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When communities are hit by hurricanes, floods and wildfires they can often count on receiving federal disaster relief to help respond to the unfolding crisis and recover from its effects.
But no U.S. president has ever issued an emergency or major disaster declaration for extreme heat, even though it's the deadliest weather-related hazard. That means that local communities and states are mostly on their own as they deal with events like this summer's stifling, weeks-long spell of dangerous heat.
As temperatures continue to break records, it makes little sense to exclude life-threatening heat waves from federal relief. That's why Congress should get behind the Extreme Heat Emergency Act, straightforward and common-sense legislation introduced in June by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).
It would amend the Stafford Act, the law that governs federal disaster relief, to include extreme heat along with 16 other types of major disasters spelled out in the law, including hurricanes, fires, landslides, drought, and high water. Though it has bipartisan support and the backing of groups such as the National League of Cities and U.S. Conference of Mayors, its prospects in the Republican-led House are unclear.
Changing the law is necessary because the Federal Emergency Management Agency has shown little interest in using its disaster relief authority for heat waves. In its history, the agency has only received three requests for extreme heat declarations -- the last one was in 1995 -- and denied all on the grounds that they did not demonstrate that response was beyond the capabilities of state and local government.
Nothing in the law precludes an emergency or disaster declaration for extreme heat, according to the agency, but FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell has also suggested it is restricted by the law, telling the Washington Post that "we don't necessarily have the authorities right now within the Stafford Act."
Though applications for heat emergency relief may be harder to visualize than the rebuilding that happens after fires or hurricanes, there are many ways heat-stricken communities could benefit from federal assistance.
FEMA says that the costs of responding to extreme heat are usually low compared to other hazards and that it's unlikely they would reach the level that would meet the law's requirement that a federally declared disaster be of such severity and magnitude that local and state governments can't effectively respond on their own.
The great emergency underlying all of this, of course, is climate change and the pollution causing it. President Biden and his administration need to be doing much more to restrict the extraction and burning of fossil fuels and to protect Americans from the rapidly worsening effects. That includes speeding up the development of federal workplace safety standards to protect workers from extreme heat, which is likely to take years to complete because of bureaucratic delays and industry resistance.
In the meantime, federal leaders should update the law to treat severe heat waves like the disasters they are.
* Guest editorial excerpt by The Los Angeles Times.