Congress Must Act to Harden Our Power Grids

Nearly 10,000 people in Queens lost power during a July heatwave this year, and now, New York's grid operator has now issued more emergency demand-response calls in the past two years than in the previous decade combined. And that’s not to overlook Gary, Indiana – a majority black city that has faced multiple weeks without power after severe summer storms.

As Inside Climate News reports, the New York Independent System Operator activated its emergency demand response program 22 times in 2025, compared to no more than 8 times in any prior year over the past decade. Federal regulators have already warned that New York faces an elevated risk of energy shortfalls during extreme weather. Last summer, over 6,200 New Yorkers lost power outright, and another 166,000 were asked to cut electricity use to prevent a wider blackout.

The state's grid still relies heavily on aging natural gas "peaker" plants, some of the oldest and most polluting in the country, because there isn't yet enough clean power and battery storage to safely retire them. Meanwhile, rising demand from electrification, data centers, and manufacturing keeps growing, and federal opposition has already cancelled several offshore wind projects that were expected to help meet it.

This isn't just a New York problem. As heat waves intensify and get more frequent nationwide, grids built for a different climate are being pushed past their limits, and a widespread summer grid failure would be, in the words of one energy expert, a public health emergency.

Add your name to demand that Congress invest in modernizing the nation's power grid, expand clean energy and battery storage capacity, and ensure grid reliability keeps pace with a hotter, more demanding climate.

The next heatwave is coming whether or not the grid is ready for it. Congress has the power to make sure it is.