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NEW YORK CITY — Summers in New York City are difficult for Anthony Gay and his family. A small, portable air conditioner in his bedroom is the only relief they have from soaring temperatures in their Brooklyn rental.
"The rest of the apartment is literally unbearable to walk through," said Gay, 40, whose asthmatic son struggles to breathe in the heat.
Across the United States, about 12% of homes — or about 12.7 million households — had no access to air conditioning in 2020, according to the most recent government data. Many more had some air conditioning, like Gay, but not enough to beat the heat.
Most often, homes with little or no air conditioning are occupied by low-income residents — often renters — and people of color, a 2022 Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. metro areas found.
Heat stress now kills more people globally each year than any other weather-related cause, according to the World Health Organization — and many of these deaths occur indoors.
A Reuters survey of housing regulations in all 50 U.S. states found that, while nearly half of them require landlords to maintain existing air conditioning units, none require that air-conditioning be provided. Nor do rental housing regulations describe air-conditioning as an essential service like plumbing, heat and electricity.
However, a small but growing number of U.S. states, cities and counties have adopted legislation that impose maximum indoor temperature standards on rental housing.
In the last five years, six U.S. localities, including New Orleans and Clark County, Nevada, have adopted such cooling laws, compared with just seven in the previous two decades.
Now, America's two largest population centers — New York City and Los Angeles County — are proposing new indoor temperature maximums for renters.
New York is proposing a cap of 78 Fahrenheit, and Austin, Texas, is considering 85 Fahrenheit, while L.A. County has yet to formalize its target. New York City and Austin's proposals would require that landlords install cooling systems, given the difficulty of retrofitting old building stock to allow for better air flow and other passive measures.
The moves are setting up a showdown with powerful landlord lobbies.
Similar bills in other jurisdictions have failed in recent years after landlords' groups told policymakers they would need to raise rents to compensate for the costs of upgrading home electrical systems and adding air conditioning.
The California Apartment Association landlord lobby does not support a cooling mandate "until we can find a way to make sure that we don't knock out our electrical system and make the cost so exorbitant," said Debra Carlton, the group's executive vice president of state public affairs.
A 2022 statewide bill died following landlord pushback. The California Legislature instead asked state experts to craft recommendations, which were published this June, suggesting an indoor maximum of 82 F for newly constructed units only.
A matter of life and death
While air conditioning accounts for about 4% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, which fuel climate change, research shows it also saves lives. A 2016 study estimated a 75% drop in the number of U.S. heat-related deaths on hot days during the latter half of the 20th century after AC was introduced, according to findings published in the Journal of Political Economy.
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that heat-related deaths have been increasing, with approximately 2,302 in 2023 versus 1,602 two years previously. However, that data only includes death certificates that specifically mention heat and is regarded by many experts as a dramatic undercount.
One of the few places to track indoor and outdoor heat-related deaths is Maricopa County in Arizona, where temperatures regularly top 110 Fahrenheit. Despite two of its cities — Phoenix and Tempe — passing maximum indoor temperature laws, the county registered 156 indoor heat-related deaths last year, a five-fold increase over the last decade.
Following the 2021 heat dome that hit the Pacific Northwest, the state of Oregon in 2022 and Spokane, Washington, this year approved measures to limit landlords' ability to stop tenants from installing their own air-conditioners over concerns about liability or utility bills.
But many of America's warmest cities and states are struggling to pass laws on safe temperatures.
Upgrading a single-family U.S. home to a central air-conditioning system generally costs between $5,000 and $10,000, according to figures from the American Society of Home Inspectors, while an in-window unit costs around $400 on top of electrical upgrades for older homes to support the unit. This can run between $2,000 and $3,000, the California Apartment Association said.
