Position on S.1166, The Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act
The Federation of American Scientists supports S.1166, The Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act.
The Excess Urban Heat Mitigation Act would establish a $30 million dollar grant program at Housing and Urban Development to support efforts to address urban heat via cooling infrastructure, such as green and cool roofs, reflective pavements, shade infrastructure, and tree planting and maintenance, and community resilience actions, such as cooling centers and heat mitigation education. These efforts align with key recommendations from the FAS 2025 Heat Policy Agenda to transform the built and landscaped environment to make it more resilient to the impacts of extreme heat.
“Extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of injury and death and innovations in the built environment can save money and lives,” said Grace Wickerson, Senior Manager for Climate and Health at the Federation of American Scientists. “With temperatures already nearing 100°F in parts of the country, we must act now to protect our nation’s people, infrastructure, and economy.”
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.