Takeaways from ABC’s December 2024 Extreme Heat Working Group Meeting on Heat Policy
January 9, 2025
On December 12th, A Better City hosted an Extreme Heat Working Group meeting exploring extreme heat policy design and implementation considerations for Massachusetts. A Better City approaches such policies in two ways: 1. Policies that help to address and guide short-term heat emergency preparedness and response (what to do during isolated extreme heat events), and 2. Long-term heat resilience policies, which help to promote cooler buildings, workplaces, commutes, and neighborhoods, thereby making our communities more resilient to increasingly intense, more frequent, and longer-lasting heat overtime. Many extreme heat policy conversations are already underway, including:
- [city] Boston City Council: considering a tree protection ordinance as well as worker protection policies in extreme heat.
- [state] Massachusetts State Legislature: in the 2023-2024 legislative session, the Legislature considered bill language for heat worker protections, as well as the opportunity to leverage LIHEAP funding, typically used to subsidize Massachusetts residents’ heating bills in the winter months, to also subsidize cooling energy bills in summer months. There is also growing interest in a possible extreme heat Executive Order from the Healey-Driscoll Administration (ABC submitted written comments with recommendations for heat action statewide).
- [federal] Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): rulemaking is currently underway to develop a heat safety protocol that would help protect both indoor and outdoor workers during workplace exposures to extreme heat.
Presentations
The Working Group was fortunate to have two expert presentations relevant to heat policy development and implementation. The first was a presentation from Dr. Tanya Stasio, researcher at Applied Economics Clinic (AEC), who spoke about AEC’s policy reports from December 2024, prepared on behalf of ABC: a policy brief on Tackling Extreme Heat: Recommendations for Strengthening Massachusetts Policy, and a background report, an Extreme Heat Policy Review. Dr. Stasio presented extreme heat policy best practices identified in the reports, critical baseline information on existing policies in Massachusetts and in other jurisdictions across the country, and recommendations for Massachusetts policy. The best practices and recommendations provided will be crucial in helping Massachusetts policymakers, extreme heat experts, and researchers understand the menu of options for consideration of extreme heat policies to advocate for in Massachusetts. A Better City’s goal is to build upon AEC’s work by developing a set of extreme heat policy principles that A Better City’s Extreme Heat Working Group can advocate for in the years ahead.
Zoë Davis, Senior Project Manager for Climate Resilience in the City of Boston’s Office of Climate Resilience, then presented on some of the policies, initiatives, and conversations underway in Boston since the 2022 publication of Boston’s Heat Plan. Recent updates from the City of Boston’s heat work include: 1. Installing green roof bus shelters built by Youth Build Boston on 30 bus shelter roofs along bus routes serving heat island hotspot neighborhoods, providing both heat relief and stormwater retention; 2. Establishing a temporary shade plaza above a parking lot in East Boston to pilot the opportunity for temporary deployment of shade structures; 3. Expanding the distribution of pop-up misting tents and shade structures through the Office of Emergency Management (OEM); and 4. Launching a cooling resource locator map, which maps locations of heat-relieving resources like wading pools, tot spray lots, splash pads, swimming pools, BCYF cooling center locations, and more. For more information on the City’s ongoing heat work, please visit the OEM Keeping Cool in the Heat Landing Page.
Group Discussion
Working Group members expressed their interest in prioritizing community engagement, both in the design of policy solutions, and in the communications of heat initiatives and resources available in the City of Boston. Additionally, healthcare representatives and academics who are working with state agencies on extreme heat mentioned an existing gap at the state-level regarding how to define extreme heat emergencies or advisories statewide, and what protocols might be associated with such declarations. Alongside a statewide gap, members also pointed out that there are regional gaps, where municipalities like Boston have very strong approaches to heat resilience and partnerships for heat solutions, but the Greater Boston region, as a whole (across jurisdictions), does not have a consistent framework for heat communications, heat resilience implementation, and metrics. Finally, in asking healthcare representatives how heat best practice recommendations might translate to policies and protocols within hospitals and healthcare systems, members shared concern around existing gaps for discharge of heat-vulnerable patients from Emergency Departments (EDs) during heat events. For example, what happens to people who are admitted to the ED for heat-related illness, and are later discharged back to the same environment in which they were exposed to dangerous levels of heat during a heat event? Physicians also wondered what heat interventions could potentially be covered by insurance, and how heat education could become integrated into existing healthcare training systems, alongside insurance companies’ education on heat-related illness prevention.
Next Steps
In 2025, A Better City will be exploring policy best practices across jurisdictions with other cities working on extreme heat, including New Orleans and Phoenix, thanks to a three-year Wellcome Trust grant led by the Boston University School of Public Health. We will also be building out an extreme heat policy agenda to help guide advocacy in Massachusetts. If you have any ideas, questions, or comments on ABC’s heat policy work, please do not hesitate to reach out to Isabella Gambill.
Save the Date: for folks who are interested in learning about the B-COOL temperature sensor pilot, there is an upcoming public event sharing the results at The Boston Foundation on the morning of January 22nd.. We would love to have you join us! Learn more and register here.
