Kelly, Gallego want the federal government to measure the economic cost of extreme heat

U.S. Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona have introduced a bill that would require the federal government to study the economic impacts of extreme heat.

Heat kills more people in the U.S. each year than any other type of weather-related disaster. In Arizona, there were 975 heat-related deaths and nearly 6,000 heat-related emergency room visits in 2024, according to provisional data from the state health department.

“It’s a lot of folks that show up in the emergency room, that leads to lost wages, breakdown in infrastructure, and we don’t measure the financial costs of this,” Kelly told KJZZ.

Kelly and Gallego’s Extreme Heat Economic Study Act would authorize $3.5 million for the National Integrated Heat Health Information System to conduct a study within the next four years to quantify the costs of extreme heat nationally. The study would consider the impacts of heat on health care costs, business interruptions, energy costs, infrastructure damage and agricultural losses.

The Democrat-backed bill faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress. And it comes shortly after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it would stop tracking costs of other disasters like floods and hurricanes, in response to Trump administration priorities and changes to staffing and funding.

“Their strategy is, ‘let me dig a hole and bury my head in the sand and hope the problem will go away.’ The problem is not going to go away,” Kelly said.

Kelly argues the federal government needs more data so that it is better positioned to respond to the challenges posed by rising temperatures.