Sponsors (17)
The bill directs significant federal resources and new standards to expand cooling infrastructure, targeted aid, and coordinated heat-health actions—improving protection for vulnerable populations and local resilience—while creating sizable federal costs, implementation burdens, and risks that some communities or renters may be left out or saddled with long-term maintenance obligations.
Low-income residents, seniors, children, and urban communities gain much greater access to cooled, staffed public spaces (designated cooling centers, splash parks, pools, misting systems, and green spaces) during extreme heat, improving immediate safety and reducing heat-related illness.
Local governments, nonprofits, and disadvantaged neighborhoods receive federal funding to build and maintain green infrastructure and tree planting, which can lower local temperatures, support jobs, and improve environmental resilience.
Federal coordination, improved surveillance (CDC studies and death-certificate changes), and standardized requirements (HHS/NOAA alignment) will create more consistent heat-health guidance and better data for public-health planning.
Taxpayers face substantially higher federal spending (multiple new authorizations totaling tens to hundreds of millions annually), increasing deficits or requiring offsets in other spending or revenue.
Local governments and nonprofits may inherit ongoing operating, staffing, maintenance, and liability costs for cooling centers, water features, and green infrastructure after federal funding or monitoring periods end.
Programs and eligibility rules (preference for existing centers, matching-fund requirements, and tying covered-unit status to particular federal programs) risk leaving out rural areas, communities without existing facilities, and some low-income renters, perpetuating uneven access.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Creates federal programs and grants to expand cooling access, set safe indoor temperature standards for assisted housing, fund cooling infrastructure and water features, study heat mortality, and add tax benefits for cooling devices.
Official title: To improve response to, and preparation for, heat waves and extreme heat, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 22, 2026 by Bonnie Watson Coleman · Last progress May 22, 2026
Creates a coordinated federal effort to reduce extreme-heat risks by standing up an interagency heat health body, funding community cooling and resilience projects, expanding cooling in publicly assisted housing, supporting water features and urban greening, and studying heat-related health impacts. It authorizes new competitive grants for community resilience centers, cooling centers, public water features, HVAC and passive cooling upgrades, and adds targeted tax changes to help households and institutions purchase cooling equipment. Requires federal agencies to develop data systems and reports (including a pilot heat-severity ranking and a study of naming heat waves), directs HUD to run multiple competitive grant programs and set safe residential temperature standards for assisted housing, funds registries and outreach to check on seniors during extreme heat, and mandates studies and reporting to improve tracking of heat-related mortality and energy-assistance formulas.