The Brief

During the most recent heat wave in Los Angeles, Memphis Perez, his wife, three children and elderly mother crammed into a bedroom, the only room in their apartment with air conditioning. He paid for the air conditioner himself, but thinks his landlord should have provided one instead.

“It’s like being inside a toaster,” Perez said. Temperatures reached the upper nineties; it was sweltering for days. “It’s only fair for them to do their part and provide a survivable experience in an apartment,” he added.

But it is unlikely the state Legislature will make that happen this year, despite a report from the California Department of Housing and Community Development recommending that the state set a maximum indoor temperature standard of 82 degrees for all homes.

Sen. Henry Stern, a Los Angeles Democrat, authored a bill that would make it a state policy that residents must be afforded comfortable temperatures in the dwellings they rent. The bill, however, was amended to remove any specific temperature goal. A second bill by Assemblymember Damon Connolly, a San Rafael Democrat, would have prohibited mobile home landlords from banning air conditioners.

Both measures face a final hearing today, as they come out of suspense files. If they fail to pass today, they are dead for the year.

The two proposals are the latest battlefronts in the ongoing conflict over how California adapts to climate-driven heat in homes. Housing and environmental advocates want the state to set a standard that will offer immediate relief, especially for low-income renters, who tend to live in older and less-efficient buildings.

Tomatoes inside plastic bags at Toad's Market. Because the rented building does not have a fan or an AC unit, produce is bagged to keep fruit flies away and moved into a refrigerator every night.

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Jules Hotz

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Store owner Memphis Perez restocks his store in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles during a hot summer afternoon.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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Landlords argue that it’s not fair to force them them to pay the cost of upgrading existing buildings to solve a problem they didn’t cause. Their opposition has blocked action toward a policy in the past.

“There’s a lack of political will, and also [the landlord groups] do hold a lot of influence,” said Jovana Morales-Tilgren, housing policy coordinator for Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. “They have a lot of funding to, in not so many words, kill a bill. That really limits what advocates can do.”

Landlords “aren’t opposed” to rules — but still block them

Lawmakers tried before to address rising heat with a temperature-specific cooling standard for homes and apartments.

In 2022, former assemblymember Richard Bloom tried to set rules mandating cooling standards for new and existing units. Stern was a co-author of the bill.

Fighting the bill aggressively, the California Apartment Association spent $1.2 million, and the California Building Industry Association spent $1.6 million on lobbying overall that year.

Both the apartment owners and the building association want more research and smaller steps toward upgrading decades-old housing stock, said Bob Raymer, a lobbyist who represents them. The groups also don’t want the full responsibility of paying for it.

“Let me be clear. We're not opposed to cooling standards,” Raymer said.

But three years ago, Bloom and his co-authors amended the bill to request $5 million to have the state housing department study the potential for rules, incentives and other forms of relief. The apartment association and the building association opposed that, too. After the bill passed, they wrote a letter asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to veto the proposal.

A small AC unit sits in the upper window of a building in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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That study resulted in the report that influenced Stern’s bill. He said he introduced a follow-up proposal he felt at the time might be easier to attain – one that only included a temperature standard for newly built housing.

Renter advocates call the original language of Stern’s current bill misguided. New homes and apartments are built to more energy-efficient codes, so they have less of a cooling problem.

That wouldn’t protect the low income renters who need cooling the most.

“In conversations with (Stern) and his staff we were able to amend it to force the state to start looking at this in a broader way,” said Morales-Tilgren.

Stern acknowledged his amendment replaced a rule with a more aspirational policy.

“I will concede it’s a little less pointed and heavy handed than past efforts,” Stern said. “But we thought it's something we can pass this year.”

Unlike 2022, the major apartment and building associations aren’t formally opposing Stern’s current bill.

Debra Carlton, a spokesperson for the California Apartment Association, says the group “has been in conversations with the senator.” While apartment owners “understand the importance of addressing extreme heat, we think it feels unnecessary,” she said.

The Southern California Rental Housing Association, however, is formally opposing Stern’s bill. Spokeswoman Molly Kirkland said the organization sees the bill as a potential precursor to a retrofit mandate, one that rental owners fear could lead to unexpected costs.

“It's not just putting in air conditioning or a cooler,” Kirkland said. “If it becomes a really substantial remodel as a result of the retrofit, then it could mean terminating tenancy to accomplish that.”

Stern still wants a temperature-based cooling standard, and believes his bill will guide state policy in that direction. “These are the political realities of how big of a fight you want to pick with the landlord lobby right out the gate,” he added.

Living in a crowded, old, and uninsulated Lincoln Heights apartment with his extended family, Perez is tired of waiting for help.

“The temperatures here in L.A. are rising every year,” he said.

Cost, complications and fairness

Protecting renters from heat would require a thorough statewide analysis of the housing stock and significant funding help for landlords, says Stephanie Pincetl, director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA.

Pincetl says it’s not really fair for a state policy to shift hold building owners responsible for upgrading old buildings to meet new state building codes.

“Simply requiring landlords to make these buildings more thermally performing is kind of a cheap way to do this, relative to the responsibility of the state, which has only recently had better building codes,” she said. “It’s a very difficult situation that has no easy answers at all.”

Passing an indoor maximum temperature standard statewide would require installing cooling systems like heat pumps, or building upgrades like adding insulation or cool roofs.

It could cost between $6,000 and $13,000 per unit to install heat pumps, not including upgrading electrical panels if it’s needed, said Maya Ofek, a research analyst with the UCLA Center for Sustainable Communities.

“The point is people do need cooling, there’s no question,” Pincetl said. “But how you get there in a fair way is really tough.”

Negotiating costs for a complicated solution 

As landlords, renters and the state tussle over who pays the cost of adaptation, experts agree the solution likely will include a mix of strategies.

Advocates and landlords acknowledge that cooling all of California’s homes would be extremely expensive, and would require the state to offer financial incentives to make it possible. But facing a $20 billion state budget deficit, lawmakers may be hesitant to spend the money.

It could cost between $6,000 and $13,000 per unit to install heat pumps, not including electrical panel upgrades if needed, said Maya Ofek, a research analyst with the UCLA Center for Sustainable Communities.

With the state’s help through no interest loans, grants, or tax credits — landlords might be able to cool one room in every residential unit in the state, said Raymer, the lobbyist for the landlord and building groups. But requiring landlords to cool every building in the state without any help is unrealistic, he said.

Stephanie Pincetl, director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA, doesn't have a position on Stern’s bill. But she agrees with Raymer on that last point. The state needs more data about the housing stock and energy efficient cooling to create a strong policy, she said.

“Simply requiring landlords to make these buildings more thermally performing is kind of a cheap way to do this, relative to the responsibility of the state, which has only recently had better building codes,” she said. “It’s a very difficult situation that has no easy answers at all.”

Locals lead, with the state left behind

Five years ago, during a brutal heat wave, Maria Serafin set up a portable air conditioner in her living room to cool her family. The next month, after a $500 electricity bill, she gave the air conditioner away; she’s a renter in an affordable housing community. She just has fans now.

Serafin is one of the many Californians who overwhelmingly support setting a statewide cooling standard, according to a 2023 UC Berkeley poll.

In the absence of a statewide rule, cities and counties have begun to take action on residential heat problems. Two years ago, Palm Springs required property owners to provide cooling to maintain a maximum temperature of 80 degrees. 

Earlier this month Los Angeles County passed an ordinance requiring large landlords to maintain homes in unincorporated areas of the county at or below 82 degrees starting in 2027. Local leaders defied opposition from landlord associations, who made many of the same arguments they made to the state.

Serafin lives in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington. L.A. has studied the possibility of requiring air conditioning in homes, but the city has no temperature-specific standard. Serafin said if city officials made such a rule, it would help.

“It’s like hell,” she said. “My head hurts. I feel fatigued and anxious. I can’t cook or do housework, because I start to feel desperate and irritable.”

Stern said he hopes that local action builds momentum as the state tries to figure out its strategy.

“There’s so many other things we’re dealing with: wildfire, utilities, oil, the cap and trade program,” Stern said. “This is the silent killer. And it always gets left behind.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.