Sponsors (9)
The bill improves preparedness, funding eligibility, and targeted protections for communities facing extreme heat and cold, but it requires new FEMA rulemaking, staff time, and spending that may slow rollouts and unevenly burden taxpayers and under-resourced communities.
Local and state governments and emergency planners will get clearer, updated FEMA guidance and standardized definitions (incident periods, 'community cooling center', 'resilience center'), making preparedness actions and grant eligibility more consistent and easier to pursue.
Communities (especially urban and rural areas) will have expanded access to hazard-mitigation funding and federal support for cooling/resilience centers and heat-focused projects, which can reduce heat-related injuries and property damage.
Households, first responders, and health systems will receive equipment, supplies, training, and improved alert language/metrics to reduce harm during extreme-heat and extreme-cold events.
Federal staff time and FEMA administrative resources will be diverted to new guidance, rulemaking, and studies, which could reduce agency capacity for active disaster operations.
Taxpayers and state/local budgets may face higher costs from expanded preparedness/mitigation programs and from recommended infrastructure upgrades to address extreme temperatures.
Requiring FEMA assistance to 'supplement not supplant' existing funds and adding new planning/application requirements may complicate local budgeting and slow rollout of programs for governments and nonprofits.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Directs FEMA to study and update guidance, convene an advisory panel, and authorize eligible mitigation/preparedness projects and community cooling/resilience centers for extreme heat and cold.
Introduced May 29, 2025 by Alice Costandina Titus · Last progress May 29, 2025
Requires FEMA to study and update how it handles extreme temperature events, create new guidance, and expand what mitigation and preparedness projects can be eligible for Stafford Act assistance. It directs FEMA to convene an expert advisory panel on how incident periods are defined for disasters (including slow-onset and compound events), produce reports, and begin rulemaking; it also authorizes certain community cooling/resilience projects, stockpiling and equipment for vulnerable households and responders, and issues deadlines for guidance and a federal study on heat and cold impacts. These actions aim to clarify eligibility, improve planning and response to extreme heat and freezes, strengthen guidance across FEMA programs and national frameworks, and focus attention on impacts to disadvantaged communities, health systems, first responders, and critical infrastructure.