It’s Summer, America’s Heating Up, and We’re Even More Unprepared
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.
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.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.Res. 446, which would recognize July 3rd through July 10th as “National Extreme Heat Awareness Week”.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 3738 of the 119th Congress, titled the “Heat Management Assistance Grant Act of 2025.”
To protect rural America, Congress must address extreme heat’s impacts by repairing rural health systems, strengthening the preparedness of rural businesses, and hardening rural energy infrastructure