Dina Titus

Triple-digit temperatures arrived in Las Vegas earlier than usual this spring when March hit all-time record highs, including a record-breaking streak of 12 consecutive days of daily record high heat.

The early-season heat wave pushed temperatures 20 to 30 degrees above normal in March, while a weather station at Harry Reid International Airport recorded a record high of 98 degrees, breaking the previous record of 93 degrees.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Dina Titus represents Nevada’s 1st Congressional District, which includes some of the hottest neighborhoods in Southern Nevada, according to a study by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada.

Record breaking heat has become the norm in Las Vegas, Titus said during a roundtable last week at Whitney Library. The library, which also serves as a cooling center, sits in a neighborhood that typically sees temperatures 11 degrees hotter than the valley average, according to RTC data.

“It’s so important to recognize extreme heat as a national disaster, and it’s getting worse. As climate change comes, this is not going away, it’s going to get worse,” Titus said.

It’s also a bipartisan issue, said Titus. Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton of Arizona and Titus have cosponsored the Extreme Weather and Heat Response Modernization Act — a bill that would allow the president to declare extreme heat a major disaster, making emergency federal funding available to affected communities through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

While extreme heat can destroy infrastructure, overwhelm emergency services and cost lives, it does not currently trigger the same federal response and funding as hurricanes or floods, according to Nevada Current.

If passed, the legislation could provide funding to states for more cooling stations, water access, and even repairs to roads and infrastructure damaged by extreme temperatures under existing grant programs like FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities.

“We try to impress on people that more deaths are caused by extreme heat than by flooding and tornadoes and hurricanes all together,” Titus said.

Titus said she has made some progress on the bill, but current political headwinds will make it difficult to advance.

“Unfortunately, right now we’re playing defense, not offense, and it will be so nice when that turns back,” said Titus, referring to the midterms and Democrats’ chances of taking back the House.

Giselle Gomez, who works with Clark County Social Services, said air-conditioned buildings like the Whitney Library can be a life saver in the summer. She noted that the county has expanded when cooling centers are activated to reflect the reality of rising heat, previously they were only activated during National Weather Service’s extreme heat warnings.

Lack of funding and stigma has prevented more facilities from becoming cooling centers, said Gomez.

“All I can say is, ‘We’ll give you water,’” Gomez said. “But I can’t say we’re going to offer any kind of funding, so I don’t think that that really helps the situation.”

Titus said rollbacks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed have also made tackling extreme heat more difficult. Nevada lost access to $156M in community solar funds that could have lowered energy costs by at least 20% for more than 20,000 low-income and disadvantaged households in Nevada by 2029.

“That was the biggest investment in energy we’ve ever seen,” Titus said. “Now you have seen so much of that rolled back that it’s heartbreaking.”

Rollbacks at the Environmental Protection Agency have also made it more difficult to tackle greenhouse emissions, the root causes of extreme climate change, said Titus.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin finalized a rule to rescind the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which stated that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare. He also repealed all associated motor vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards under the Clean Air Act.

Titus wrote a formal letter to Zeldin in September condemning the action. Nevada’s Attorney General Aaron Ford also joined a multi-state lawsuit to reverse Zeldin’s action in March.

In the letter, Titus noted there were 526 heat-related fatalities in Southern Nevada in 2024, the deadliest year for heat deaths on record.

Titus said failure to address rising temperatures have also impacted Nevada’s “infrastructure by softening asphalt and making concrete expand, crack, and buckle.” Rising temperatures have also been linked to megadroughts in the west that have impacted the Colorado River and the region’s water security, said Titus.

Deb Reardon, a planning manager at the RTC’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, said the agency is working to address extreme heat through infrastructure improvements.

The Southern Nevada Urban Heat Mapping Project RTC launched in 2023 has helped the agency identify locations where infrastructure investments could make the biggest impact.

On the state level, Democratic Assemblymember Cinthia Moore said she plans to reintroduce her bill that would prevent NV Energy, Southwest Gas and other utilities from shutting off service for nonpayment in the summer months.

Last session, she introduced a successful bill that requires utilities to report how often they shut off customers due to nonpayment.

“We see that our summers are getting longer, they’re starting earlier and then be much later,” Moore said. “I’m going to bring that bill forward, because it’s not something that we want, it’s something that we need.”