If it feels like summers are getting longer and hotter, it’s not your imagination. This past July 21 was the hottest day ever recorded in human history, following the hottest thirteen-straight months scientists have ever seen. Extreme heat is melting the snowpack in the Cascades, scorching lands and forests across the state, and warming waters off our coast.
Extreme heat is now the leading weather-related cause of death in the United States. Several Oregon cities have already seen the mercury soar into the triple digits this summer, heartbreakingly claiming the lives of at least ten Oregonians. We’re now enduring what used to be once-in-a-decade heatwaves at least once a year – and our communities are paying the price.
In 2023, heat was responsible for an estimated 11,000 deaths across the U.S. – with several states recording more heat-related deaths than any time in the past 40 years. The Oregon Department of Energy reports that 58 percent of residents live in housing without adequate cooling equipment. To install permanent equipment to properly cool these homes’ full living space is prohibitively expensive for many Oregon families and would cost over $1 billion statewide. Even worse, low-income neighborhoods tend to have more heat-trapping pavement and fewer parks and green spaces to provide shade or tree cover.
This summer’s extreme heat has dried out landscapes and vegetation across Oregon, creating the conditions for lightning strikes to set entire areas ablaze in an instant. Wildfires have already burned more than one million acres of Oregon in less than one month.
As Oregon’s representative on the committee that funds the federal government, I’m fighting to make sure that our communities have the resources they need to prepare for this extreme heat. That’s why I made sure that the Senate bill includes $1.5 million for Portland State University’s Climate and Heat Assessment and Response Equipment project, which would establish a hub to identify and test solutions to mitigate extreme urban heat.
In July, I led a letter to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), signed by more than 60 members of Congress from both the Senate and House of Representatives, requesting that the agency use all available resources to respond to the threats of extreme heat and wildfire smoke. FEMA should help our communities recover from heat and smoke events just like they help after other natural disasters.
I’ve also introduced the Smoke and Heat Ready Communities Act to create grants for communities to develop new tools to protect the public during extreme smoke and heat events, like the ones we’re experiencing this summer. These grants would help communities create cool spaces with clean air that can be a safe refuge when conditions get dangerous.
Senator Wyden and I also are original cosponsors of the Asunción Valdivia Heat Stress Injury, Illness, and Fatality Prevention Act. In 2004, Asunción Valdivia was picking grapes in 105-degree temperatures, fell unconscious, and died of heatstroke at age 53. Many Oregonians work outdoors – in our fields, in our forests, and off our shores – so this is a critical area of safety. In 2022, Oregon adopted two permanent rules to protect workers from extreme heat, and I want to ensure that every worker across the country is protected, too.
These are just a few of the many ways I’m working to ensure that Oregon’s communities have the resources needed to be prepared during hotter, longer, and more dangerous summer months – and I’ll keep fighting to keep our state safe.
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