The State and Local Heat Policy Agenda
It’s only early July and already more than 3,000 all-time temperature records have fallen in the United States. And as America celebrated its 250th anniversary, over 185 million Americans – over half the population – were under an extreme heat alert. Forecasters are anticipating a very hot summer that could take 2024’s “hottest year on record” crown.
We’ve always had heat waves and hot places. But extreme heat is now touching every corner of our country. The implications of this growing threat are profound.
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. Additionally, local governments and their partners are footing the bill for increased demand for social services, public safety, and health care.
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.
Even when heat doesn’t kill, it severely compromises quality of life. During high heat, people have to make impossible choices: between eating or overheating, working in dangerous conditions or losing a paycheck, telling kids they can’t go outside or risking heat illness. They also face aging infrastructure not built for extreme temperatures that buckles in the heat.
Policy needs to catch up to the scale of the extreme heat problem, and fast. To do so, policymakers at all levels will need to make their communities “heat safe” by (1) reducing heat risk in the places where people spend the most time and (2) preparing social and physical infrastructure to handle rising heat. Heat-safe communities are places that don’t just survive but thrive, and where people and families can grow and prosper.
Addressing rising heat will take all of us. Already, almost 150 organizations and government offices and over 150 experts have committed to supporting the State & Local Heat Policy Agenda. Together, we can create heat-safe homes, workplaces, schools, childcare facilities, and communities – the backbone of a heat-ready nation.
Safe Homes
Home is where families raise children, work, spend time with and care for loved ones, and relax. Yet 13 million households report being too hot at home and at least 80 million people struggle to pay their electricity bills today. A cool home is the best strategy to keep people from getting sick.
To protect every family from dangerous heat at home, policymakers should:
- Establish the right to cooling. Every household should have guaranteed access to active and passive cooling systems that keep their home at safe, comfortable temperatures.
- Protect energy access during hot weather. Every household should be protected from utility disconnection and during power outages in hot weather. Every household should also be able to afford the energy needed to keep homes cool.
- Upgrade existing homes for extreme heat. Every household should be able to afford and easily implement upgrades to their homes, from heat pumps to cool roofs.
- Create a heat-resilient housing supply. Every new home should be built to stay cool during extreme temperatures, even when the power goes out.
- Ensure large loads do not create affordability and reliability risks during extreme heat. Every household should be protected from electricity price spikes and reliability issues due to large-load customer demand, like data centers, on high heat days. Households should also not subsidize energy costs and infrastructure for large-load customers.
Safe Workplaces
Every year, an estimated 28,000 workers are injured on the job during high heat days, and dozens lose their lives. Workplace heat protections are both a moral imperative and a common-sense win-win: they prevent injuries and deaths, reduce workers’ compensation claims, decrease employee turnover, and even increase productivity, boosting bottom lines.
To protect every worker from dangerous heat on the job, policymakers should:
- Secure heat protections in all workplaces. Every worker should be guaranteed paid rest, water and shade access, heat-acclimatization periods, and, if applicable, cooling in their employer-provided housing.
- Create or expand paid leave and income protection for days too hot to work. Every worker should be able to stay safe from heat without financial penalty or risk to job security.
- Incentivize uptake of best practices for workplace heat safety. Every government should develop strategies that encourage employers to implement protections and maintain good heat safety records, such as through workers compensation or procurement practices.
Safe Schools and Childcare
Heat harms our children’s health, development, activity, mood, sleep, and ability to focus. Yet 1 in 3 schools don’t have adequate cooling and 45% of childcare facilities have been physically or financially strained by extreme weather. Kids deserve safe, cool spaces to learn and play.
To protect every child from dangerous heat at school and childcare, policymakers should:
- Keep kids safe from extreme heat at school and childcare. Every child should be guaranteed a cool environment, including classrooms, school grounds, athletic facilities, and school buses. Every school and childcare facility should have plans, training, and policies for hot weather, including school operations, recess, and for sporting and outdoor activities.
- Make heat resilience possible for all schools and childcare facilities. Every school and childcare provider should be able to afford to upgrade their facilities to keep children cool.
Safe Communities
Dangerous heat is happening earlier in the year and lasting longer, while average temperatures across seasons are on the rise, affecting everything from snowpack to crops. Recognizing our new heat reality and preparing accordingly prevents deaths and avoids infrastructure failures and economic losses, while creating places where people want to build their lives and families.
To help every community get heat-safe, policymakers should:
- Prepare for higher temperatures as an acute emergency as well as a chronic risk. Every government should have plans for annual heat preparedness and long-term risk mitigation as well as strategies to coordinate with surrounding governments on efforts.
- Establish a governance structure and training for extreme heat. Every government should designate a public official (either a new hire or current employee) with authority and budget to lead heat efforts, coordinate interagency and intergovernmental efforts, and form partnerships with nonprofits, health systems, and the private sector. Every government should also upskill all frontline employees in their roles for heat mitigation and response.
- Assess heat’s impacts and costs. Every government should track heat impacts on people, infrastructure, the economy, and their budgets and set goals to reduce heat’s effects.
- Declare and respond to heat as an emergency. Every government should have and deploy the resources to protect their populations, such as shelter and welfare checks. Every government should prepare for infrastructure failures like of energy and water systems.
- Shape and finance heat-resilient infrastructure. Every government should set incentives or requirements to reduce heat’s impacts on people and infrastructure and identify or create public and private funding for building and maintaining heat-resilient infrastructure like trees, shade, back up power for critical facilities, and grid upgrades.
To learn more about how every state is implementing the Agenda’s recommendations, click here. To support this effort as a public signatory, click here. And to learn more about how you, your organization, or your government can help build a heat-resilient nation, contact Grace Wickerson (gwickerson@fas.org).
Through the broad uptake and implementation of the Heat Action Planning framework by key agencies and offices, the federal government will enable a more heat-prepared nation.
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.
With summer 2025 in the rearview mirror, we’re taking a look back to see how federal actions impacted heat preparedness and response on the ground, what’s still changing, and what the road ahead looks like for heat resilience.
Promising examples of progress are emerging from the Boston metropolitan area that show the power of partnership between researchers, government officials, practitioners, and community-based organizations.