, and compliance with HIPAA and GDPR—would safeguard individual privacy. Prioritizing community engagement ensures that data collection reflects lived experiences and disparities, ultimately driving equitable, climate-resilient policies to reduce the disproportionate burden of heat disasters.

While HUD or any other agency could lead the collaboration, much of the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS) partnership (HUD is a participant) is already set up to support data-sharing and new tools. NIHHIS is a partner network between many federal agencies and therefore has already started the difficult work of cross-agency collaboration. Existing partnerships and tools can be leveraged to rapidly provide needed information and collaboration, especially to develop real-time quantification of heat-event impacts that would facilitate declaration of heat disasters. Shifting agency priorities have reduced NIHHIS partnerships recently; these should be strengthened, potentially through Congressional action.

Recommendation 2. Incorporate heat mitigation throughout HUD programs

Because housing can play such an important role in heat health (e.g., almost all mortality from the 2021 Heat Dome in British Columbia occurred in the home; most of Maricopa County’s heat mortality is either among the unhoused or in the home), HUD’s extensive programs are in a strong position to protect health and life safety during extreme heat. Spurring resident protection could include gentle behavioral nudges to grant recipients, such as publishing guidance on regionally tailored heat protections for both new construction and retrofits. Because using CDBG funds for extreme heat is uncommon, HUD should publish guidance on how to align heat-related projects with CDBG requirements or how to incorporate heat-related mitigation into projects that have a different focus. In particular, it would be important to provide guidance on how extreme heat related activities meet National Objectives, as required by authorizing legislation.

HUD could also take a more active role, such as incentivizing or requiring heat-ready housing across their other programs, or even setting aside specific amounts of funds for this hazard. The active provision of funding would be facilitated by heat disaster declarations, so until that occurs it is likely that the facilitation guides suggested above are likely the best course of action.

HUD also has a role outside of disaster-related programs. For example, current HUD policy requires residents in Public Housing Agency (PHA) managed buildings to request funding relief to avoid surcharges from heavy use of air conditioning during heat waves; policy could be changed to proactively initiate that relief from HUD. In 2024, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Richard Monocchio sent a note encouraging broad thinking to support residents through extreme heat, and such encouragement can be supported with agency action. While this surcharge might seem minor, ability to run air conditioning is key for protecting health, as many indoor heat deaths across Arizona to British Columbia occurred in homes that had air conditioning but it was off.

Recommendation 3. HUD Allocation Formula: Inclusion of Vulnerability Variables

When HUD is able to launch programs focused on extreme heat, likely only following an officially declared heat disaster, HUD allocation formulas should take into account heat-specific variables. This could include areas where heat mortality was highest, or, to enhance mitigation impact, areas with higher concentrations of at-risk individuals (older adults, children, individuals with chronic illness, pregnant people, low-income households, communities of color, individuals experiencing houselessness, and outdoor workers) at-risk infrastructure (older buildings, mobile homes, heat islands). By integrating heat-related vulnerability indicators in allocations formulas, HUD would make the biggest impact on the heat hazard.

Conclusion

Extreme heat is one of the most damaging and economically disruptive threats in the United States, yet it remains insufficiently recognized in federal disaster frameworks. HUD is an agency positioned to make the biggest impact on heat because housing is a key factor for mortality. However, strong intervention across HUD and other agencies is held back by lack of federal disaster declarations for heat. HUD can work together with its partner agencies to address this and other gaps, and thereby protect public health and safety.

Every region in the U.S. is experiencing year after year of record-breaking heat. More households now require home cooling solutions to maintain safe and liveable indoor temperatures. Over the last two decades, U.S. consumers and the private sector have leaned heavily into purchasing and marketing conventional air conditioning (AC) systems, such as central air conditioning, window units and portable ACs, to cool down overheating homes. 

While AC can offer immediate relief, the rapid scaling of AC has created dangerous vulnerabilities: rising energy bills are straining people’s wallets and increasing utility debt, while surging electricity demand increases reliance on high-polluting power infrastructure and mounts pressure on an aging power grid increasingly prone to blackouts. There is also an increasing risk of elevated demand for electricity during a heat wave, overloading the grid and triggering prolonged blackouts, causing whole regions to lose their sole cooling strategy. This disruption could escalate into a public health emergency as homes and people overheat, leading to hundreds of deaths. 

What Americans need to be prepared for more extreme temperatures is a resilient cooling strategy. Resilient cooling is an approach that works across three interdependent systems — buildings, communities, and the electric grid — to affordably maintain safe indoor temperatures during extreme heat events and reduce power outage risks. 

This toolkit introduces a set of Policy Principles for Resilient Cooling and outlines a set of actionable policy options and levers for state and local governments to foster broader access to resilient cooling technologies and strategies. For example, states are the primary regulators of public utility commissions, architects of energy and building codes, and distributors of federal and state taxpayer dollars. Local governments are responsible for implementing building standards and zoning codes, enforcing housing and health codes, and operating public housing and retrofit programs that directly shape access to cooling. 

The Policy Principles for Resilient Cooling for a robust resilient cooling strategy are:

• Expand Cooling Access and Affordability. Ensuring that everyone can affordably access cooling will reduce the population-wide risk of heat-related illness and death in communities and the resulting strain on healthcare systems. Targeted financial support tools — such as subsidies, rebates, and incentives — can reduce both upfront and ongoing costs of cooling technologies, thereby lowering barriers and enabling broader adoption. 
• Incorporate Public Health Outcomes as a Driver of Resilience. Indoor heat exposure and heat-driven factors that reduce indoor air quality — such as pollutant accumulation and mold-promoting humidity  — are health risks. Policymakers should embed heat-related health risks into building codes, energy standards, and guidelines for energy system planning, including establishing minimum indoor temperature and air quality requirements, integrating health considerations into energy system planning standards, and investing in multi-solving community system interventions like green infrastructure.
• Advance Sustainability Across the Cooling Lifecycle. Rising demand for air conditioning is intensifying the problem it aims to solve by increasing electricity consumption, prolonging reliance on high-polluting power plants, and leaking refrigerants that release powerful greenhouse gases. Policymakers can adopt codes and standards that reduce reliance on high-emission energy sources and promote low-global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants and passive cooling strategies.
• Promote Solutions for Grid Resilience. The U.S. electric grid is struggling to keep up with rising demand for electricity, creating potential risks to communities’ cooling systems. Policymakers can proactively identify potential vulnerabilities in energy systems’ ability to sustain safe indoor temperatures. Demand-side management strategies, distributed energy resources, and grid-enhancing technologies can prepare the electric grid for increased energy demand and ensure its reliability during extreme heat events.
• Build a Skilled Workforce for Resilient Cooling. Resilient cooling provides an opportunity to create pathways to good-paying jobs, reduce critical workforce gaps, and bolster the broader economy. Investing in a workforce that can design, install, and maintain resilient cooling systems can strengthen local economies, ensure preparedness for all kinds of risks to the system, and bolster American innovation.

By adopting a resilient cooling strategy, state and local policymakers can address today’s overlapping energy, health, and affordability crises, advance American-made innovation, and ensure their communities are prepared for the hotter decades ahead.

Imagine: it’s the peak of summer in the Southwest, and a heat wave is surging after a spring of heavy rains. To keep cool, you crank up the air conditioning. In the distance, an aging power line sags under the strain of the heat. A spark escapes the line’s faulty insulation, landing in overgrown brush that grew during the rainy season but has died and dried up in the heat, turning to tinder. Flames erupt and before long, a wildfire is beginning to spread. The local utility, hoping to avoid additional ignitions that could spread firefighting resources too thin, shuts off power. The tactic works – firefighters are able to contain the emerging threat before it reaches your neighborhood and home – but at a cost. With people unable to keep their AC running while the power shutoff is in place, temperatures inside homes soar and dozens of people are rushed to the hospital for heat-related illness. 

This scenario is becoming less and less hypothetical as the risks of wildfire and extreme heat compound with an aging electric grid.

We are a nation powered by, well, power; modern American society has evolved around the electric grid. Yet aging U.S. electric infrastructure (the majority of which was built over 30 years ago and has received minimal upgrades since) is increasingly strained by growing cooling demand as heat waves become more frequent and widespread, as well as physically threatened by wildfires and other extreme weather events. And when the power goes out during or after extreme weather, hamstringing essential health, information, and emergency-response systems, the consequences of extreme weather become much worse. In these ways, the electric grid is a backbone of U.S. resilience to extreme weather. The grid is the place where cascading impacts of extreme weather and other effects of climate change converge – but managed appropriately, the grid can also be a robust line of defense.

Zooming in on the intersections between the grid, heat, and wildfire illustrates these broader trends while also yielding immediately actionable insights. The electric grid is a critical asset for keeping people cool during extreme heat. Yet the electric grid is also a wildfire risk because old and outdated equipment can emit sparks that catch fire in nearby vegetation or other flammable materials. Extreme heat increases energy demand on this same outdated equipment, which strains generation, transmission, and distribution systems and heightens wildfire risk. 

Addressing these challenges involves complex questions about who should pay for necessary infrastructure upgrades and who is liable for grid failures that endanger lives and property. Fortunately, there are powerful opportunities to advance co-beneficial technologies and strategies that simultaneously strengthen the grid, build resilience to extreme heat and wildfires, and bring down energy costs for consumers. 

Wildfires, Extreme Heat, and an Aging Grid: A Dangerous Combination

The electric grid poses a substantial wildfire threat for many states. In California, for example, 10% of all wildfires between 2016 and 2020 were caused by electrical power, leading to over 3.3 million acres burned. Since 2015, power lines have caused six out of California’s 20 most destructive wildfires. In 2023, the citizens of Lahaina, Maui experienced the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than 100 years when a broken power line set nearby vegetation ablaze. The following year, the largest wildfire in Texas history burned more than a million acres; after several months of investigation, the cause was determined to be a decaying utility pole that caught fire.  

Extreme heat brings the chances of wildfire ignition resulting from aging grid infrastructure to a rolling boil. Record-high temperatures drive up air conditioning (AC) use, which increases energy demand and strains the grid. Extreme heat can also cause power lines to sag and expand and transformers to overheat. In 2022, Southern California Edison power lines sagged under extreme heat conditions and came in contact with a communications line, producing sparks that ignited the dry vegetation below. The resulting wildfire near Hemet, California impacted tens of thousands of residents. 

Given the wildfire risk that grids can pose, some utilities have implemented safety mechanisms to protect the public. For example, transmission lines in some service areas shut off automatically when the presence of smoke or fire is detected nearby. Additionally, utilities may proactively shut off power when the risk of wildfire is high in order to reduce the likelihood of equipment-related ignitions that could get out of control. This is a common practice; roughly one in three wildfire-related outages from 2000 to 2024 were public safety power shutoffs (PSPS). 

While these PSPS shutoffs can reduce wildfire risk, they come at a dangerous cost when combined with high temperatures. Power shutoffs meant to prevent fire damage leave people without air conditioning, which most Americans rely on exclusively for cooling. Without AC or alternative cooling strategies, people are more vulnerable to developing heat-related illness. Power outages can also compound the heat-health risk by leaving people without refrigerated medications and electricity-dependent medical devices, and limiting communication options during medical emergencies – emergencies that are more likely to occur during extreme heat events.

Protecting Communities by Investing in a Resilient Grid 

A resilient electric grid helps communities stay safe, comfortable, and healthy in the face of extreme weather. Examples of strategies that can be used to build community resilience through grid resilience include: 

• Grid hardening. Grid hardening refers to techniques that improve the ability of physical grid infrastructure to resist damage from external stressors like extreme temperatures and wildfires. One example is “undergrounding”; i.e., replacing overhead transmission lines with subsurface networks. Undergrounding reduces the risk of wildfire ignition from electrical equipment and protects transmission infrastructure from heat-related sagging, though it can have a high cost per mile to implement. Another example of grid hardening is replacing traditional wood poles with composite materials such as steel or fiberglass that are more resilient to high temperatures and fire.
• Grid-enhancing technologies. Grid-enhancing technologies can be deployed when feasible, which can increase capacity on the current electrical system. The usage of advanced conductors, which can maintain better performance at higher operating temperatures, and demand-response algorithms can reduce grid loads during peak periods, such as the hottest parts of the day.
• Building additional distributed generation while expanding transmission capacity. Decentralized electricity generation (such as solar-plus-storage systems, flexible load programs, and community microgrids) can operate independently during power outages caused by PSPSs or rolling blackouts. Decentralized generation systems provide localized backup during emergencies and relieve pressure on centralized grid infrastructure during heat waves and other periods of very high energy demand. In the long term, getting more renewable energy resources connected to the grid and building high-voltage transmission lines that can transport the energy over longer distances can support a more abundant and flexible power supply.
• Increasing local, regional, and interregional coordination. Coordination is essential because responsibilities for grid operations, emergency response, and utility regulation are often shared across multiple jurisdictions and agencies. For example, utilities maintain infrastructure, while Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) regulate service standards and local governments often manage emergency response and planning. When multiple service areas are affected by a wildfire and extreme heat event, interregional coordination, such as data sharing and real-time weather-impacts monitoring, ensures that potential grid risks and vulnerabilities are shared and response efforts are coordinated. For instance, utilities can coordinate with first responders and emergency response agencies when ordering PSPSs in their service territories.
• Planning for negative externalities from power outages. Utilities can identify and support customers at the highest risk for negative outcomes (e.g., food spoilage, illness, business impacts, emergency services) associated with PSPS, especially those compounded by co-occurring hazards like extreme heat and wildfires. States like Colorado have had to intervene on behalf of customers for negative impacts of PSPS. Thus, it is important for utilities to plan for how they will support their customers. 

Opportunity Areas for Policy Action

Many of the measures identified above require substantial upfront investment as well as coordination across multiple levels of government. This raises an important policy question: who should be responsible for shouldering the costs of grid resilience upgrades in the face of more frequent and costly extreme weather events? 

Certain resilience measures can only be implemented by utilities who own the physical infrastructure that needs upgrading in the face of worsening hazards. Some utilities argue that they need legal protections from liability in order to remain financially viable, to be able to invest in essential infrastructure, and to continue delivering the energy that powers our lives. To this end, some utilities have advocated for liability protection legislation in multiple states that would grant them (the utilities) legal immunity or limit the damages they must pay if their infrastructure sparks a wildfire, on the condition that they follow approved wildfire mitigation plans. In return for taking mitigation actions required under these plans, utilities can seek protection from lawsuits that could expose them to billions in damages. 

However, extreme weather event victims, insurers, and trial lawyers argue that such protections shift the burden onto residents, leaving them with fewer avenues for compensation and creating perverse incentives for utilities to avoid accountability. Additionally, some utility companies are passing the costs of lawsuit payouts, as well as those of system improvements and delayed maintenance, on to ratepayers through higher electricity bills, raising affordability concerns. For example, Southern California Edison raised rates 13% in 2021 to pay for fire mitigation efforts. 

The reality is that no single entity can bear the full cost of making the grid resilient to compounding extreme weather risks, as these are shared risks with shared stakes. Utilities, as noted, have a critical role to play: they own and operate the infrastructure, and they must invest in resilience while keeping energy affordable. But making upgrades and investments at the scale needed to reduce overall risk to the grid and communities in a multi-hazard environment requires a cross-sectoral, multi-pronged approach. The following section identifies the key stakeholders that must partner with electric utilities to build a more resilient grid, outlines their current roles and responsibilities, and suggests opportunity areas for action in this evolving landscape. 

Congress

Roles and Responsibilities. Congress plays a key role in supporting subnational utility work. For example, Congress supports grid resilience through funding programs like the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnership (GRIP) from the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Wildfire Electric Grid Resilience Program from Sandia National Laboratory. Congress also appropriates funds to executive branch agencies for the development of foundational federal data and tools, as well as the technical assistance needed for better anticipation and response to compounding risks. Agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) produce high-resolution extreme weather projections that can help utilities and subnational governments assess risk. 

Opportunity Areas. Understanding where extreme heat and wildfire are likely to co-occur in the future under various scenarios is essential for supporting proper planning. Where possible, Congress can support modeling and research efforts that provide this information more cost-effectively than subnational efforts and develop technical assistance to help communities plan for these compounding hazards. Congress can also authorize and appropriate funding for test beds and prize challenges that support innovation in multi-hazard grid resilience. 

National and International Regulatory Bodies

Roles and Responsibilities. Regulatory bodies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) play vital roles in advancing grid resilience and reliability efforts and standards. NERC develops reliability standards for the electricity sector and FERC enforces them. 

Opportunity Areas. Since both FERC and NERC play a role in ensuring the reliability of the electric grid, they should expand their extreme weather reliability standards to include risks when extreme heat and wildfires occur in the same region. FERC and NERC can work together to build on existing and proposed efforts to develop standards related to extreme heat and wildfires that support utilities and grid operators in prioritizing multi-hazard resilience in their planning. In late 2024, NERC finalized standards aimed at improving transmission system planning for extreme heat and extreme cold events. 

Additionally, NERC can track how utilities are addressing the risks of wildfires and heat waves as part of its grid reliability monitoring efforts and can include these efforts in its seasonal assessments. 

State Legislatures and Public Utility Commissions (PUCs)

Roles and Responsibilities. State legislatures and public utility commissions play an important role in regulating state electricity markets which positions them to incentivize and support resilience. In general, they are responsible for ensuring that their customers receive appropriate services and that rate increases are justified, while ensuring that the utility can recover its costs and reward investors. In most states, the legislature provides the foundation for PUCs to build their underlying statute-informed regulations. 

Opportunity Areas. State legislatures can direct utilities and PUCs to prioritize wildfire and extreme heat mitigation through statute and can authorize funding mechanisms – such as cost-recovery provisions or risk-sharing models – that enable utilities to invest in resilience. Some advocates have called for the creation of a voluntary program that incentivizes utilities to take certain mitigation actions by rewarding them with access to an “insurance-like backstop mechanism.” PUCs, in turn, can evaluate and approve utility proposals aligned with these policy goals, including pilot programs that implement grid measures with co-benefits for wildfire and extreme heat resilience.

Investors and Innovators

Roles and Responsibilities: Investors and innovators can provide other types of funding mechanisms to help the aforementioned stakeholders fund their initiatives or provide research services to improve them, especially at the extreme heat and wildfire nexus.

Opportunity Areas. Given the high upfront costs of many existing risk reduction tools, innovation is key to driving down the overall cost of multi-hazard resilience. Private capital and nonprofits can play a broader role in building a more robust innovation ecosystem. For example, Conservation X Labs’s Fire Grand Challenge is offering more than $1 million in prizes and support for wildfire innovation in collaboration with Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Esri, and Planet. One of the 12 finalists advancing to field testing is Witching Hour, which is testing a robotic system that installs low-cost insulation onto power lines to reduce fire risk. Future programs modeled on this and other prize challenge efforts can reward innovations that support resilience under both extreme heat and high fire risk. 

Looking Ahead: Preparing for Compounding Heat and Wildfire Hazards

A comprehensive approach to upgrading the grid, grid operations, and emergency management protocols driven by the federal government, state governments, utilities, and private sector actors is the most impactful way forward. Lives, economic wellbeing, and property are all costs of inaction.

While grid infrastructure interventions are critical, other measures can also provide important backstops and reduce overall risk that deserve further exploration and integration into an extreme heat and wildfire preparedness and response strategy. For example, alternative cooling strategies that do not rely on air conditioning can reduce grid load – which in turn reduces wildfire risk – and ensure that people are not left sweltering in the heat during public safety power shutoffs. These strategies include passive cooling measures like reflective surfaces, natural ventilation, shading, and insulation. At the same time, prescribed fire and other risk reduction measures in the wildland urban interface can reduce the likelihood that fires that do start are destructive to life or property. 

With strategic investment, cross-sector coordination, and long-term planning, it is possible to reduce risks and protect vulnerable communities. We can build a future where power lines no longer spark disaster and homes stay safe and connected — no matter the weather.

Yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed revoking its 2009 “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases pose a substantial threat to the public. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) stands in strong opposition.

The science couldn’t be clearer: unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases are increasing the frequency and toll of disasters like flash flooding in Texas, catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles, and stifling heat domes that repeatedly blanket huge swathes of the country. Revoking the endangerment finding would shove science aside in favor of special interests – and at the expense of American health and wellbeing.

“The Environmental Protection Agency claims that the endangerment finding led to ‘costly burdens’ on American families and businesses, when in reality it is the cost of failing to regulate climate pollution that will hit Americans the hardest,” said Dr. Hannah Safford, Associate Director of Climate and Environment at the Federation of American Scientists. “Climate change is expected to cost each American child born today half a million dollars over their lifetimes. Is that the legacy we want to leave our kids?”

The EPA’s proposal is the latest move by the Trump Administration to gut federal climate policy. This campaign runs counter to public opinion: 4 in 5 of all Americans, across party lines, want to see the government take stronger climate action. At the same time, potential revocation of the endangerment finding underscores the need for a durable new approach to climate policy that integrates innovative regulatory design, complementary policy packages, and attention to real-world implementation capacity. FAS and its partners are leading on this priority alongside state and local leaders.

“Despite the Trump Administration’s short-sighted and ideologically motivated actions, the clean energy transition has unstoppable momentum, and there is tremendous opportunity for innovation on how we design and deliver climate policies that are equitable, efficient, and effective,” added Dr. Safford. “The Trump Administration may be stepping back, but many others are stepping forward to create a world free from climate danger.”

Summer officially kicked off this past weekend with the onset of a sweltering heat wave. As we hit publish on this piece, tens of millions of Americans across the central and eastern United States are experiencing sweltering temperatures that make it dangerous to work, play, or just hang out outdoors.

The good news is that even when the mercury climbs, heat illness, injury, and death are preventable. The bad news is that over the past five months, the Trump administration has dismantled essential preventative capabilities.

At the beginning of this year, more than 70 organizations rallied around a common-sense Heat Policy Agenda to tackle this growing whole-of-nation crisis. Since then, we’ve seen some encouraging progress. The new Congressional Extreme Heat Caucus presents an avenue for bipartisan progress on securing resources and legislative wins. Recommendations from the Heat Policy Agenda have already been echoed in multiple introduced bills. Four states, California, Arizona, New Jersey, and New York, now have whole-of-government heat action plans, and there are several States with plans in development. More locally, mayors are banding together to identify heat preparedness, management, and resilience solutions. FAS highlighted examples of how leaders and communities across the country are beating the heat in a Congressional briefing just last week.

But these steps in the right direction are being forestalled by the Trump Administration’s leap backwards on heat. The Heat Policy Agenda emphasized the importance of a clear, sustained federal governance structure for heat, named authorities and dedicated resourcing for federal agencies responsible for extreme heat management, and funding and technical assistance to subnational governments to build their heat readiness. The Trump Administration has not only failed to advance these goals – it has taken actions that clearly work against them.

The result? It’s summer, America’s heating up, and we’re deeply unprepared.

The heat wave making headlines today is just the latest example of how extreme heat is a growing problem for all 50 states. In just the past month, the Pacific Northwest smashed early-summer temperature records, there were days when parts of Texas were the hottest places on Earth, and Alaska – yes, Alaska – issued its first-ever heat advisory. Extreme heat is deadlier than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined, and is exacerbating a mental-health crisis as well. By FAS’ estimates, extreme heat costs the nation more than $162 billion annually, costs that have made extreme heat a growing concern to private markets.

To build a common understanding of the state of federal heat infrastructure, we analyzed the status of heat-critical programs and agencies through public media, government reports, and conversations with stakeholders. All known impacts are confirmed via publicly available sources. We highlight five areas where federal capacity has been impacted:

• Leadership and governance infrastructure
• Key personnel and their expertise
• Data, forecasts, and information availability
• Funding sources and programs for preparedness, risk mitigation and resilience
• Progress towards heat policy goals

This work provides answers to many of the questions our team has been asked over the last few months about what heat work continues at the federal level. With this grounding, we close with some options and opportunities for subnational governments to consider heading into Summer 2025.

What is the Current State of Federal Capacity on Extreme Heat?

Loss of leadership and governance infrastructure

At the time of publication, all but one of the co-chairs for the National Integrated Heat Health Information System’s (NIHHIS) Interagency Working Group (IWG) have either taken an early retirement offer or have been impacted by reductions in force. The co-chairs represented NIHHIS, the National Weather Service (NWS), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The National Heat Strategy, a whole-of-government vision for heat governance crafted by 28 agencies through the NIHHIS IWG, was also taken offline. A set of agency-by-agency tasks for Strategy implementation (to build short-term readiness for upcoming heat seasons, as well as to strengthen long-term preparedness) was in development as of early 2025, but this work has stalled. There was also a goal to formalize NIHHIS via legislation, given that its existence is not mandated by law – relevant legislation has been introduced but its path forward is unclear. Staff remain at NIHHIS and are continuing the work to manage the heat.gov website, craft heat resources and information, and disseminate public communications like Heat Beat Newsletter and Heat Safety Week. Their positions could be eliminated if proposed budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are approved by Congress.

Staffing reductions and actualized or proposed changes to FEMA and HHS, the federal disaster management agencies implicated in addressing extreme heat, are likely to be consequential in relation to extreme heat this summer. Internal reports have found that FEMA is not ready for responding to even well-recognized disasters like hurricanes, increasing the risk for a mismanaged response to an unprecedented heat disaster. The loss of key leaders at FEMA has also put a pause to efforts to integrate extreme heat within agency functions, such as efforts to make extreme heat an eligible disaster. FEMA is also proposing changes that will make it more difficult to receive federal disaster assistance. The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), HHS’ response arm, has been folded into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has been refocused to focus solely on infectious diseases. There is still little public information for what this merger means for HHS’ implementation of the Public Health Service Act, which requires an all-hazards approach to public health emergency management. Prior to January 2025, HHS was determining how it could use the Public Health Emergency authority to respond to extreme heat.

Loss of key personnel and their expertise

Many key agencies involved in NIHHIS, and extreme heat management more broadly, have been impacted by reductions in force and early retirements, including NOAA, FEMA, HHS, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the Department of Energy (DOE). Some key agencies, like FEMA, have lost or will lose almost 2,000 staff. As more statutory responsibilities are put on fewer workers, efforts to advance “beyond scope” activities, like taking action on extreme heat, will likely be on the back burner.

Downsizing at HHS has been acutely devastating to extreme heat work. In January, the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE) was eliminated, putting a pause on HHS-wide coordination on extreme heat and the new Extreme Heat Working Group. In April, the entire staff of the Climate and Health program at CDC, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and all of the staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) working on extreme heat, received reduction in force notices. While it appears that staff are returning to the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, they have lost months of time that could have been spent on preparedness, tool development, and technical assistance to local and state public health departments. Sustained funding for extreme heat programs at HHS is under threat, the FY2026 budget for HHS formally eliminates the CDC’s Climate and Health Program, all NIOSH efforts on extreme heat, and LIHEAP.

Risks to data, forecasts, and information availability, though some key tools remain online

Staff reductions at NWS have compromised local forecasts and warnings, and some offices can no longer staff around-the-clock surveillance. Staff reductions have also compromised weather balloon launches, which collect key temperature data for making heat forecasts. Remaining staff at the NWS are handling an increased workload at one of the busiest times of the year for weather forecasting. Reductions in force, while now reversed, have impacted real-time heat-health surveillance at the CDC, where daily heat-related illness counts have been on pause since May 21, 2025 and the site is not currently being maintained as of the date of this publication.

Some tools remain online and available to use this summer, including NWS/CDC’s HeatRisk (a 7-day forecast of health-informed heat risks) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Heat-Related EMS Activation Surveillance Dashboard (which shows the number of heat-related EMS activations, time to patient, percent transported to medical facilities, and deaths). Most of the staff that built HeatRisk have been impacted by reductions in force. The return of staff to the CDC’s Climate and Health program is a bright spot, and could bode well for the tool’s ongoing operations and maintenance for Summer 2025.

Proposed cuts in the FY26 budget will continue to compromise heat forecasting and data. The budget proposes cutting budgets for upkeep of NOAA satellites crucial to tracking extreme weather events like extreme heat; cutting budgets for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s LandSat program, which is used widely by researchers and private sector companies to analyze surface temperatures and understand heat’s risks; and fully defunding the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network, which funds local and state public health departments to collect heat-health illness and death data and federal staff to analyze it.

Rollbacks in key funding sources and programs for preparedness, risk mitigation and resilience

As of May 2025, both NIHHIS Centers of Excellence – the Center for Heat Resilient Communities and the Center for Collaborative Heat Monitoring – received stop work orders and total pauses in federal funding. These Centers were set to work with 26 communities across the country to either collect vital data on local heat patterns and potential risks or shape local governance to comprehensively address the threat of extreme heat. These communities represented a cross-cut of the United States, from urban to coastal to rural to agricultural to tribal. Both Center’s leadership plans to continue the work with the selected communities in a reduced capacity, and continue to work towards aspirational goals like a universal heat action plan. Future research, coordination, and technical assistance at NOAA on extreme heat is under fire with the proposed total elimination of NOAA Research in the FY26 budget.

At FEMA, a key source of funding for local heat resilience projects, the Building Resilience Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, has been cancelled. BRIC was the only FEMA Resilience grant that explicitly called out extreme heat in its Notice of Funding Opportunity, and funded $13 million in projects to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat. Many states have also faced difficulties in getting paid by FEMA for grants that support their emergency management divisions, and the FY26 budget proposes cuts to these grant programs. The cancellation of Americorps further reduces capacity for disaster response. FEMA is also dropping its support for improving building codes that mitigate disaster risk as well as removing requirements for subnational governments to plan for climate change. 

At HHS, a lack of staff at CDC has stalled payments from key programs to prepare communities for extreme heat, the Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) grant program and the Public Health Preparedness and Response program. BRACE is critical federal funding for state and local climate and health offices. In states like North Carolina, the BRACE program funds live-saving efforts like heat-health alerts. Both of these programs are proposed to be totally eliminated in the FY26 budget. The Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) is also slated for elimination, despite being the sole source of federal funding for health care system readiness. HPP funds coalitions of health systems and public health departments, which have quickly responded to heat disasters like the 2021 Pacific Northwest Heat Domes and established comprehensive plans for future emergencies. The National Institutes of Health’s Climate and Health Initiative was eliminated and multiple grants paused in March 2025. Research on extreme weather and health may proceed, according to new agency guidelines, yet overall cuts to the NIH will impact capacity to fund new studies and new research avenues. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which funds research on environmental health, faces a 36% reduction in its budget, from $994 million to $646 million.

Access to cool spaces is key to preventing heat-illness and death. Yet cuts, regulatory rollbacks, and program eliminations across the federal government are preventing progress towards ensuring every American can afford their energy bills. At DOE, rollbacks in energy efficiency standards for cooling equipment and the ending of the EnergyStar program will impact the costs of cooling for consumers. Thankfully, DOE’s Home Energy Rebates survived the initial funding freezes and the funding has been deployed to states to support home upgrades like heat pumps, insulation, air sealing, and mechanical ventilation. At HUD, the Green and Resilient Retrofits Program has been paused as of March 2025, which was set to fund important upgrades to affordable housing units that would have decreased the costs of cooling for vulnerable residents. At EPA, widespread pauses and cancellations in Inflation Reduction Act programs have put projects to provide more affordable cooling solutions on pause. At the U.S. Department of Agriculture, all grantees for the Rural Energy for America Program, which funds projects that provide reliable and affordable energy in rural communities, have been asked to resubmit their grants to receive allocated funding. These delays put rural community members at risk of extreme heat this summer, where they face particular risks due to their unique health and sociodemographic vulnerabilities. Finally, while the remaining $400 million in LIHEAP funding was released for this year, it faces elimination in FY26 appropriations. If this money is lost, people will very likely die and utilities will not be able to cover the costs of unpaid bills and delay improvements to the grid infrastructure to increase reliability.

Uncertain progress towards heat policy goals

Momentum towards establishing a federal heat stress rule as quickly as possible has stalled. The regulatory process for the Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings is proceeding, with hearings that began June 16 and are scheduled to continue until July 3. It remains to be seen how the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will proceed with the existing rule as written. OSHA’s National Emphasis Program (NEP) for Heat will continue until April 6, 2026. This program focuses on identifying and addressing heat-related injuries and illnesses in workplaces, and educating employers on how they can reduce these impacts on the job. To date, NEP has conducted nearly 7,000 inspections connected to heat risks, which lead to 60 heat citations and nearly 1,400 “hazard alert” letters being sent to employers.

How Can Subnational Governments Ready for this Upcoming Heat Season?

Downscaled federal capacity comes at a time when many states are facing budget shortfalls compounded by federal funding cuts and rescissions. The American Rescue Plan Act, the COVID-19 stimulus package, has been a crucial source of revenue for many local and state governments that enabled expansion in services, like extreme heat response. That funding must be spent by December 2026, and many subnational governments are facing funding cliffs of millions of dollars that could result in the elimination of these programs. While there is a growing attention to heat, it is still often deprioritized in favor of work on hazards that damage property.

Even in this environment, local and state governments can still make progress on addressing extreme heat’s impacts and saving lives. Subnational governments can:

• Conduct a data audit to ensure they are tracking the impacts of extreme heat, like emergency medical services activations, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and deaths, and tracking expenditures dedicated to any heat-related activity. 
• Develop a heat preparedness and response plan, to better understand how to leverage existing resources, capacities, and partnerships to address extreme heat. This includes understanding emergency authorities available at the local and state level that could be leveraged in a crisis. 
• Use their platforms to educate the public about extreme heat and share common-sense strategies that reduce the risk of heat-illness, and public health departments can target communications to the most vulnerable. 
• Ensure existing capital planning and planned infrastructure build-outs prioritize resilience to extreme heat and set up cooling standards for new and existing housing and for renters. Subnational governments can also leverage strategies that reduce their fiscal risk, such as implementing heat safety practices for their own workforces and encouraging or requiring employers to deploy these practices as a way to reduce workers compensation claims. 

FAS stands ready to support leaders and communities in implementing smart, evidence-based strategies to build heat readiness – and to help interested parties understand more about the impacts of the Trump administration’s actions on federal heat capabilities. Contact Grace Wickerson (gwickerson@fas.org) with inquiries.

More Extreme Weather Leads to More Public Health Emergencies

Extreme heat and wildfire smoke both pose significant and worsening public health threats in the United States. Extreme heat causes the premature deaths of an estimated 10,000 people in the U.S. each year, while more frequent and widespread wildfire smoke exposure has set back decades of progress on air quality in many states. Importantly, these two hazards are related: extreme heat can worsen and prolong wildfire risk, which can increase smoke exposure. 

Extreme heat and wildfire smoke events are independently becoming more frequent and severe, but what is overlooked is that they are often occurring in the same place at the same time. Emerging research suggests that the combined impact of these hazards may be worse than the sum of their individual impacts. These combined impacts have the potential to put additional pressure on already overburdened healthcare systems, public budgets, and vulnerable communities. Failing to account for these combined impacts could leave communities unprepared for these extreme weather events in 2025 and beyond.

To ensure resilience and improve public health outcomes for all, policymakers should consider the intersection of wildfire smoke and extreme heat at all levels of government. Our understanding of how extreme heat and wildfire smoke compound is still nascent, which limits national and local capacity to plan ahead. Researchers and policymakers should invest in understanding how extreme heat and wildfire smoke compound and use this knowledge to design synergistic solutions that enhance infrastructure resilience and ultimately save lives. 

Intersecting Health Impacts of Extremely Hot, Smoky Days

Wildfire smoke and extreme heat can each be deadly. As mentioned, exposure to extreme heat causes the premature deaths of an estimated 10,000 people in the U.S. a year. Long-term exposure to extreme heat can also worsen chronic conditions like kidney disease, diabetes, hypertension, and asthma. Exposure to the primary component of wildfire smoke, known as fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), contributes to an additional estimated 16,000 American deaths annually. Wildfire smoke exacerbates and causes various respiratory and cardiovascular effects along with other health issues, such as asthma attacks and heart failure, increasing risk of early death. 

New research suggests that the compounding health impacts of heat and smoke co-exposure could be even worse. For example, a recent analysis found that the co-occurrence of extreme heat and wildfire smoke in California leads to more hospitalizations for cardiopulmonary problems than on heat days or smoke days alone. 

Extreme heat also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone. Like wildfire smoke, ground-level ozone can cause respiratory problems and exacerbate pre-existing conditions. This has already happened at scale: during the 2020 wildfire season, more than 68% of the western U.S. – about 43 million people – were affected in a single day by both ground-level ozone extremes and fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke.

Impacts on Populations Most Vulnerable to Combined Heat and Smoke

While extreme heat and wildfire smoke can pose health risks to everyone, there are some groups that are more vulnerable either because they are more likely to be exposed, they are more likely to suffer more severe health consequences when they are exposed, or both. Below, we highlight groups that are most vulnerable to extreme heat and smoke and therefore may be vulnerable to the compound impacts of these hazards. More research is needed to understand how the compound impacts will affect the health of these populations.

Housing-Vulnerable and Housing-Insecure People

Access to air conditioning at home and work, tree canopy cover, buildings with efficient wildfire smoke filtration and heat insulation and cooling capacities, and access to  smoke centers are all important protective factors against the effects of extreme heat and/or wildfire smoke. People lacking these types of infrastructure are at higher risk for the health effects of these two hazards as a result of increased exposure. In California, for example, communities with lower incomes and higher population density experience a greater likelihood of negative health impacts from hazards like wildfire smoke and extreme heat. 

Outdoor Workers

Representing about 33% of the national workforce, outdoor workers — farmworkers, firefighters, and construction workers — experience much higher rates of exposure to environmental hazards, including wildfire smoke and extreme heat, than other workers. Farmworkers are particularly vulnerable even among outdoor workers; in fact, they face a 35 times greater risk of heat exposure death than other outdoor workers. Additionally, outdoor workers are often lower-income, making it harder to afford protections and seek necessary medical care. Twenty percent of agricultural worker families live below the national poverty line.

Wildfire smoke exposure is estimated to have caused $125 billion in lost wages annually from 2007 to 2019 and extreme heat exposure is estimated to cause $100 billion in wage losses each year. Without any changes to policies and practice, these numbers are only expected to rise. These income losses may exacerbate inequities in poverty rates and economic mobility, which determine overall health outcomes.

Pregnant Mothers and Infants

Extreme heat and wildfire smoke also pose a significant threat to the health of pregnant mothers and their babies. For instance, preterm birth is more likely during periods of higher temperatures and during wildfire smoke events. This correlation is significantly stronger among people who were simultaneously exposed to extreme heat and wildfire smoke PM_2.5.

Preterm birth comes with an array of risks for both the pregnant mothers and baby and is the leading cause of infant mortality. Babies born prematurely are more likely to have a range of serious health complications in addition to long-term developmental challenges. For the parent, having a preterm baby can have significant mental health impacts and financial challenges.

Children

Wildfire smoke and extreme heat both have significant impacts on children’s health, development, and learning. Children are uniquely vulnerable to heat because their bodies do not regulate temperatures as efficiently as adults, making it harder to cool down and putting their bodies under stress. Children are also more vulnerable to air pollution from wildfire smoke as they inhale more air relative to their weight than adults and because their bodies and brains are still developing.  PM_2.5 exposure from wildfires has been attributed to neuropsychological effects, such as ADHD, autism, impaired school performance, and decreased memory. 

When schools remain open during extreme weather events like heat and smoke, student learning is impacted. Research has found that each 1℉ increase in temperature leads to 1% decrease in annual academic achievement. However, when schools close due to wildfire smoke or heat events, children lose crucial learning time and families must secure alternative childcare.

Low-income students are more likely to be in schools without adequate air conditioning because their districts have fewer funds available for school improvement projects. This barrier has only been partially remedied in recent years through federal investments.

Older Adults

Older adults are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions, many of which increase vulnerability to extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and their combined effects. Older adults are also more likely to take regular medication, such as beta blockers for heart conditions, which increase predisposition to heat-related illness.

The most medically vulnerable older adults are in long-term care facilities. There is currently a national standard for operating temperatures for long-term care facilities, requiring them to operate at or below 81℉. There is no correlatory standard for wildfire smoke. Preliminary studies have found that long-term care facilities are unprepared for smoke events; in some facilities the indoor air quality is no better than the outdoor air quality.

Challenges and Opportunities for the Healthcare Sector

The impacts of extreme heat and smoke have profound implications for public health and therefore for healthcare systems and costs. Extreme heat alone is expected to lead to $1 billion in U.S. healthcare costs every summer, while wildfire smoke is estimated to cost the healthcare system $16 billion every year from respiratory hospital visits and PM_2.5 related deaths. 

Despite these high stakes, healthcare providers and systems are not adequately prepared to address wildfire smoke, extreme heat, and their combined effects. Healthcare preparedness and response is limited by a lack of real-time information about morbidity and mortality expected from individual extreme heat and smoke events. For example, wildfire smoke events are often reported on a one-month delay, making it difficult to anticipate smoke impacts in real time. Further, despite the risks posed by heat and smoke independently and when combined, healthcare providers are largely not receiving education about environmental health and climate change. As a result, physicians also do not routinely screen their patients for health risk and existing protective measures, such as the existence of air conditioning and air filtration in the home. 

Potential solutions to improve preparedness in the healthcare sector include developing more reliable real-time information about the potential impacts of smoke, heat, and both combined; training physicians in screening patients for risk of heat and smoke exposure; and training physicians in how to help patients manage extreme weather risks. 

Challenges and Opportunities for Federal, State, and Local Governments 

State and local governments have a role to play in building facilities that are resilient to extreme heat and wildfire smoke as well as educating people about how to protect themselves. However, funding for extreme heat and wildfire smoke is scarce and difficult for local jurisdictions in need to obtain. While some federal funding is available specifically to support smoke preparedness (e.g., EPA’s Wildfire Smoke Preparedness in Community Buildings Grant Program) and heat preparedness (e.g. NOAA NIHHIS’ Centers of Excellence), experts note that the funding landscape for both hazards is “limited and fragmented.” To date, communities have not been able to secure federal disaster funding for smoke or heat events through the Public Health Emergency Declaration or the Stafford Act. FEMA currently excludes the impacts on human health from economic valuations of losses from a disaster. As a result, many of these impacted communities never see investments from post-disaster hazard mitigation, which could potentially build community resilience to future events. Even if a declaration was made, it would likely be for one “event”, e.g. wildfire smoke or extreme heat, with recovery dollars targeted towards mitigating the impacts of that event. Without careful consideration, rebuilding and resilience investments might be maladaptive for addressing the combined impacts.

Next Steps

The Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission report offers a number of recommendations to improve how the federal government can better support communities in preparing for the impacts of wildfire smoke and acknowledges the need for more research on how heat and wildfire smoke compound. FAS has also developed a whole-government strategy towards extreme heat response, resilience, and preparedness that includes nearly 200 recommendations and notes the need for more data inputs on compounding hazards like wildfire smoke. Policymakers at the federal level should support research at the intersection of these topics and explore opportunities for providing technical assistance and funding that builds resilience to both hazards.

Understanding and planning for the compound impacts of extreme heat and wildfire smoke will improve public health preparedness, mitigate public exposure to extreme heat and wildfire smoke, and minimize economic losses. As the overarching research at this intersection is still emerging, there is a need for more data to inform policy actions that effectively allocate resources and reduce harm to the most vulnerable populations. The federal government must prioritize protection from both extreme heat and wildfire smoke, along with their combined effects, to fulfill its obligation to keep the public safe.

Announcement Comes as 2024 is Officially Declared Hottest Year on Record; Lingering Effects of Extreme Heat Fuel Catastrophic Wildfires in California

Washington, D.C. – January 13, 2025 – The Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a non-partisan, nonprofit science think tank dedicated to developing  evidence-based policies to address national threats, today released the 2025 Heat Policy Agenda. This strategy provides specific, actionable policy ideas to tackle the growing threat of extreme heat in the United States – an issue that now affects all 50 states and costs the country more than $160 billion annually. The Heat Policy Agenda was co-signed by more than 60 labor, industry, health, housing, environmental, academic and community associations and organizations.

“The 2025 Heat Policy Agenda lays out a comprehensive strategy for how to build U.S. resilience to extreme heat using science, technology, and evidence-based solutions,” says Daniel Correa, CEO of the Federation of American Scientists. “These ideas are also designed to increase government efficiency, protect critical infrastructure, and secure our Nation’s economy. We look forward to helping political leaders pursue rapid implementation of this critical agenda with the ultimate goal of protecting the health and wellbeing of people across the nation.”

Rollout of the Heat Policy Agenda comes as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirms 2024 as the hottest year on record, continuing a sustained trend. The 10 warmest years in modern history have all occurred during the past decade. 

Rollout also comes as catastrophic wildfires around Los Angeles provide a stark reminder of the lingering effects of extreme heat, and the interconnected nature of climate effects.

“Prolonged summer heat left vegetation in southern California bone-dry, making it that much easier for wildfires to explode unchecked,” explains Dr. Hannah Safford, FAS Associate Director of Climate and Environment. “Summer heat also depleted water resources critical for firefighting, and made it difficult to safely reduce fuel loads. The crisis we’re seeing around Los Angeles this winter underscores that we have to think about heat year-round – not just when it’s hot outside.”

The Heat Policy Agenda presents clear and specific actions the federal government can take to protect people, places, and the economy from the effects of extreme heat. These include:

• Establishing a clear, sustained federal governance structure for extreme heat.
• Amending the Stafford Act to explicitly define extreme heat as a “major disaster”, thereby unlocking federal relief funds during heat waves.
• Including extreme heat as a core component of national preparedness and public-health capabilities.
• Retaining and expanding critical federal programs that prepare homes and other infrastructure against threats like power outages.
• Transforming the built and landscaped environment through strategic investments in urban forestry and green infrastructure to cool communities, transportation systems to secure safe movement of people and goods, and power infrastructure to ready for greater load demand.

“As a Nation, we’ve underinvested in extreme heat relative to other natural hazards – but heat kills more people each year than hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods combined,” observes Grace Wickerson, FAS Health Equity Policy Manager. “Our 2025 Heat Policy Agenda addresses this emerging public health crisis from the ground up, with an emphasis on protecting children, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations.”

The 2025 Heat Policy Agenda represents insights and perspectives from hundreds of practitioners, technical experts, and community leaders. The full list of organizations co-signing the Agenda and urging immediate policy action on extreme heat is listed below. Please fill out this form if your organization would like to be added to this list.

Signatories Urging Policy Action on Extreme Heat

Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
American Forests
American Lung Association
Arizona State University’s Knowledge Exchange for Resilience
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group
California ReLeaf
Center for American Progress
Center for Biological Diversity
Center for Energy Poverty and Climate
Center for Invasive Species Prevention
Children’s Environmental Health Network
Climate Mayors
Climate Power
Climate Resolve
Dade County Street Response
Earth Ethics, Inc.
Elevate
Energy Equity Project
Farmworker Association of Florida
Federation of American Scientists
Food Tank
Green Roofs for Healthy Cities
Grid Alternatives
Groundwork USA
ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
Institute for Market Transformation
King County, Washington
Korey Stringer Institute
La Isla Network
League of Conservation Voters
MetroLab Network
Moms Clean Air Force
National Center for Healthy Housing
National Coalition for the Homeless
National Consumer Law Center
National Council on Occupational Safety and Health
National Employment Law Project
National Energy Assistance Directors Association
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Recreation and Parks Association
National Young Farmers Coalition
Natural Resources Defense Council
New America Future of Land and Housing Program
Next100
Organizing Resilience
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Rebuild by Design
SafeWork Washington
Smart Growth America
Smart Home America
Smart Surfaces Coalition
Southeast Sustainability Directors Network
Ten Across Resilience Network
The CLEO Institute
The New Buildings Institute
The Passive House Network
Toxic Free NC
Trust for Public Land
Undaunted K12
Union of Concerned Scientists
Urban Sustainability Directors Network
We Act for Environmental Justice
WeCount!
Women with Broken Heals
Workplace Fairness
Yale Center on Climate Change and Health

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ABOUT FAS

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1945 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to work on behalf of a safer, more equitable, and more peaceful world. More information about FAS work at fas.org.

ABOUT THIS COALITION

More than 60 labor, health, industry, environmental, and community organizations join with the Federation of American Scientists to support the 2025 Heat Policy Agenda, a comprehensive, common-sense strategy to tackle the growing threat of extreme heat in the United States. This call for action comes as 2024 is officially declared the hottest year on record, continuing a sustained trend. Extreme heat now affects tens of millions of Americans each year, and costs the country more than $160 billion annually in health costs, lost productivity, and other impacts. Rapid implementation of the 2025 Heat Policy Agenda will mitigate heat impacts, boosting the U.S. economy and making it safer for all Americans to live, work, and play.

RESOURCES

Extreme Heat Policy Agenda

It’s official: 2024 was the hottest year on record. But Americans don’t need official statements to tell them what they already know: our country is heating up, and we’re deeply unprepared.

Extreme heat has become a national economic crisis: lowering productivity, shrinking business revenue, destroying crops, and pushing power grids to the brink. The impacts of extreme heat cost our Nation an estimated $162 billion in 2024 – equivalent to nearly 1% of the U.S. GDP.

Extreme heat is also taking a human toll. Heat kills more Americans every year than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. The number of heat-related illnesses is even higher. And even when heat doesn’t kill, it severely compromises quality of life. This past summer saw days when more than 100 million Americans were under a heat advisory. That means that there were days when it was too hot for a third of our country to safely work or play.

We have to do better. And we can.

Attached is a comprehensive 2025 Heat Policy Agenda for the Trump Administration and 119^th Congress to better prepare for, manage, and respond to extreme heat. The Agenda represents insights from hundreds of experts and community leaders. If implemented, it will build readiness for the 2025 heat season – while laying the foundation for a more heat-resilient nation.

Core recommendations in the Agenda include the following:

1. Establish a clear, sustained federal governance structure for extreme heat. This will involve elevating, empowering, and dedicating funds to the National Interagency Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS), establishing a National Heat Executive Council, and designating a National Heat Coordinator in the White House.
2. Amend the Stafford Act to explicitly define extreme heat as a “major disaster”, and expand the definition of damages to include non-infrastructure impacts.
3. Direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to consider declaring a Public Health Emergency in the event of exceptional, life-threatening heat waves, and fully fund critical HHS emergency-response programs and resilient healthcare infrastructure.
4. Direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to include extreme heat as a core component of national preparedness capabilities and provide guidance on how extreme heat events or compounding hazards could qualify as major disasters.
5. Finalize a strong rule to prevent heat injury and illness in the workplace, and establish Centers of Excellence to protect troops, transportation workers, farmworkers, and other essential personnel from extreme heat.
6. Retain and expand home energy rebates, tax credits, LIHEAP, and the Weatherization Assistance Program, to enable deep retrofits that cut the costs of cooling for all Americans and prepare homes and other infrastructure against threats like power outages.
7. Transform the built and landscaped environment through strategic investments in urban forestry and green infrastructure to cool communities, transportation systems to secure safe movement of people and goods, and power infrastructure to ready for greater load demand.

The way to prevent deaths and losses from extreme heat is to act before heat hits. Our 60+ organizations, representing labor, industry, health, housing, environmental, academic and community associations and organizations, urge President Trump and Congressional leaders to work quickly and decisively throughout the new Administration and 119th Congress to combat the growing heat threat. America is counting on you.

Executive Branch

Federal agencies can do a great deal to combat extreme heat under existing budgets and authorities. By quickly integrating the actions below into an Executive Order or similar directive, the President could meaningfully improve preparedness for the 2025 heat season while laying the foundation for a more heat-resilient nation in the long term. 

Streamline and improve extreme heat management.

More than thirty federal agencies and offices share responsibility for acting on extreme heat. A better structure is needed for the federal government to seamlessly manage and build resilience. To streamline and improve the federal extreme heat response, the President must:

• Establish the National Integrated Heat-Health Information System (NIHHIS) Interagency Committee (IC). The IC will elevate the existing NIHHIS Interagency Working Group and empower it to shape and structure multi-agency heat initiatives under current authorities. 
• Establish a National Heat Executive Council comprising representatives from relevant stakeholder groups (state and local governments, health associations, infrastructure professionals, academic experts, community organizations, technologists, industry, national laboratories, etc.) to inform the NIHHIS IC.
• Appoint a National Heat Coordinator (NHC). The NHC would sit in the Executive Office of the President and be responsible for achieving national heat preparedness and resilience. To be most effective, the NHC should:
  • Work closely with the IC to create goals for heat preparedness and resilience in accordance with the National Heat Strategy, set targets, and annually track progress toward implementation.
  • Each spring, deliver a National Heat Action Plan and National Heat Outlook briefing, modeled on the National Hurricane Outlook briefing, detailing how the federal government is preparing for forecasted extreme heat.
  • Find areas of alignment with efforts to address other extreme weather threats.
• Direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Guard Bureau, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to create an incident command system for extreme heat emergencies, modeled on the National Hurricane Program.
• Direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review agency budgets for extreme heat activities and propose crosscut budgets to support interagency efforts.

Boost heat preparedness, response, and resilience in every corner of our nation.

Extreme heat has become a national concern, threatening every community in the United States. To boost heat preparedness, response, and resilience nationwide, the President must:

• Direct FEMA to ensure that heat preparedness is a core component of national preparedness capabilities. At minimum, FEMA should support extreme heat regional scenario planning and tabletop exercises; incorporate extreme heat into Emergency Support Functions, the National Incident Management System, and the Community Lifelines program; help states, municipalities, tribes, and territories integrate heat into Hazard Mitigation Planning; work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide language-accessible alerts via the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System; and clarify when extreme heat becomes a major disaster.
• Direct FEMA, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and other agencies that use Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) for funding decisions to ensure that BCA methodologies adequately represent impacts of extreme heat, such as economic losses, learning losses, wage losses, and healthcare costs. This may require updating existing methods to avoid systematically and unintentionally disadvantaging heat-mitigation projects.
• Direct FEMA, in accordance with Section 322 of the Stafford Act, to create guidance on extreme heat hazard mitigation and eligibility criteria for hazard mitigation projects.
• Direct agencies participating in the Thriving Communities Network to integrate heat adaptation into place-based technical assistance and capacity-building resources.
• Direct the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to form a working group on accelerating resilience innovation, with extreme heat as an emphasis area. Within a year, the group should deliver a report on opportunities to use tools like federal research and development, public-private partnerships, prize challenges, advance market commitments, and other mechanisms to position the United States as a leader on game-changing resilience technologies.

Usher in a new era of heat forecasting, research, and data.

Extreme heat’s impacts are not well-quantified, limiting a systematic national response. To usher in a new era of heat forecasting, research, and data, the President must:

• Direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Weather Service (NWS) to expand the HeatRisk tool to include Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories; provide information on real-time health impacts; and integrate sector-specific data so that HeatRisk can be used to identify risks to energy and the electric grid, health systems, transportation infrastructure, and more.
• Direct NOAA, through NIHHIS, to rigorously assess the impacts of extreme heat on all sectors of the economy, including agriculture, energy, health, housing, labor, and transportation. In tandem, NIHHIS and OMB should develop metrics tracking heat impact that can be incorporated into agency budget justifications and used to evaluate federal infrastructure investments and grant funding.
• Direct the NIHHIS IC to establish a new working group focused on methods for measuring heat-related deaths, illnesses, and economic impacts. The working group should create an inventory of federal datasets that track heat impacts, such as the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) datasets and power outage data from the Energy Information Administration. 
• Direct NWS to define extreme heat weather events, such as “heat domes”, which will help unlock federal funding and coordinate disaster responses across federal agencies.

Protect workers and businesses from heat.

Americans become ill and even die due to heat exposure in the workplace, a moral failure that also threatens business productivity. To protect workers and businesses, the President must:

• Finalize a strong rule to prevent heat injury and illness in the workplace. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA)’s August 2024 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is a crucial step towards a federal heat standard to protect workers. OSHA should quickly finalize this standard prior to the 2025 heat season.
• Direct OSHA to continue implementing the agency’s National Emphasis Program on heat, which enforces employers’ obligation to protect workers against heat illness or injury. OSHA should additionally review employers’ practices to ensure that workers are protected from job or wage loss when extreme heat renders working conditions unsafe.
• Direct the Department of Labor (DOL) to conduct a nationwide study examining the impacts of heat on the U.S. workforce and businesses. The study should quantify and monetize heat’s impacts on labor, productivity, and the economy.
• Direct DOL to provide technical assistance to employers on tailoring heat illness prevention plans and implementing cost-effective interventions that improve working conditions while maintaining productivity.

Prepare healthcare systems for heat impacts.

Extreme heat is both a public health emergency and a chronic stress to healthcare systems. Addressing the chronic disease epidemic will be impossible without treating the symptom of extreme heat. To prepare healthcare systems for heat impacts, the President must:

• Direct the HHS Secretary to consider using their authority to declare a Public Health Emergency in the event of an extreme heat wave.
• Direct HHS to embed extreme heat throughout the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), including by:
  • Developing heat-specific response guidance for healthcare systems and clinics.
  • Establishing thresholds for mobilizing the National Disaster Medical System.
  • Providing extreme heat training to the Medical Reserve Corps.
  • Simulating the cascading impacts of extreme heat through Medical Response and Surge Exercise scenarios and tabletop exercises.
• Direct HHS and the Department of Education to partner on training healthcare professionals on heat illnesses, impacts, risks to vulnerable populations, and treatments.
• Direct the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to integrate resilience metrics, including heat resilience, into its quality measurement programs. Where relevant, environmental conditions, such as chronic high heat, should be considered in newly required screenings for the social determinants of health.
• Direct the CDC’s Collaborating Office for Medical Examiners and Coroners to develop a standard protocol for surveillance of deaths caused or exacerbated by extreme heat.

Ensure affordably cooled and heat-resilient housing, schools, and other facilities.

Cool homes, schools, and other facilities are crucial to preventing heat illness and death. To prepare the build environment for rising temperatures, the President must:

Promote Housing and Cooling Access

• Direct HUD to protect vulnerable populations by (i) updating Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards to ensure that manufactured homes can maintain safe indoor temperatures during extreme heat, (ii) stipulating that mobile home park owners applying for Section 207 mortgages guarantee resident safety in extreme heat (e.g., by including heat in site hazard plans and allowing tenants to install cooling devices, cool walls, and shade structures), and (iii) guaranteeing that renters receiving housing vouchers or living in public housing have access to adequate cooling.
• Direct the Federal Housing Finance Agency to require that new properties must adhere to the latest energy codes and ensure minimum cooling capabilities in order to qualify for a Government Sponsored Enterprise mortgage.
• Ensure access to cooling devices as a medical necessity by directing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to include high-efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps in Publication 502, which defines eligible medical expenses for a variety of programs.
• Direct HHS to (i) expand outreach and education to state Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) administrators and subgrantees about eligible uses of funds for cooling, (ii) expand vulnerable populations criteria to include pregnant people, and (iii) allow weatherization benefits to apply to cool roofs and walls or green roofs.
• Direct agencies to better understand population vulnerability to extreme heat, such as by integrating the Census Bureau’s Community Resilience Estimates for Heat into existing risk and vulnerability tools and updating the American Community Survey with a question about cooling access to understand household-level vulnerability.
• Direct the Department of Energy (DOE) to work with its Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) contractors to ensure that home energy audits consider passive cooling interventions like cool walls and roofs, green roofs, strategic placement of trees to provide shading, solar shading devices, and high-efficiency windows. 
• Extend the National Initiative to Advance Building Codes (NIABC), and direct agencies involved in that initiative to (i) develop codes and metrics for sustainable and passive cooling, shade, materials selection, and thermal comfort, and (ii) identify opportunities to accelerate state and local adoption of code language for extreme heat adaptation.

Prepare Schools and Other Facilities

• Direct the Department of Education to collect data to better understand how schools are experiencing and responding to extreme heat, and to strengthen education and outreach on heat safety and preparedness for schools. This should include sponsored sports teams and physical activity programs. The Department should also collaborate with USDA on strategies to braid funding for green and shaded schoolyards.
• Direct the Administration for Children and Families to develop extreme heat guidance and temperature standards for Early Childhood Facilities and Daycares.
• Direct USDA to develop a waiver process for continuing school food service when extreme heat disrupts schedules during the school year.
• Direct the General Services Administration (GSA) to identify and pursue opportunities to demonstrate passive and resilient cooling strategies in public buildings.
• Direct the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to increase coordination with long-term care facilities during heat events to ensure compliance with existing indoor temperature regulations, develop plans for mitigating excess indoor heat, and build out energy redundancy plans, such as back-up power sources like microgrids.
• Direct the Bureau of Prisons, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to collect data on air conditioning coverage in federal prisons and detention facilities and develop temperature standards that ensure thermal safety of inmates and the prison and detention workforce.
• Direct the White House Domestic Policy Council to create a Cool Corridors Federal Partnership, modeled after the Urban Waters Federal Partnership. The partnership of agencies would leverage data, research, and existing grant programs for community-led pilot projects to deploy heat mitigation efforts, like trees, along transportation routes.

Legislative Branch

Congress can support the President in combating extreme heat by increasing funds for heat-critical federal programs and by providing new and explicit authorities for federal agencies.

Treat extreme heat like the emergency it is.

Extreme heat has devastating human and societal impacts that are on par with other federally recognized disasters. To treat extreme heat like the emergency it is, Congress must:

• Institutionalize and provide long-term funding for the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS), the NIHHIS Interagency Committee (IC), and the National Heat Executive Council (NHEC), including functions and personnel. NIHHIS is critical to informing heat preparedness, response, and resilience across the nation. An IC and NHEC will ensure federal government coordination and cross-sector collaboration.
• Create the National Heat Commission, modeled on the Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission. The Commission’s first action should be creating a report for Congress on whole-of-government solutions to address extreme heat.
• Adopt H.R. 3965, which would amend the Stafford Act to explicitly include extreme heat in the definition of “major disaster”. Congress should also define the word “damages” in Section 102 of the Stafford Act to include impacts beyond property and economic losses, such as learning losses, wage losses, and healthcare costs.
• Direct and fund FEMA, NOAA, and CDC to establish a real-time heat alert system that aligns with the World Meteorological Organization’s Early Warnings for All program. 
• Direct the Congressional Budget Office to produce a report assessing the costs of extreme heat to taxpayers and summarizing existing federal funding levels for heat.
• Appropriate full funding for emergency contingency funds for LIHEAP and the Public Health Emergency Program, and increase the annual baseline funding for LIHEAP.
• Update the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act to prohibit residential utilities from shutting off beneficiaries’ power during periods of extreme heat due to overdue bills.
• Adopt S. 2501, which would keep workers safe by requiring basic labor protections, such as water and breaks, in the event of indoor and outdoor extreme temperatures.
• Establish sector-specific Centers of Excellence for Heat Workplace Safety, beginning with military, transportation, and farm labor.

Build community heat resilience by readying critical infrastructure.

Investments in resilience pay dividends, with every federal dollar spent on resilience returning $6 in societal benefits. Our nation will benefit from building thriving communities that are prepared for extreme heat threats, adapted to rising temperatures, and capable of withstanding extreme heat disruptions. To build community heat resilience, Congress must:

• Establish the HeatSmart Grids Initiative as a partnership between DOE, FEMA, HHS, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). This initiative will ensure that electric grids are prepared for extreme heat, including risk of energy system failures during extreme heat and the necessary emergency and public health responses. This program should (i) perform national audits of energy security and building-stock preparedness for outages, (ii) map energy resilience assets such as long-term energy storage and microgrids, (iii) leverage technologies for minimizing grid loads such as smart grids and virtual power plants, and (iv) coordinate protocols with FEMA’s Community Lifelines and CISA’s Critical Infrastructure for emergency response.  
• Update the LIHEAP formula to better reflect cooling needs of low-income Americans.
• Amend Title I of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act to clarify that Title I funds may be used for school infrastructure upgrades needed to avoid learning loss; e.g., replacement of HVAC systems or installation of cool roofs, walls, and pavements and solar and other shade canopies, green roofs, trees and green infrastructure to keep school buildings at safe temperatures during heat waves. 
• Direct the HHS Secretary to submit a report to Congress identifying strategies for maximizing federal childcare assistance dollars during the hottest months of the year, when children are not in school. This could include protecting recent increased childcare reimbursements for providers who conform to cooling standards.
• Direct the HUD Secretary to submit a report to Congress identifying safe residential temperature standards for federally assisted housing units and proposing strategies to ensure compliance with the standards, such as extending utility allowances to cooling.
• Direct the DOT Secretary to conduct an independent third-party analysis of cool pavement products to develop metrics to evaluate thermal performance over time, durability, road subsurface temperatures, road surface longevity, and solar reflectance across diverse climatic conditions and traffic loads. Further, the analysis should assess (i) long-term performance and maintenance and (ii) benefits and potential trade-offs.
• Fund FEMA to establish a new federal grant program for community heat resilience, modeled on California’s “Extreme Heat and Community Resilience” program and in line with H.R. 9092. This program should include state agencies and statewide consortia as eligible grantees. States should be required to develop and adopt an extreme heat preparedness plan to be eligible for funds. 
• Authorize and fund a new National Resilience Hub program at FEMA. This program would define minimum criteria that must be met for a community facility to be federally recognized as a resilience hub, and would provide funding to subsidize operations and emergency response functions of recognized facilities. Congress should also direct the FEMA Administrator to consider activities to build or retrofit a community facility meeting these criteria as eligible activities for Section 404 Hazard Mitigation Grants and funding under the Building Resilience Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program.
• Authorize and fund HHS to establish an Extreme Weather Resilient Health System Grant Program to prepare low-resource healthcare institutions (such as rural hospitals or federally qualified health centers) for extreme weather events.
• Fund the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish an Extreme Heat program and clearinghouse for design, construction, operation, and maintenance of buildings and infrastructure systems under extreme heat events.
• Fund HUD to launch an Affordable Cooling Housing Challenge to identify opportunities to lower the cost of new home construction and retrofits adapted to extreme heat.
• Expand existing rebates and tax credits (including HER, HEAR, 25C, 179D, Direct Pay) to include passive cooling tech such as cool walls, pavements, and roofs (H.R. 9894), green roofs, solar glazing, and solar shading. Revise 25C to be refundable at purchase.
• Authorize a Weatherization Readiness Program (H.R. 8721) to address structural, plumbing, roofing, and electrical issues, and environmental hazards with dwelling units unable to receive effective assistance from WAP, such as for implementing cool roofs.
• Fund the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) Program to develop heat-adapted tree nurseries and advance best practices for urban forestry that mitigates extreme heat, such as strategies for micro forests. 

Leveraging the Farm Bill to build national heat resilience.

Farm, food, forestry, and rural policy are all impacted by extreme heat. To ensure the next Farm Bill is ready for rising temperatures, Congress should:

• Double down on urban forestry, including by:
  • Reauthorizing the UCF Grant program. 
  • Funding and directing the USFS UCF Program to support states, locals and Tribes on maintenance solutions for urban forests investments.
  • Funding and authorizing a Green Schoolyards Grant under the UCF Program.
• Reauthorize the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Program, which supports employers in improving working conditions for farm workers.
• Reauthorize the Rural Emergency Health Care Grants and Rural Hospital Technical Assistance Program to provide resources and technical assistance to rural hospitals to prepare for emerging threats like extreme heat
• Direct the USDA Secretary to submit a report to Congress on the impacts of extreme heat on agriculture, expected costs of extreme heat to farmers (input costs and losses), consumers and the federal government (i.e. provision of SNAP benefits and delivery of insurance and direct payment for losses of agricultural products), and available federal resources to support agricultural and food systems adaptation to hotter temperatures.
• Authorize the following expansions:
  • Agriculture Conservation Easement Program to include agrivoltaics.
  • Environmental Quality Incentives Program to include facility cooling systems 
  • The USDA’s 504 Home Repair program to include funding for high-efficiency air conditioning and other sustainable cooling systems.
  • The USDA’s Community Facilities Program to include funding for constructing resilience centers.These resilience centers should be constructed to minimum standards established by the National Resilience Hub Program, if authorized.
  • The USDA’s Rural Business Development Grant program to include high-efficiency air conditioning and other sustainable cooling systems.

Funding critical programs and agencies to build a heat-ready nation.

To protect Americans and mitigate the $160+ billion annual impacts of extreme heat, Congress will need to invest in national heat preparedness, response, and resilience. The tables on the following pages highlight heat-critical programs that should be extended, as well as agencies that need more funding to carry out heat-critical work, such as key actions identified in the Executive section of this Heat Policy Agenda.

After a 50-year population boom, migration to the Sun Belt is skidding to a halt. Instead, the scorching heat and devastating storms increasingly common across the southern (and coastal) United States are prompting Americans to consider moving to more geographically resilient regions. New America estimates that 20 million Americans will relocate in the coming decades to escape extreme heat, drought, sea-level rise and natural disasters such as tropical storms, flooding, and wildfires. Many of them are likely to end up in “Receiving Cities” in the Midwest, Northeast, and the northern Great Plains.

Many anticipated “Receiving Cities” – places like Cincinnati, Duluth, Buffalo and Detroit – could benefit from the economic stimulus and revitalization that often accompany population inflows. These cities have a large carrying capacity but have suffered from deindustrialization, disinvestment, and population outflows in the last half century.

Yet at present, many Receiving Cities aren’t positioned to support an influx of residents. The rapid and unplanned arrival of transplants could overwhelm housing supply (which is already in shortfall across much of the country), increase housing insecurity and displacement, and place additional stress on federal and local rental and homeowner assistance programs, legal aid clinics, and other housing-related services. 

Because weather-related migration is not presently occurring en masse, the new administration has an opportunity to (i) increase the preparedness and socioeconomic appeal of Receiving Cities, in large part through production and preservation of housing for all income levels; and then (ii) encourage and support American households in relocating to these communities. The federal government should designate “Receiving Cities” to which it will allocate funds and tax incentives aimed at producing and preserving affordable housing, in anticipation of population inflows. 

Challenge and Opportunity

How will the Sun Belt Exodus Unfold?

Over the last 50 years, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and other Sun Belt states have experienced a boom of residents seeking affordable housing, low taxes, and balmy weather. These population inflows have had a significant positive impact on local economies by creating jobs, boosting housing markets, and stimulating small businesses. 

Yet extreme weather and natural disasters are starting to reverse this trend. A study published in July 2024 by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco shows that the U.S. population is starting to migrate away from areas increasingly exposed to extreme heat toward historically colder areas, which are becoming more attractive as extreme cold days become increasingly rare. Meanwhile, analysis from First Street Foundation suggests that 3.2 million Americans have already relocated from areas with high flood risk. As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, and as Southern cities become hotter, New America estimates that 20 million Americans will relocate by 2100. 

As Americans move, however, many are relocating to nearby communities that are often no less vulnerable than the ones they had left. A report from Rice University on government buyouts of flood-prone houses, for example, found that 58 percent of participating homeowners relocated within a 10-mile drive of their previous property. And, even as some Americans are leaving the Sun Belt, others are continuing to move there. Census Bureau data from 2023 shows that 11 of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the U.S. are located in Arizona, Texas, and Florida: states at increasing risk of various natural hazards, including sea-level rise, extreme heat, drought, flooding, and tropical storms.

Alongside negative effects on physical safety and quality of life, decisions to remain in geographically vulnerable areas have major economic consequences for residents, local and state governments, and the federal government. Residents and local governments risk hundreds of billions of dollars in financial losses from property damage and lost local tax revenues. State and regional actors increase the fallout of an all-but-certain collapse of real estate, mortgage lending, and homeowners insurance markets. Additionally, the federal government faces multi-billion dollar losses each year from post-disaster assistance payouts and from administering the already-insolvent National Flood Insurance Program. 

In order to minimize these losses, the U.S. must support the steady relocation of American households to more geographically resilient regions, including the Midwest, Northeast, and the northern Great Plains. And it must ensure that “Receiving Cities” in these regions have the housing and infrastructure to support and benefit from population inflows – just as Sun Belt metros have over the last half century – without displacing existing residents.

An Opportunity for Receiving Cities 

For many Receiving Cities, transplants from the Sun Belt and elsewhere offer a chance for socioeconomic revitalization and growth. Population increases can boost demand for goods and services, fill gaps in the local labor market, and increase the municipal tax base. Transplants will bring a diverse range of professional experience, skills, and educational backgrounds that can complement the existing workforce within their new community.

But without additional investment, many of these cities are unprepared to absorb population inflows. Post-industrial cities in the Midwest and Northeast theoretically possess the urban carrying capacity to accommodate new residents, but have persistently underinvested in housing, along with other community needs. For instance, Detroit, with its thousands of vacant and abandoned buildings, was actually short 24,000 habitable homes after blight was taken into account, according to a 2020 study from the University of Michigan. Similarly, a 2022 report from Duluth, Minnesota, often cited as the most geographically resilient city in the U.S., shows that the community requires 2,400 additional units to keep pace with its current rate of growth.

Consequently, the rapid and unplanned arrival of transplants in receiving cities could possibly overwhelm a local housing sector, exacerbate unaffordability, displacement, and homelessness, and place additional stress on rental and homeowner assistance programs, legal aid clinics, and other housing-related services. Recent experience in Chico, California is emblematic: following sudden population growth due to the 2018 Camp Fire, housing prices in Chico increased 21 percent while many Housing Choice Voucher beneficiaries struggled to find rentals. Smaller and mid-sized municipalities can especially struggle with the abrupt arrival of many displaced persons or transplants. A shortfall of financial and technical resources creates barriers to preparedness, and many local governments do not possess the staffing and expertise to access the federal funding and professional assistance that is crucial for planning.

Access to affordable and quality housing will be foundational for any successful revitalization or growth. Through a Receiving Cities Housing Program, the U.S. government can support future receiving cities to prepare local housing markets for expected population increases due to weather change. As this population movement is not presently occurring en masse, there is opportunity for the incoming administration to (i) help increase the preparedness and socioeconomic appeal of future receiving cities, in large part through production and preservation of affordable housing; and then (ii) encourage and support American households in relocating in the near future to receiving cities, in order to increase individual, community, and national resilience.

Burdens for unprepared communities

Although out of scope for this memo, it is worth mentioning that without proper planning, large population inflows could also place increased strain on existing infrastructure and public services in receiving communities, including health care, transportation, education, water and sanitation, electricity, and waste management. Unprepared localities may experience new or additional challenges in basic amenity provision, service disruptions, and/or increased cost of living for both newcomers and long-time residents as a result.

Plan of Action

Upon taking office, the President should sign an Executive Order to boost housing supply nationwide, with a focus on housing supply in Receiving Cities via a Receiving Cities Housing Program. The Executive Order will establish an Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) focused on housing risk reduction in Receiving Cities, stewarded by the Domestic Policy Council or the National Economic Council.

In parallel, the new administration must work to frame domestic relocation and the Receiving Cities Housing Program as an opportunity instead of a crisis or burden. American viewpoints are evolving on weather and disaster-related relocation, previously a political and social “third rail.” A 2021 survey found that 57 percent of participants believed climate change will force them to consider a move in the next decade. According to a similar survey from the real estate firm Redfin in 2021, nearly half of respondents that planned to relocate in the next year cited climate change as a deciding factor. 

To further depoliticize weather-related migration, the President should publicly position extreme weather as a risk to be managed similar to cyber risk and national security risk. He could do so in a speech to the American people and to Congress, such as the 2025 State of the Union. The President can also direct their Communications Director and Press Secretary, along with relevant agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to communicate on the risks to households of remaining in vulnerable regions, and of the Receiving Cities Housing Program as a tool for revitalization and economic growth.

Overall, the Receiving Cities Housing Program should be guided by the following recommendations:

Recommendation 1. Expand federally supported research and data collection on geographic resilience, weather-related migration projections, and urban carrying capacity to inform designation of “Receiving Cities.”

Improved understanding of (i) geographic resilience; (ii) likely domestic weather-related relocation patterns; and (iii) urban carrying capacity is essential for informed and data-driven decision-making regarding the designation of “Receiving Cities.” The Executive Order should: 

• Direct relevant federal departments, agencies, and offices, including FEMA, HUD, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to expand research and data collection on the future geographic resilience of U.S. cities, with the goal of better understanding each city’s geographic resilience, based on its long-term exposure to extreme weather and related natural hazards. If possible, analysis should integrate or otherwise leverage existing research, datasets, and toolkits, including FEMA’s National Risk Index; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Climate Change Indicators; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Climate Explorer Toolkits; the most recent iteration of the National Climate Assessment; and projections by vetted private firms and non-governmental organizations such as the Rhodium Group and First Street Foundation.
• Direct the U.S. Census Bureau to expand research and data collection on domestic weather-related relocation patterns now and in the future. In particular, the Census Bureau should conduct a feasibility study on the collection of comprehensive, standardized, and up-to-date data on migration flows, ideally leveraging existing instruments such as the American Community Survey or the Household Pulse Survey. If feasible, data collection processes should be implemented.
• Direct the Department of Labor (DOL)’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R), and other relevant federal departments, agencies, and offices to expand research and data collection on the urban carrying capacity of U.S. cities. BLS, for example, should build on its Employment Projections Program and the Projections Managing Partnership to project industry growth regionally, while PD&R should leverage data from the American Housing Survey, Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy, and the U.S. Housing Market Conditions platform, among other resources, to assess the availability of quality and affordable housing stock in U.S. cities.

Recommendation 2. Designate a set of “Receiving Cities” based on clearly articulated criteria and in consultation with prospective Receiving Cities.

The Receiving Cities Housing Program must consider geographic resilience, projected demographic growth, and urban carrying capacity (including potential carrying capacity of adjacent federal lands) during its selection process. Criteria should include a desire from the Receiving City to be included in the program. In order to ensure buy-in, potential Receiving Cities should also tangibly demonstrate a long-term commitment to affordable housing development, resilient urban planning, and socioeconomic equity amid weather-related migration. The IPC should develop and announce a set of measurable housing-related preconditions for designation of a city as a “Receiving City.” Program requirements could include, but is not limited to:

• An annual municipal earmark for the production and preservation of affordable housing. 
• Demonstrable inclusion of natural hazards and weather-related migration considerations in housing and community development plans, with an emphasis on historically marginalized populations and other groups disproportionately vulnerable to negative environmental impacts.
• Consideration and implementation of innovation measures to increase production and/or preservation of affordable housing, such as “smart zoning” reform, community land trusts, and a local housing fund.

Recommendation 3. Develop a Receiving Cities Housing Program that supports production and preservation of affordable housing in designated “Receiving Cities.”

Once the Receiving Cities Housing Program selects participant cities, it must support these communities to (a) build new units, via a New Home Program, and (b) rehabilitate and preserve existing units, via a Home Restoration Program.

The Receiving Cities New Homes Program will include the following assistance:

• IPC member agencies should provide technical assistance and funding for cities to amend zoning and land use policies to accommodate the production of affordable housing, including through the Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing program. 
• HUD should allocate increased HOME program funds for Receiving Cities. 
• FEMA should similarly consider “Receiving City” designation within its funding allocation decisions for a number of existing housing-related programs, including the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program; the Hazard Mitigation Grant program; the Flood Mitigation Assistance program; and the Pre-Disaster Mitigation program to support the production and/or preservation of resilient and affordable housing in future receiving communities.
• A number of additional relevant departments, agencies, and offices should prioritize implementation of housing-related initiatives in designated “Receiving Cities.” This includes, but is not limited to:

• The Thriving Communities Network, a federal interagency initiative that provides place-based technical assistance and capacity building for historically marginalized communities. In particular, HUD’s Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Program, which is part of the network, can help local governments ensure that housing needs are considered as part of larger infrastructure investment plans.
• The General Service Administration’s Good Neighbor Program, which promotes the sale of surplus federal properties that buyers can potentially redevelop for residential use.
• The Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Initiative, which supports the construction of more energy-efficient homes.
• Make changes to the Department of Transportation’s Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act Program and Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program, to make it more accessible to developers in Receiving Cities. 

The Receiving Cities Home Restoration Program will be responsible for making older and vacant homes market-ready, and will include the following assistance:

• HUD and Congress should increase lender uptake to the FHA 203(k) Rehabilitation Mortgage Insurance Program by introducing a preferred vendor approach and lifting other bureaucratic hurdles. For example, the program could allow for new detached properties to be constructed on a lot, allowing for further proliferation of Accessory Dwelling Units and duplexes.
• Appropriate IPC members should provide local lenders with incentives and technical assistance to expand purchase-rehabilitation financing options for buyers. Examples of programs that can be scaled or replicated include U.S. Bank’s American Dream home loan program, a fixed-rate mortgage loan program with flexible underwriting criteria targeted to lower-income buyers (less than 80% AMI) that includes rehabilitation funding. Another example is the Detroit Home Mortgage program, through which eligible buyers can obtain a first mortgage for the appraised value of the home, and a second mortgage of up to $75,000 to fill the gap between the appraised value and the sale price plus any renovation costs.
• Congress should expand tax credits like the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit to include additional homes in Receiving Cities, and streamline requirements for taking advantage of these tax credits. 
• Expand the pool of grant funds, including Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), to support rehabilitation of homes in Receiving Cities. 

Recommendation 4. Secure long-term federal financing for the Receiving Cities Housing Program.

Major legislation such as the American Rescue Plan Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) demonstrate that the federal government can direct significant and flexible resources towards adaptation and resilience. Prioritization of these needs must continue via the Receiving Cities Housing Program, as effective preparation in receiving cities for weather-related migration is a long-term effort.

Concurrently, IPC member agencies should coordinate with relevant federal financing departments, agencies, and offices to increase funding for the production and preservation of affordable housing in designated “Receiving Cities,” with the following actions:

• The Treasury should study the feasibility of issuing green bonds, direct grants, and low-interest loans for the production and preservation of affordable housing in “Receiving Cities.” The Department should further consider state- and local-level partnerships to provide tax-exempt municipal bonds, as well as tax incentives and other support for public-private partnerships, to fund affordable housing development as part of the Receiving Cities Housing Program.
• The Federal Housing Finance Agency, and more specifically the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, could offer lower-interest loans to private developers, nonprofit organizations, and local governments for the production and preservation of affordable homes in designated “Receiving Cities.” Additionally, the GSEs should issue “green bonds” to fund housing production and rehabilitation in participating communities, and can also securitize mortgages from properties in “Receiving Cities,” to increase liquidity for lenders and incentivize additional investments.

Recommendation 5. Create a pilot program that offers incentives for American households to relocate from high-risk areas to “Receiving Cities.”

As a supplement to the Receiving Cities Housing Program, HUD, in collaboration with FEMA and DOT, should pilot a resilient relocation program that provides tax breaks, housing vouchers, and/or direct payouts for households to relocate to Receiving Cities. The pilot could also incorporate workforce training or reskilling programs. 

At the local, state, and federal level, there are existing programs that provide incentives or support for people to relocate, such as Tulsa Remote; the ThinkVermont Innovation Initiative; and the Biden Administration’s recently established WelcomeCorps. A similar federal initiative for weather-related migration should leverage knowledge and expertise from existing programs. 

Conclusion

Led by the incoming administration, a new Receiving Cities Housing Program should incorporate a whole-of-government approach and emphasize coordination with local leaders, civil society, and the private sector. Implementation of this program will help provide projected receiving cities with increased resources to plan for and receive new arrivals, and also ensure that relocation to geographically resilient regions is a logical and appealing choice for Americans voluntarily relocating in part or whole due to weather.

Ultimately, with sufficient planning, technical assistance, resource allocation, and communications, the federal government can shape weather-related migration into an opportunity for economic revitalization and growth in geographically resilient communities, and also ensure equitable and high quality-of-life for both new arrival and long-time residents.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is the largest climate investment in history. FAS scientists offer policy ideas to maximize the impacts of this investment on U.S. competitiveness, energy security, resilience, and more.

Washington, D.C. – August 16, 2024 – The Federation of American Scientists (FAS), the non-partisan, nonprofit science think tank dedicated to using evidence-based science for the public good, is celebrating the two-year anniversary of the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) by sharing policy ideas to drive continued successful implementation of this landmark legislation.

The IRA is a United States federal law which aims to reduce the federal government budget deficit, lower prescription drug prices, and invest in domestic energy production while promoting clean energy. It was passed by the 117th United States Congress and it was signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022. The IRA has catalyzed $265 billion in new clean energy investments and created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States, putting us on a path to achieving climate goals while boosting the economy. 

“In just two years, the Inflation Reduction Act has driven down costs of energy and transportation for everyday Americans while reining in catastrophic climate change” says Hannah Safford, Associate Director of Climate and Environment. “This legislation proves that when we invest in a better future, everyone wins.”

“The IRA enables the country to move toward ambitious climate goals. We already see the effects with new policy proposal ideas that could supercharge pursuit of these goals,” says Kelly Fleming, Associate Director of Clean Energy. “The Department of Energy finds that with the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we can double the share of clean electricity generation to 80% in 2030.”

FAS, one of the country’s oldest science policy organizations, works with scientists and technologists to propose policy-ready ideas to address current and emerging threats, including climate change and energy insecurity.  

On today’s two-year anniversary of the IRA, FAS is highlighting policy proposals that build on the IRA’s successes to date and suggest opportunities for continued impact. Examples include:

Geothermal 

Geothermal technologies became eligible for tax credits under IRA.

Breaking Ground on Next-Generation Geothermal Energy The Department of Energy (DOE) could take a number of different approaches to accelerating progress in next-generation geothermal energy, from leasing agency land for project development to providing milestone payments for the costly drilling phases of development.

Low-Carbon Cement 

The IRA provides $4.5B to support government procurement of low-carbon  versions of this cornerstone material.

Laying the Foundation for the Low-Carbon Cement and Concrete Industry Cement and concrete production is one of the hardest industries to decarbonize. Using its Other Transactions Authority, DOE could design a demand-support program involving double-sided auctions, contracts for difference, or price and volume. 

Critical Minerals and Energy Manufacturing

Supply chains necessary for battery technologies are being built out in the U.S. thanks to IRA incentives. The new Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chain Office (MESC) has implemented and unveiled programs to retool existing facilities for EV manufacturing, and rehire existing work, and provide tax incentives for clean energy manufacturing facilities with funding provided in the IRA. The office supports the development and deployment of a domestic clean energy supply chain, including for critical minerals needed for batteries and other advanced technologies.

Critical Thinking on Critical Minerals: How the U.S. Government Can Support the Development of Domestic Production Capacity for the Battery Supply Chain Batteries for electric vehicles, in particular, will require the U.S. to consume an order of magnitude more lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite than it currently consumes.

Nature Based Solutions

Billions of dollars have been invested into nature based solutions, including $1 billion in urban forestry, that will make communities more resilient to climate change.

A National Framework For Sustainable Urban Forestry To Combat Extreme Heat. To realize the full benefits of the federal government’s investment in urban forestry, there will need to be a coordinated, equity-focused, and economically validated federal plan to guide the development and maintenance of urban forestry that will allow the full utilization of this critical resource.

Submit Your Science and Technology Policy Ideas

The IRA is one lever to make real-world change; good ideas can come from anyone, including you.

FAS is soliciting federal policy ideas to present to the next U.S. presidential administration through the Day One 2025 project, which closes soon. Interested parties can submit science and technology related policy ideas year-round at FAS’s Day One website page.

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ABOUT FAS

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1945 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to work on behalf of a safer, more equitable, and more peaceful world. More information at fas.org.

FAS eager to see the Board set an ambitious agenda that aligns with the potential scale of FESI’s impact

Washington, D.C. – May 9, 2024 – Earlier today Secretary of Energy Granholm took the first official step to stand up the Department of Energy-affiliated non-profit Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI) by appointing its inaugural board. Today the “Friends of FESI” Initiative of the nonpartisan, non-profit Federation of American Scientists (FAS) steps forward to applaud the Secretary, congratulate the new board members, and wish FESI well as it officially begins its first year. The Inaugural FESI Board consists of 13 accomplished members whose backgrounds span the nation’s regions and communities and who have deep experience in innovation, national security, philanthropy, business, science, and other sectors. It includes:

• Jason Walsh, BlueGreen Alliance
• Nancy Pfund, DBL Partners
• Rita Baranwal, Westinghouse Electric
• Vicky Bailey, Anderson Stratton
• Mike Boots, Breakthrough Energy
• Miranda Ballentine, Clean Energy
• Stephen Pearse, Yucatan Rock
• Noel Bakhtian, Bezos Earth Fund
• Mung Chiang, President of Purdue University 
• Noelle Laing, Builder’s Initiative Foundation
• Katie McGinty, Johnson Controls
• Tomeka McLeod, Hydrogen VP at bp
• Rudy Wynter, National Grid NY
  

Since the CHIPS and Science Act authorized FESI in 2022, FAS, along with many allies and supporters who collectively comprise the “Friends of FESI,” have been working to enable FESI to achieve its full potential as a major contributor to the achievement of DOE’s vital goals. “Friends of FESI” has been seeking projects and activities that the foundation could take on that would advance the DOE mission through collaboration with private sector and philanthropic partners.

“FAS enthusiastically celebrates this FESI milestone because, as one of the country’s oldest science and technology-focused public interest organizations, we recognize the scale of the energy transition challenge and the urgency to broker new collaborations and models to move new energy technology from lab to market,” says Dan Correa, CEO of FAS. “As a ‘Friend of FESI’ FAS continues our outreach amongst our diverse network of experts to surface the best ideas for FESI to consider implementing.” The federation is soliciting ideas at fas.org/fesi, underway since FESI’s authorization.

FESI has great potential to foster the public-private partnerships necessary to accelerate the innovation and commercialization of technologies that will power the transition to clean energy. Gathering this diverse group of accomplished board members is the first step. The next is for the FESI Board to pursue projects set to make real impact. Given FESI’s bipartisan support in the CHIPS & Science Act, FAS hopes the board is joined by Congress, industry leaders and others to continue to support FESI in its initial years. 

“FESI’s establishment is a vital initial step, but its value will depend on what happens next,” says David M. Hart, a professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and leader of the “Friends of FESI” initiative at FAS. “FESI’s new Board of Directors should take immediate actions that have immediate impact, but more importantly, put the foundation on a path to expand that impact exponentially in the coming years. That means thinking big from the start, identifying unique high-leverage opportunities, and systematically building the capacity to realize them.”

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ABOUT FAS

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1945 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to work on behalf of a safer, more equitable, and more peaceful world. More information at fas.org.

Resources

Building a Firm Foundation for the DOE Foundation: It All Starts with a Solid Board
https://fas.org/publication/fesi-board-launch/

FAS use case criteria:
https://fas.org/publication/fesi-priority-use-cases/

FAS open call for FESI ideas:
https://fas.org/publication/share-an-idea-for-what-fesi-can-do-to-advance-does-mission/

DOE announcing FESI board:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-appoints-inaugural-board-directors-groundbreaking-new-foundation

DOE release announcing FESI:
https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-launches-foundation-energy-security-and-innovation