Local Officials Want Extreme Heat To Be Declared A Federal Disaster

Blistering temperatures across the country have prompted significant concern from state and local officials who say they are struggling to manage the crisis without federal intervention.
In letters sent Thursday and first obtained by NBC News, two of the the country’s top organizations representing local officials on the federal level pushed Congress to pass a bill to declare extreme heat emergencies.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors wrote to a bipartisan trio in the House, Reps. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, and Mark Amodei, R-Nev, who had introduced a bill last month, known as the Extreme Heat Emergency Act, that would add extreme heat to FEMA’s list of major disaster qualifying events.