Last progress June 4, 2025 (8 months ago)
Introduced on June 4, 2025 by Yassamin Ansari
Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Creates a federal grant program run by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to fund projects that reduce and manage extreme heat in U.S. urban areas, with a focus on environmental justice communities. The program must be set up within one year, will coordinate with EPA, the Forest Service, and NOAA, and includes rules on eligibility, applications, reporting, administrative limits, and an oversight board. Authorizes $30,000,000 per year for fiscal years 2026–2033 to carry out the program and funds projects such as urban tree planting and other heat-reduction activities identified in the law’s definitions and eligible project lists.
Heat stress is a leading weather-related cause of death in the United States, killing more than 600 people each year and causing many more respiratory problems and heat-related illnesses.
Urban areas are likely to be hotter than surrounding areas because of built environment factors such as low solar reflectance, low vegetation and tree cover, high building density, high impervious surface cover, and waste heat emissions.
Underserved communities are disproportionately affected by extreme heat: low-income census blocks have 15.2 percent less tree cover and an average land surface temperature 1.5°C hotter than high-income blocks.
In 97 percent of the largest U.S. urbanized areas, people of color live in census tracts with higher surface urban heat intensity than non-Hispanic Whites, showing unequal heat exposure by race.
Rising urban heat causes economic harms, including increased roadway maintenance costs, higher residential and commercial summer energy costs, lost labor productivity, and costs to patients and health care infrastructure from heat-related hospitalizations and emergency visits.
Who is affected and how:
Communities exposed to high urban heat, especially low‑income and racial minority neighborhoods, stand to benefit from new investments in cooling through tree canopy expansion, urban forestry plans, and other heat‑reduction projects that can lower temperatures and reduce heat‑related health risks and economic losses.
Local governments, municipal planning and public works departments, and tribal governments can apply for grants or partner with eligible applicants to deliver projects that reduce urban heat. Grants will support planning and on‑the‑ground implementation.
Nonprofit organizations working on urban forestry, environmental justice, public health, and community resilience can be eligible applicants or partners and may receive project funding.
Federal agencies (HUD as administrator, plus EPA, Forest Service, and NOAA as coordinating partners) will take on program setup, coordination, oversight, and reporting responsibilities.
Contractors and workers involved in tree planting, urban forestry assessments, landscape and green infrastructure installation, and related supply chains may see increased work from funded projects.
Applicants must meet application and reporting requirements and comply with administrative spending limits; the oversight board will review program performance and allocations.
Overall effect: directs federal resources toward localized, equity‑focused heat‑mitigation projects in cities, creating grant funding and interagency support but not imposing direct regulatory mandates on state or local governments.
Updated 1 day ago
Last progress March 27, 2025 (10 months ago)
