If you’re reading this, you know it’s hot right now. President Joe Biden knows it’s hot right now. Grammy-winning rapper Nelly definitely knows it’s hot right now.

What we don’t really know: How much that heat costs the country.

“We’re figuring this out as we live it,” said Jennifer Harris, the former senior director for international economics in Biden’s White House National Security Council.

It will take years, if not decades, for Biden’s landmark climate law to make a measurable difference in stemming rising temperatures, assuming it works as intended. So instead of taking a victory lap today on the first anniversary of the deal that secured the law, the president is trotting out modest measures to help besieged communities, outdoor workers and vulnerable Americans endure a month that is on track to be the hottest ever recorded.

Meanwhile, the tab rises. Biden said Thursday that extreme heat costs the U.S. economy $100 billion a year. That’s likely an understatement, said Sabeel Rahman, who until recently was an associate administrator in Biden’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

“The systemwide nature of it is pretty mind-boggling,” Rahman said.

Extreme heat can collapse ecosystems, buckle roads, melt power cables, sap worker productivity, worsen destructive hurricanes and kill people. Today, Biden rattled off devastation that sounded like modern-day plagues: boiling oceans, faltering fisheries, roaring wildfires, deadly working conditions and record temperatures.

Such effects can be hard to model and translate into a monetary figure, Harris said.

Experts say the expense of addressing climate change would be far less than the cost of living with it. The Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $369 billion in clean energy spending, is the biggest such package in U.S. history, but even Biden has acknowledged that “we have a lot more work to do.”

Inching forward: In the meantime, Biden has announced measures designed to stave off the vagaries of an unhinged climate. They include improvements to weather forecasting, reinforcements for Western water supplies and increased workplace inspections to ensure workers are protected from the heat.

The federal government has only limited ability to respond to extreme heat, which is not legally recognized as a disaster, Thomas Frank notes in a story today.

The administration is also hampered by years of budget cuts to federal agencies and an increasingly conservative federal judiciary and Supreme Court, Rahman said. For example, the Labor Department is years behind finalizing a long-sought federal standard protecting workers from heat, despite pressure from climate, labor and health advocates.

“We’re paying the price for the decades of attacks on our regulatory capacity,” said Rahman, who is now a professor at Cornell Law School. “It creates a lot of friction and makes it harder to do big things like this.”

It’s Thursday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO’s Power Switch. I’m your host, Zack Colman. Arianna will be back soon! Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to [email protected].

Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: Ry Rivard breaks down the offshore wind industry’s financial woes and why 2023 could be a decisive year.

Featured story

Inflation Reduction Act nears toddler age

The country’s most ambitious U.S. climate law came into the world just a little over a year ago. Now, Democrats want to build on that accomplishment with more climate action, writes Emma Dumain.

The hunger for more drastic legislation reflects two truths: that what Congress passed still does not get the U.S. to Biden’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and that Democrats left much “on the cutting room floor,” ranging from a green jobs program to tax credits for building electric transmission lines.

For now, the focus remains on defending the IRA from the GOP-controlled House and implementing the sweeping law’s $369 billion of clean energy and climate incentives. But Emma spoke with more than a dozen lawmakers and advocates, many of whom pointed out Congress’ unfinished business.

Climate change is “an existential threat, and the IRA was a modest step forward,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told Emma. “If we’re going to save the planet, we are going to have to work in cooperation with the rest of the world in a dramatic reduction of fossil fuels.”

Power Centers

SCOTUS OKs Mountain Valley pipeline
The Supreme Court has all but ensured the contentious Mountain Valley pipeline can be built and begin operating by the end of the year, write Ben Lefebvre and Alex Guillen. On Thursday, the high court scrapped a lower court’s ruling that halted construction of the natural gas pipeline.

No relief from the heat
As we covered, it’s hot. It’s not just a U.S. thing — the World Meteorological Organization said July is likely to be the hottest month ever recorded, writes Zia Weise from Brussels. Southern Europe is acutely aware of that reality, with the region enduring one of its most brutal heat waves ever. Antoaneta Roussi reports from Riposto, Italy, that it’s “43 degrees in the shade.” That’s Celsius. The Fahrenheit conversion? 109.4. Give me a spritz, hold the Aperol.

But can you beat the heat?
A burgeoning push from Congress would have the Federal Emergency Management Agency include dangerous heat as a federal disaster, allowing the agency to unlock taxpayer dollars in the same way it does for floods and tornadoes. But for now, no such authority exists, writes Thomas Frank. Instead, the federal government has a smattering of programs designed to help communities and residents withstand hotter temperatures.

In Other News

Play the hits: Record heat and wildfire smoke blanketing portions of the Midwest and East Coast are no match for the buzzsaw that is Republican orthodoxy on climate change.

Corralling corals: Abnormally hot ocean temperatures threaten coral reefs near the Florida Keys. This laboratory is trying to save as many as it can.

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission moved to unload a backlog of renewable energy projects that want to connect to the power grid, but punted on approving liquefied natural gas projects.

Republicans want to block a Biden waiver on electric vehicle chargers, arguing the president’s move to strip “Buy America” provisions allows China to gain a foothold in the U.S. market.

Carbon credits may get a rating system this year, potentially bringing confidence to an opaque-yet-booming market for achieving corporate climate commitments.

That’s it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.

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