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Scientific American
3 days ago
- Politics
- Scientific American
Lawmakers Form First Extreme Heat Caucus, Citing ‘Deadly Risk'
CLIMATEWIRE | An Arizona Democrat and a New York Republican are teaming up to form the Congressional Extreme Heat Caucus in an attempt to find bipartisan solutions for deadly temperatures. 'We hope this caucus can make sure the United States is better prepared for the inevitable increase in temperatures, not just in Arizona and the Southwest but all across the country,' Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton (D) said in an interview. He's creating the caucus with New York Rep. Mike Lawler, a moderate Republican who bucked his party last year by expressing support for the nation's first proposed regulation to protect workers from heat by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. 'Extreme heat kills more Americans each year than any other weather event — over 1,300 lives lost, including 570 in New York alone — and it's a growing threat to the Hudson Valley,' Lawler said in a statement. 'That's why I'm co-chairing the Heat Caucus to drive real solutions, raise awareness, and protect our communities from this deadly risk.' Stanton said he was excited to team up with Lawler, who understands that heat jeopardizes health even in northern climates. 'He is from New York and I'm proud he recognizes how heat is important for workers,' he said. The caucus will be open to House lawmakers who have bipartisan ideas for addressing extreme heat. Noting that many Republicans have slammed OSHA's proposed heat rule, Stanton said the caucus doesn't have to find consensus on every policy, but members should be willing to search for common ground. "It is important to have that conversation on what we can come together and agree on because that's how we get legislation passed in this town, even if we don't agree on how far to go," he said. Lawler and Stanton teamed up earlier this spring to protest workforce reductions at the Department of Health and Human Services that could degrade heat-related programs. In April, the pair wrote a letter to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., protesting layoffs that purged the entire staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice as well as the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps families pay for heating and cooling. 'As we head into another summer — with projections suggesting 2025 will rank again among the warmest years on record, we cannot afford to limit our ability to counter the impacts of extreme heat,' they wrote in April with nine other lawmakers. Among the caucus' priorities is making LIHEAP funding more evenly distributed to southern states to help pay for cooling assistance. The program was initially created to help low-income families pay their heating bills during winter, and the majority of its funding still goes toward cold-weather states. 'We have had too many deaths of people in their homes because they are unable to access programs that would help them access air conditioning,' Stanton said.
Scientific American
15-05-2025
- Business
- Scientific American
Lawmakers Push to Legalize Emissions-Heavy ‘Supersonic' Planes
A bill to repeal the ban on supersonic flights over the U.S. could increase the demand for the gas-guzzling jets from around a dozen to as many as 240 By & CLIMATEWIRE | Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol are seeking to repeal a half-century-old regulation that prevents civilian aircraft from traveling faster than the speed of sound over the United States. The "Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act" could vastly increase the potential market — and emissions — of Boom Supersonic, a planemaking startup backed by United Airlines; Japan Airlines; and Sam Altman, the billionaire CEO of the artificial intelligence firm OpenAI. No commercial supersonic planes have been in operation since the Concorde ceased flights between New York and London in 2003. But aviation analysts estimate that the jets Boom is developing would consume at least two times more fuel per passenger than flying on commercial airplanes in operation now. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The bill is from Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), whose state is home to Boom's manufacturing plant, and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), the chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation. It's co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah and Tim Sheehy of Montana as well as Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas. "Supersonic flight without an audible sonic boom should obviously be allowed," said Blake Scholl, Boom's founder and CEO, in statements released by the bill's lead sponsors. "I urge Congress to pass the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act supersonically, so we can all enjoy faster flights and maintain American leadership in aviation." The legislation would order the Federal Aviation Administration to scrap or update a 1973 regulation that prohibits non-military-related supersonic flight over the U.S. within a year of the bill's passage. It specifically calls for the agency to allow for civilian flights in the national airspace "at a Mach number greater than 1 so long as the aircraft is operated in such a manner that no sonic boom reaches the ground in the United States." The congressional push to undo the overland flight ban comes as NASA prepares to conduct its first test flights of a supersonic jet developed by Lockheed Martin to produce sonic "thumps," rather than booms, when traveling faster than the speed of sound. The United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization is also set to develop new noise standards that member states could adopt. In February, Boom completed a series of supersonic test flights in a prototype plane that it claimed did not produce sonic booms that were audible from the ground. The speed of sound, or Mach 1, varies based on atmospheric conditions but is generally around 767 mph at sea level. The following month, Scholl visited Washington to lobby Trump administration officials to repeal the supersonic flight ban, POLITICO Pro reported at the time. The International Council on Clean Transportation, an environmental research group, estimated in 2022 that dropping overland flight prohibitions for supersonic aircraft in the U.S. and other major markets could increase the demand for the gas-guzzling jets from around a dozen to as many as 240. The company has already reported inking deals with airlines to produce 130 planes. Boom is designing its engines to run on sustainable aviation fuel, which has a fraction of the carbon emissions of traditional jet fuel. But operating the supersonic jets with SAF would be uneconomic for most airlines given the higher cost of SAF and the greater fuel consumption required to break the sound barrier.
Scientific American
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Scientific American
Trump Dismisses Scientists Writing Key Climate Report
CLIMATEWIRE | The Trump administration on Monday dismissed all of the scientists working on the newest version of the National Climate Assessment, a sweeping report that outlines the growing dangers of rising temperatures for lawmakers, policy experts and the public. The sixth installment of the congressionally mandated report, which was due to come out by 2028, has typically been put together by about 400 researchers, many of whom are top scientists at universities who volunteer their time. The assessment is used to craft environmental rules, legislation and infrastructure project planning. It seen by experts as the definitive body of research about how global warming is transforming the country. Work had already begun on the sixth version. The Trump administration ended that with a note sent to researchers Monday. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. 'At this time, the scope of the NCA6 is currently being reevaluated in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990,' contributors were told in an email obtained by POLITICO's E&E News. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The move was roundly criticized by climate scientists late Monday as the news spread. The assessments help Americans 'understand how climate change is impacting their daily lives already and what to expect in the future,' said Rachel Cleetus, one of the researchers who was dismissed. 'Trying to bury this report won't alter the scientific facts one bit, but without this information our country risks flying blind into a world made more dangerous by human-caused climate change,' said Cleetus, a senior policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement. 'The only beneficiaries of disrupting or killing this report are the fossil fuel industry and those intent on boosting oil and gas profits at the expense of people's health and the nation's economic well-being.' The plan closely tracks with a proposal by White House budget director Russ Vought, who has urged the Trump administration to toss out all work on the assessment that began under former President Joe Biden. Vought wants to help pick a new group of researchers to issue a report that reflects the administration's claims that climate change is not a serious threat. That report might focus on how climate change 'benefits' the U.S., according to a plan he outlined in Project 2025, the conservative policy proposal produced by the Heritage Foundation. Earlier this month, the administration defunded the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which supports the assessment. The program, which coordinated the work of 13 federal agencies, had existed for 35 years through Republican and Democratic presidencies, including Trump's first term. Trump officials were caught by surprise by the timing of the fourth National Climate Assessment as it was being prepared for release in 2018. Some wanted to withhold the report and fire the scientists who worked on it, but that plan was scuttled. Instead, the White House tried to downplay the report by releasing it the day after Thanksgiving, but that only increased the attention it received. It's unclear whom Vought would try to recruit for the next assessment, if there is one. There is a relatively small pool of credentialed researchers who downplay the scientific consensus that climate change could push the planet past a series of dangerous tipping points. Some have already told E&E News that they are willing to be involved with the new effort. On Monday, some of the dismissed researchers pledged to continue their work in some fashion. That includes Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, and an author of the chapter on ocean coasts that was being prepared for the sixth report. 'I know many of the authors would like to find a way to ensure that Americans can still have an updated, evidence-based assessment of our country's climate,' he wrote on Bluesky.
Scientific American
22-04-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
Childhood Asthma Will Worsen with Pollution Rollbacks and CDC Cuts
CLIMATEWIRE | When EPA announced its intent to roll back more than two dozen regulations last month, Administrator Lee Zeldin said it was necessary because pollution limits were 'suffocating' the nation's economy. But 12 of the 31 rules on the chopping block protect Americans' ability to breathe by curtailing air pollutants like fine particulate matter and ozone. According to one review of EPA's analyses, those rules would collectively prevent more than 100 million asthma attacks through 2050. The regulatory rollback isn't the Trump administration's only move that will affect American lungs. Just this month, the Department of Health and Human Services completely eliminated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's asthma office, which provides funding and advice to state and local health officials on how to prevent the the inflammatory lung condition. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. 'I don't say this lightly, but these are programs that were keeping people alive,' said Laura Kate Bender of the American Lung Association. 'And now we have this double whammy where on the one hand, we are seeing the threat of a slew of air pollution rollbacks and lax enforcement at EPA, and on the other hand, they are cutting programs that were helping people manage their lung disease.' The rollbacks and cuts contradict the Trump administration's stated goals of reducing childhood chronic diseases, including asthma. Asthma was mentioned twice in President Donald Trump's February executive order that directed federal agencies to act 'urgently' to end chronic childhood diseases through 'fresh thinking' on 'environmental impacts' to health, among other things. Asked how EPA reconciles its directive to tackle asthma with rolling back regulations that prevent the disease, EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said only that 'the Trump Administration is taking steps in the right direction to ensure EPA adheres to the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment and powering the great American comeback.' The costs of a regulatory rollback Elizabeth Hauptman remembers the joy she felt two years ago when EPA finalized a carbon rule meant to reduce pollution from fossil fuels. Now a field consultant for Moms Clean Air Force, Hauptman started paying attention to air pollution regulations when her then-toddler son, Oscar, started having difficulty breathing. In the years since he was diagnosed with asthma, Oscar, now 15, has been to the intensive care unit twice and had to sit out sports practices more times than Hauptman can count on poor air quality days. She had been hoping the carbon rule would save more kids like Oscar from struggling to breathe. But now the rule is one of 12 air pollution limits EPA announced it would reconsider in March on its 'biggest deregulation action in U.S. History.' Hauptman worries EPA's actions will only make asthma attacks more common — for her son and others. 'My son is growing up in a world where he has to check the air quality index like some kids check their favorite sports scores, and that should not be normal,' she said. 'This is not just about policy — it's about playgrounds and bedtime stories without wheezing.' In 2035 alone, EPA estimated, the rule would prevent 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital and emergency room visits, 1,900 new asthma diagnoses and 360,000 asthma attacks severe enough to require an inhaler. Those calculations are part of the cost-benefit analysis EPA is required by law to conduct whenever it issues new regulations. They often measure the benefits of reducing air pollution in terms of avoided asthma symptoms, emergency room visits and hospitalizations. 'My son is growing up in a world where he has to check the air quality index like some kids check their favorite sports scores, and that should not be normal. This is not just about policy — it's about playgrounds and bedtime stories without wheezing.' —Elizabeth Hauptman, f For example, EPA estimated that another regulation targeted in Zeldin's rollback — the "good neighbor" rule — would prevent 179,000 asthma attacks and 5,000 new diagnoses of the disease in 2026. The rule limits smokestack emissions from power plants that create ozone pollution and smog in downwind, neighboring states. All told, those health benefits, along with avoided hospitalizations and premature deaths from the pollution, would save $13 billion in 2026, the agency calculated. 'Inhalers are expensive, asthma attacks are expensive, keeping kids home from school and parents out of work to care for them is expensive,' Bender explained. Making America healthy? Trump's February executive order created the Make America Healthy Commission, tasked with drafting a strategy to improve kids' health that must 'address appropriately restructuring the Federal Government's response to the childhood chronic disease crisis, including ending Federal practices that exacerbate the health crisis.' Zeldin sits on the commission with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is restructuring the Health and Human Services Department as part of an agenda he calls "Make American Healthy Again." Kennedy mentioned asthma as a chronic disease he wants to address during his confirmation hearings. But earlier this month, he put every staff member in the CDC's Asthma Control Program on administrative leave, and told them their jobs will be eliminated in June. Created in 1999, the CDC program funds work in 29 state and local health departments to help reduce asthma attacks. Some grants provide training for visiting nurses to help patients reduce exposure to things like secondhand smoke and mold at home. Others fund training for school nurses and other officials on how to administer inhalers and other medications. Utah, for example, has used grants from the asthma program to create 'recess guidance' that recommends when air quality is too poor for kids to play outside. The state has also started sending proactive email alerts to school personnel based on the guidance. The program's experts would also deploy to areas hit by disasters, like wildfires and hurricanes, to help communities respond to asthma threats, and would even field calls directly from patients who had recently been diagnosed with asthma and needed advice on how to manage their symptoms. That expertise is no longer available. The program's entire staff was sent Reduction in Force notices earlier this month as part of a broader HHS reorganization that has resulted in 18 percent of the agency's workforce being cut overall. 'If you are newly diagnosed with asthma because of air pollution issues now, what resources do you have after these cuts?' asked Jenna Riemenschneider, vice president of advocacy and policy at the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. HHS did not respond to questions about why the office has been eliminated or whether Kennedy agrees with EPA's actions to roll back pollution rules that prevent asthma. In a statement, an agency spokesperson only said that 'critical programs within the CDC will continue,' and Kennedy 'is committed towards understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending the childhood chronic disease epidemic.' Three staff members from the CDC program, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they were blindsided by the move to eliminate HHS' only asthma experts, in part because they had read the February executive order. 'When we saw the first announcement that they were reorganizing HHS, we thought maybe they would move us to the new Administration for a Healthy America,' said one employee, referring to a new division created in the HHS restructuring. 'But none of us saw coming that we would be cut along with our entire division.' Another employee said she had actually been 'excited' by the February executive order because she thought it would elevate the program's work to help more asthma patients. 'By eliminating the asthma and air quality branch, the MAHA movement loses so much scientific and medical experience that would have helped actually make America healthier,' she said.
