In America’s 250th Year We Agree on the Knicks, Ranch Dressing, and Building Resilience to the Dangers of Extreme Heat
The summer of 2026 was one of shared experiences. Sports-agnostic Americans joined die-hard Knicks fans in the streets to celebrate their NBA Finals victory. The World Cup allowed Americans to share our culture, from Buc-ee’s to Bass Pro to ranch dressing, with international visitors. And from coast to coast, with hot dogs, parades, and over 800,000 fireworks, the nation toasted to 250 years. However, in the background of these celebrations, Americans were also coming together for a different type of event: deadly heat waves. On the Fourth of July, more than 160 million Americans across 30 states marked the holiday under extreme heat – including a heat dome that contributed to 40 deaths across the East Coast and Illinois and left almost a million people without power. In mid-July, the wildfire smoke that spread from the West to East Coast threatened the World Cup final while nearly one-third of the population faced unhealthy air.
Overall, this summer was the hottest summer on record: July ranked as the hottest month ever recorded in the contiguous U.S., and August broke the global record for heat and humidity. Because of climate change, though, dangerous temperatures are extending even beyond the traditional “summer months”. This past March was the hottest March ever recorded, with temperature records shattered across the American West. Not only was this out-of-season heat wave bad for health, it also melted the paltry snowpack on the Rockies, leading to droughts later in the year. On September 20, in Nashville, Tennessee, it was so hot that the artificial turf field at the Titans–Eagles game reached 157°F, causing players’ shoes to literally melt. September was the warmest September since record-keeping began in 1895.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Just as sports fanatics had plenty to celebrate this year, so does the heat policy team at FAS.
Actions at the state and local level
People and policymakers are finally taking extreme heat seriously. Ninety percent of adults report that extreme heat has impacted them in some way, including through rising electricity bills, decreased ability to participate in outdoor activities, and disrupted sleep routines. In response to recent heat events, leaders across the country have taken steps to build heat resilience.
FAS co-created the State and Local Heat Policy Agenda, in collaboration with hundreds of policymakers, practitioners, organizations, and private companies, to be the shared framework for comprehensive heat action. Our 15 recommendations for state and local leaders map across four pillars – homes, workplaces, schools and childcare, and communities – and highlight ways to both protect people now and build greater resilience to extreme heat in the long term. We’re excited to see state and local governments take at least 30 significant actions aligned with the FAS Heat Policy Agenda pillars. Let’s dive in.
Safe Homes
This summer, two cities made the “right to cooling” a reality. The cities of Spokane, WA, and Houston, TX, now require landlords to provide cooling systems for renters, joining at least seven other cities and one state with similar laws. At the state level, Arizona and Washington pursued different policy levers to protect renters. Arizona’s Attorney General filed a lawsuit against three apartment complexes for allowing residential units to exceed 90°F, violating Pima County’s habitability ordinance. Meanwhile, Washington’s newly enacted law prohibits landlords from preventing renters from installing cooling systems. Thinking beyond rental housing, Hawaii enacted HB 2498, launching a resilience pilot program for aging care facilities to help them implement resilience improvements, including cooling enhancements.
The presence of a cooling device (like HVAC, heat pump, or an air-conditioner unit) in homes and living units is vital. But such a device is only effective if residents can afford to pay for the electricity that runs it. That’s why Michigan this year set an energy affordability goal of limiting energy burden, or the share of annual household income used to pay annual energy bills, for residents most in need to six percent. This follows in the footsteps of Washington’s energy burden target, which was assessed for feasibility in 2025, and made more achievable this year following the passage of HB 1903. This legislation created a statewide low-income home energy assistance program (LIHEAP), a complement to the federal program.
Plug-in solar is a new tool on the minds of many policymakers. Not only do these systems lower electricity costs, they also strengthen system reliability as higher temperatures increase the demand for air conditioning, raising utility bills and straining the grid. Barriers like interconnection agreements, permitting, and fees have previously prevented widespread adoption, so new state legislation is overcoming these obstacles. Following Utah’s lead, this summer, an additional nine states signed plug-in solar bills into law. Additionally, the state legislatures of Massachusetts and New York passed bills through both chambers that now await governors’ signatures.
When affordability measures fail, households behind on their bills still need protections on the hottest days. Fewer than half of U.S. states have policies preventing utility disconnections during hot weather. In July, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a resolution requiring utilities to use the CalHeatScore, a regionally specific heat ranking system, to mark days that were too hot for people to lose power. Utilities have six months to implement the CalHeatScore system, and in the meantime the CPUC lowered the suspension threshold to 90°F from 100°F.
Finally, data centers are a driving force behind increased electricity costs and grid instability. A slew of bills related to data-center development advanced this summer. Six states – Delaware, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Virginia – took various approaches to require data centers to pay the full costs of their energy needs and prevent these costs from falling onto other ratepayers. Maryland, New Jersey, and New York are also leveraging data center development to fund weatherization for low-income households, household efficiency upgrades, and distributed energy resources to reduce strain on the grid. And Virginia imposed an electricity-consumption tax to raise revenue for the state’s general fund.
Safe Workplaces
Earlier this year, Virginia became the latest state, and the first Southern state, to pass legislation requiring a heat standard for indoor and outdoor workers. By May 2028, the state’s Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) must finalize rules for water access, rest breaks, shade and cooling areas, employee training, and acclimatization for workers. In pursuit of that goal, DOLI began soliciting input and in August, released a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action.
In New York, advocates have pushed for state legislation to protect indoor and outdoor workers through the Temperature Extreme Mitigation Program Act. This bill was first introduced in 2023. However, the legislation stalled following industry opposition and the introduction of the federal heat standard rule, prompting state elected officials to pause their efforts. Not waiting for state-level action, in June, Mayor Mamdani signed New York City’s first executive order for worker heat protection.
Safe Schools and Childcare
Students are just a few weeks into the school year, but already about 200,000 students have faced an academic disruption or cancellation due to high temperatures. Thankfully, ahead of the school year, authorities in California and Texas issued new guidelines around heat.
In California, following Senate Bill 1248, local education departments adopted protocols for physical activity modification during extreme temperatures. In Texas, the University Interscholastic League (UIL), which governs all high school sports in the state, passed new rules to protect student athletes and band members from heat. In both states, these guidelines use a tiered system to evaluate risk, call for access to water, shade, and rest to keep students cool and prevent illness, and identify the risk levels that trigger the suspension of outdoor activities. However, both sets of rules are requirements without funding or compliance-tracking provisions, which may affect compliance.
Outside of athletics, financing for school-wide heat resilience is also a challenge due to outdated facilities, leading to a loss of 3.5 million learning days during the 2024-2025 school year. However, state bonds and state and federal tax credits remain available for schools to upgrade and install heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. In Wake County, North Carolina, voters will decide on a $680 million bond, with $49 million dedicated to school HVAC replacements. The 21 schools included in the county commissioners’ plans include three that experienced recent air conditioning outages. The Colorado Energy Office awarded over $12 million in geothermal tax credits earlier this year, including $5 million for the Aspen School District and $4.3 million for Adams State University. Seattle also leveraged federal tax credits for geothermal to expand reliable cooling. Finally, the Philadelphia Gas Works is considering leveraging federal tax credits to simultaneously provide cooling to an elementary school and recreation center, equipping the school with air conditioning for the first time.
Safe Communities
More cities and states are responding to heat by implementing cooling centers, often by leveraging libraries that already serve as de facto daytime shelters. Arizona is a leading example of how to design effective cooling centers as a part of a coordinated heat response. The city of Phoenix established its first 24/7 center in 2024 and Maricopa County created a network that sees roughly 30,000 to 40,000 visits annually. While federal support for these centers expired this year, the state for the first time appropriated $400,000 to support this initiative. Furthermore, New York and Oregon offer examples of how to address the financial challenges of creating local cooling centers. New York established a new Community Resilience Hub grant program with $10 million appropriated from the legislature, and Oregon expanded the grant support from the Department of Human Services to include resilience hubs through HB 4121.
Cities and states are also realizing they need a coordinated response to heat outside of cooling centers. In Atlanta, the city council unanimously approved a resolution to develop a heat response plan after advocates underscored the inadequacies in the government’s efforts during the Fourth of July heat wave. Beyond immediate response, California and Massachusetts are taking a whole-of-government approach to heat resilience. In August, California released the newest edition of the state’s Extreme Heat Action Plan, which must be updated every three years. The plan centers around four actions: building public awareness, strengthening community services and response, increasing the resilience of the built environment, and utilizing nature-based solutions. Two days later, Massachusetts announced its first Heat Resilience Officer, the second position of its kind in the nation, and the first along the East Coast. This role will lead government coordination to prepare for rising temperatures and reduce the risk and effects of heat waves.
Another hot-button issue for state finances is the ongoing battle for heat relief in states’ correctional facilities. Lawsuits in five states – California, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, and Texas – argue that extreme heat violates the Eighth Amendment. In May, a Louisiana judge ruled that the court did not have the power to force the state to improve working conditions for inmates laboring in heat. However, in Texas, a federal judge ordered the state’s Department of Criminal Justice to fully air-condition its prisons by the end of 2029, at a price tag of at least $1.5 billion (and likely more) – much more than Texas’s current budget will allow. While the federal ruling may soon apply to more states, bills to fund AC in prisons have failed in California, Iowa, and Virginia, proving just how difficult it has been to address this issue.
Actions at the federal level
Federal action on heat has slowed with the leadership and capacity losses we documented last year. Yet there were some positive highlights of the past year and a number of warning signs.
First, the positives:
- The National Integrated Heat Health Information System, the platform for federal information on extreme heat, stood up a challenge competition to support communities planning and preparing for extreme heat. Forty communities will soon be awarded $25K each to run in-person heat tabletop exercises.
- The Federal Emergency Management Agency supported community preparedness for the FIFA World Cup games through $625 million in grants, training and exercises. This investment didn’t come without tradeoffs. Training unrelated to the World Cup was suspended, putting thousands of emergency managers’ careers in limbo.
- We saw signs of bipartisan action on extreme heat again in Congress, including additional proposed appropriations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to address heat and its impacts on livestock and proposed legislation to make extreme heat eligible for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Midsize and Large Drinking Water Infrastructure Resilience and Sustainability Program.
- Congress passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the first bill in decades that addresses federal policy to increase housing supply. Several programs in the bill stand out for their heat relevance. First off, there’s a temperature sensor pilot program for public housing authorities to collect temperature-related data to see what units are in compliance with standards. Second, there’s the creation of a “whole-home repair” program to provide loans to small landlords and low-income homeowners to do holistic improvements to their properties, including resilience and weatherization actions. Finally, the PRICE Act and HOME Investment Partnerships will both create financing pathways for the building and retrofitting of affordable housing options.
- The Government Accountability Office published a report about the state of school facilities, and the needs are stark. Half of school districts face excessive heat or cold in the classroom, and 1 in 5 school districts have had to close schools due to facility issues. And there’s not enough money available to meet the upgrade needs. Funding available is certainly a barrier, and current federal and state requirements are also reducing the speed by which funding can go out the door. In a challenging financial environment, focusing on streamlining resource delivery is a great opportunity for action.
The things to worry about:
- The U.S. House advanced a bill through committee that would prevent the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from finalizing a standard equivalent to the Biden-Harris Administration’s heat rule. The U.S. Senate now has a parallel bill. While this bill is not likely to pass Congress, it signals Republican opposition that the Trump administration could leverage to weaken the proposed rule. The Administration is currently working on a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the proposed OSHA heat rule, a fancy way of saying they are going to rewrite it. The Small Business Administration and other business lobbying groups are pushing for a weaker rule. If OSHA succeeds in getting this rule done by fall 2027 (as proposed) it will make it a lot harder for states to protect their own workers with stronger rules.
- The Department of Energy has been using its “energy emergency” authority to keep fossil fuel plants online in the name of grid reliability. Yes, we need a lot of energy to meet rising demand, but propping outdated facilities up will only raise bills and worsen air quality in the long run. Thankfully, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the administration overstepped its authority.
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its long-awaited (by us at least!) review of the effects of changing temperatures on Medicare costs. CBO reports are used by lawmakers to evaluate the budgetary impacts of proposed legislation and understand long-term fiscal trends. The report actually found cost savings, which could stand in the way of action on the issue of extreme heat. But this finding relies on the assumption that people will “adapt” to warming temperatures via air conditioning. This is a fairly weighty assumption in the face of rapidly rising energy bills and long-standing evidence that millions currently ration energy usage to stay financially afloat. Without the adaptation assumption, extreme heat will increase Medicare costs.
- While the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has a lot of good provisions in it, a number of things need to be watched closely that could impact action on heat resilience. The Innovation Fund will be awarded to places that are looking to “minimize the impact of energy standards on housing costs”. Further, updates to the energy efficiency standards for manufactured homes could lead to less efficient homes than previously proposed standards, locking residents into higher bills during extreme heat.
Looking ahead to 2027 and beyond
This November will be a consequential election with Congressional races in all 50 states, 36 states and three territories with gubernatorial elections, and 46 states with legislative elections. New governors, in particular, will want to make their mark quickly and decisively.
Thankfully, the hottest topic of our political moment – affordability – provides a real policy window for moving heat resilience policies forward. A package of ideas to address rising energy prices by expanding near-term bill relief and investing in home upgrades that ensure long-term readiness could be compelling to new electeds. And we’ve seen how policymakers are smartly leveraging the data center boom to raise revenue that pays for these actions.
Yet affordability politics are also being used to argue against resilience measures, aligning with a deregulatory thrust in our politics. In Maryland and Vermont, concerns about the rising costs of new housing construction led to policymakers rolling back advanced energy codes. Even new regulations have to adapt to this era. Spokane’s right-to-cooling ordinance was watered down to keep compliance “affordable.” In Massachusetts, concerns about energy prices led to proposals to slash Mass Save, the state’s energy efficiency program. While it’s good to reconsider how or if we raise funds for home upgrades from the ratepayer base, households need capital to upgrade their homes to adapt to extreme heat. In Virginia, concerns about grid stability and utility costs as data centers expand have led to proposals to use fossil fuels, including diesel backup generators, to meet electricity demand. This would increase emissions, reduce air quality, and worsen ozone formation during high-temperature periods.
Indeed, meaningful action on extreme heat costs money more often than not. Better response capabilities so that the most vulnerable aren’t caught without support during a heat wave? Costs money. Upgrading cooling systems in homes, schools, and childcare? Costs money. Additional up-front investments are hard to justify amid rising costs and shrinking federal support. Nearly half of states are cutting spending to balance the books, putting programs that have saved lives and prepared communities in jeopardy. There are difficult decisions that will need to be made about which programs to save and which to cut, and we can’t pretend that more spending on heat resilience will come easily. Even when spending happens, it’s often not enough. The 24/7 Phoenix cooling center costs $600,000 annually to operate. The $400,000 that Arizona put towards cooling centers in its statewide budget for FY27 would be wiped out keeping the Phoenix center operational for just part of the summer.
Policymakers will need to find ways to move protections and resilience work forward in this austere environment. Focusing on medium- to long-term savings and benefits – and how creative financing can capture these in ways that lower upfront costs – can help. Research from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for instance, found that a home compliant with the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code delivers net positive annual cash flow to the customer from year one. This looks like a $100 lower monthly energy bill in exchange for about a $50 higher monthly mortgage payment. There is a growing base of evidence that worker protections can save public programs such as workers’ compensation money. We also now know that summer 2025’s heat waves caused nearly 10% of all emergency room visits across 19 states, so preventing those cases with cooling access and energy assistance could decrease Medicaid and Medicare costs. Finally, a new study by our team and Groundswell found that covering the AC gap in just three cities, Boston, Minneapolis, and Houston, could save 200 lives and $150 million in avoidable health care costs over five years. These are powerful arguments indeed, and ones that could help heat-resilience solutions scale.
Moving heat policy and practice forward
We at FAS see the heat community’s ability to make progress on heat resilience in this next year as depending on four mutually reinforcing kinds of work: communications, policy, technology and innovation, and evidence.
- Communications. We need to motivate people to move beyond individual solutions and take actions towards policy, practice, and systems change. The goal is to convey urgency without leaving people frozen in front of a problem that feels too big and overwhelms them. Also, public safety, health, and economic frames tend to travel across the political spectrum in a way that doomsday framing does not.
- Policy. We need to identify solutions for this political moment and different political contexts. Some places, like Arizona and California, are ready to advance solutions at every level of government, including even setting ambitious targets for heat action. Other places may need a different tack, such as incentives, financing, and business-led action instead of mandates and regulations. Once the policy is adopted, what’s needed next is implementation support, because standards and plans only matter if communities can actually meet them. Deliberate attention needs to be paid to rural and Tribal communities and their unique challenges.
- Technology and Innovation. We won’t be able to fully adapt to extreme heat with our current set of tools. We’ll need everything from new building materials that can repel heat to heat-adapted agricultural products to advanced sensor technology to evaluate localized heat risk to populations and infrastructure. A heat tech community is emerging, with VCs like Tailwind Futures and Convective Capital showing interest in funding early-stage startups. The government can also be a market-shaper, using its tools to pull new technology into the market. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s design challenge created the first-ever window heat pump that has since scaled to places like Boston and Rhode Island.
- Evidence. We need to be constantly learning and evaluating our interventions. The field needs a better ground-level picture to inform response. Like, how many childcare centers, schools, and homes can actually hold a safe temperature? Which interventions deliver the most protection per dollar in a given place? How do we define success in terms of children thriving rather than simply not dying? Periodic syntheses of leading practices can keep all of us working from the same current picture as well as inform where we need more innovation.
We know this is daunting. Thankfully, we’re working with over a thousand brilliant practitioners, advocates, researchers, and policymakers from every state in the nation, and our 170+ signatories of the State and Local Heat Policy Agenda are working to advance solutions that work in their contexts and solve their needs. You can do more than despair about record-breaking heat: you can join our movement to protect people from this threat regardless of where and who they are. Interested in getting involved? Reach out to Grace Wickerson (gwickerson@fas.org) and Emma Espenan (eespenan@fas.org), and/or consider co-signing the Heat Policy Agenda here.
Just as sports fanatics had plenty to celebrate this year, so does the heat policy team at FAS. In response to recent heat events, leaders across the country have taken steps to build heat resilience.
Western states functionally manage trillions in global climate risk (permafrost, forest carbon, etc.) and can do so in ways that drive state economic development.
Implementation will not be easy. Several of the plan’s critical strategies challenge established utility business models.
We won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis without improving the capacity of state public utility commissions to protect customers, find and implement new solutions to meet rising demand, and realign broken utility incentives.