(Summer freeway photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
After a surge of heat-related deaths in Nevada, state lawmakers are proposing a bill that would require the nation’s two fastest-warming cities to actively protect residents from extreme heat.
Assembly Bill 96 would mandate that cities and counties with populations exceeding 100,000 people include a specific “heat mitigation” section within their master plans. Only Clark and Washoe County have populations exceeding 100,000 in Nevada.
The bill would require the state’s two most populous counties to actively address extreme heat through urban planning strategies, like creating public cooling spaces, public water access, cool building practices, and shaded areas in their development plans.
Despite Nevada having two of the fastest warming cities in the nation — Reno and Las Vegas — the state has done little to systemically address extreme heat.
But during a legislative committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers and city officials emphasized the urgent need for comprehensive heat mitigation strategies in Las Vegas and Reno due to rising temperatures and the growing number of heat-related deaths in Nevada.
Assemblymember Venise Karris, a Democrat representing Las Vegas, said the bill would target the “urban heat islands,” areas where the concentration of buildings and pavement creates significantly higher temperatures compared to surrounding rural areas.
“It’s clear that heat is a crisis in our state,” added Karris in her testimony.
Las Vegas set several heat records this past year, including the hottest day on record at 123 degrees, as well as the number of days over 100 degrees. Under the current climate trajectory, Las Vegas is projected to experience a more than tenfold increase in the number of extreme heat days where weather feels above 105 degrees, according to a peer-reviewed study published by Environmental Research Communications.
Heat in urban areas has also had deadly health consequences in Nevada. The Southern Nevada Health District reported 526 heat-related deaths last year, a 78% increase from the 294 heat-related deaths in the county in 2023.
“There are now more heat deaths in Southern Nevada than there are traffic deaths, and we divert millions of dollars in resources to limit those traffic fatalities,” said Dylan Shaver, a lobbyist who appeared on behalf of the City of Las Vegas. “This is just taking another aspect of Southern Nevada life, shining a bit of a spotlight on it, and saying this is also a priority for us.”
Cities and counties in Nevada have taken some short-term steps to mitigate heat, like cooling centers, and long-term measures including tree planting. But researchers say more cities and counties must plan for extreme heat by incorporating heat mitigation into their long-term plans for land use, development, and infrastructure.
Marco Velotta, the chief sustainability officer for the City of Las Vegas, highlighted novel approaches in other southwest cities to address heat mitigation systemically, including Phoenix’s dedicated Office of Heat Response and Mitigation established in 2021. Velotta said the bill would help cities and counties in Nevada effectively coordinate their efforts to tackle extreme heat.
“There are things that we have not addressed that this bill speaks to,” Velotta said. “This will help us with a more in-depth study on other things that we can do.”
The bill was sponsored by the Assembly Committee on Government Affairs and received broad support, including environmental groups, the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the City of Reno and the City of Henderson.
However, the bill may still face obstacles.
Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed a similar bill in 2023, which would have required Clark and Washoe counties to include heat mitigation measures in their master plans.
“There is no data definitively supporting the proposition that development is causing rising temperatures in either Washoe County or Clark County,” Lombardo said in his veto message.
Several studies have concluded that dense buildings, heat-absorbing asphalt, and cement are responsible for the urban heat island effect in Nevada.
A recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that nearly 50% of the Las Vegas metro area was covered by heat-absorbing buildings, roads and sidewalks — more than any other city in the study — contributing to significantly higher air temperatures in the area.
The study also found that shade from trees cooled surrounding air temperatures by nearly 45 degrees in certain areas of Las Vegas, more than any other city in the study.
Studies show that some neighborhoods in Nevada experience the urban heat island effect more intensely than others, with the harshest impacts falling on urban cores where natural land and vegetation have been replaced by heavy development.
The Southern Nevada Urban Heat Mapping Project, spearheaded by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, found the hottest sections of Las Vegas featured large amounts of dark and heat-absorbing surfaces, like parking lots, buildings, and asphalt.
The mapping project revealed that elevated temperatures were worst in North Las Vegas, East Las Vegas and downtown Las Vegas, which can get up to 11 degrees hotter than other parts of the city.
The Assembly Committee on Government Affairs took no action on the bill Tuesday.