Sec. 6. Study on extreme heat information and response
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Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, in consultation with the National Integrated Heat Health Information System Interagency Committee and the individuals and entities described in section 4(g), shall seek to enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study on extreme heat information and response, to be completed not later than 3 years after such date of enactment. The study described in paragraph
(1)shall— identify policy and research gaps, which may include— regions of the United States with the largest gaps between awareness, preparedness, and capacity to address extreme heat; and heat-related gaps in data, such as— the number of schools, prisons, and other public facilities that lack air conditioning; the demographic breakdown of people affected by heat events, including by race, age, gender, occupation, and income; medical coding in health care facilities (such as hospitals, emergency rooms, and health centers) that indicate heat-related illnesses (such as kidney failure, dehydration, and fainting spells); and with respect to public policy at the State and community level that enhance vulnerabilities to extreme heat (such as outdoor working conditions and thresholds to protect workers, animals, and others susceptible to heat-related illness); provide recommendations for addressing gaps with respect to policy, research, operations, communications, and data, including the gaps identified under subparagraph (A), affecting heat-health planning, preparedness, response, resilience, adaptation, and environmental justice and equity; provide such other recommendations as the Director considers appropriate, which may include strategies for— communicating warnings to and providing impact-based decision support to promote preparedness actions and resilience of populations vulnerable to extreme heat; understanding compound and cascading risks, and implementing alternative heat-health risk reduction interventions to manage those risks collectively, such as reducing risk of the transmission of infectious diseases during heat waves by creating outdoor cooling locations or increasing ventilation and filtration in indoor cooling centers; promoting community resilience to heat events and incorporating principles of environmental justice in community response to heat waves; addressing the impacts of extreme heat on energy cost, affordability, and reliability for residential and commercial infrastructure (such as weatherization, energy costs, electric power systems, and water supply and treatment systems); and establishing labor and other standards for workers and heat; and consider such other subjects as the Committee considers appropriate, which may include— the feasibility of enhancing and standardizing existing nationwide data collection on heat-related illnesses and mortalities to improve and ensure consistent collection of national-level heat illness data across all 50 States, territories, and local jurisdictions of the United States; mechanisms for financing heat preparedness; and the effectiveness of county- or local-level heat awareness and communication approaches, heat action, and tools, preparedness plans, or mitigation. Following the study described in paragraph (1), the Committee shall work with heat experts across disciplines to comprehensively identify impacts of increased heat to inform consistent and agreed upon definitions for heat events, heat waves, and other relevant terms. Not later than 90 days after completing the study described in subsection (a)(1), the Committee shall— make available to the public on a Federal internet website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration a report on the findings and conclusions of the study; and submit the report to— the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate; the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions of the Senate; the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the House of Representatives; the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives; and the Committee on Education and Labor of the House of Representatives.