Extreme heat is on Democrats’ infrastructure agenda

People wait to buy ice cream from a vender on the National Mall as the DC area experiences a heatwave on June 30, 2021, in Washington, DC. - Climate change is causing record-setting temperatures to become more frequent. Globally, the decade to 2019 was the hottest recorded, and the five hottest years have all occurred within the last five years. | Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

During a summer of deadly heatwaves, Democratic senators are pressing for a bigger federal response to the danger posed by extreme heat. Senators Ed Markey (D-MA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) reintroduced the Preventing Heat Illness and Deaths Act today. Representative Charlie Crist (D-FL) will introduce similar legislation in the US House of Representatives. They are pushing for its measures to be included in either the bipartisan infrastructure or budget reconciliation package that Democrats are scrambling to advance.

“We’ve heard that extreme heat is among the White House priorities in the climate space, and I am fighting to include provisions of my bill,” Markey said in an email to The Verge.

“We’ve heard that...

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