In 2024, the U.S. suffered 27 billion-dollar-plus climate disasters — one every other week on average. Heat waves blistered the entire country, melting transportation infrastructure and causing thousands of deaths. Devastating storms with record-breaking precipitation overwhelmed communities from the coasts to the heartland — even ones that had been considered “climate havens.” Climate change is increasing the intensity and severity of many kinds of extreme weather. Millions of Americans have already been harmed. Most see that the danger is everywhere.
Data updated: May 2025
*Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standards have accelerated solutions that are keeping climate pollution out of the air and saving both individual households and larger communities money. But when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin took office this year, one of his first acts was to attack the foundational recognition that climate change is a threat to people’s health and safety, called the Endangerment Finding. In July 2025, Administrator Zeldin sent a proposal to the White House for review that appears to be a reconsideration of this bedrock determination.
It’s been reported that Administrator Zeldin plans to downplay the costs of climate change as the agency seeks to “drive a dagger” through the Endangerment Finding and many other science-based protections. But those costs are undeniable on this map, drawing on data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Every part of the country has suffered loss of life and economic damages from extreme weather that climate change keeps making more destructive.
As climate-altering pollution like methane and carbon dioxide makes the world hotter, hurricanes are gathering strength faster, rain is falling harder, droughts are running drier longer. People are suffering as health care and insurance costs keep rising and crucial infrastructure like roads, bridges and levees and services like hospitals and schools keep having to be rebuilt. In 2025, the list of disasters has already grown to include catastrophic flooding in Texas, deadly swarms of tornadoes in Missouri and wildfires in Los Angeles, which are estimated to have caused more than $250 billion in economic damages.
Since 2009, when EPA finalized the Endangerment Finding, there have been 255 billion-dollar-plus disasters that have touched Americans in every state, costing more than $1.7 trillion in all. These harms are real — and it is EPA’s responsibility to regulate the pollution that causes them. Reducing it will lead to cleaner air, better health and stronger communities. Attacking the Endangerment Finding will do the opposite, making American life more expensive and more dangerous.
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