The Crushing cost of climate change: Why we must rethink America’s infrastructure investments

  The mega-drought squeezing Californians’ water supply and the state’s $45 billion-per-year agriculture industry is just the latest example of how climate change is threatening to drain state and local government budgets and hurt consumers’ pocketbooks and businesses’ bottom lines. Lasr week, President Barack Obama’s State, Local and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience met in Los Angeles to tackle a big question: How can the federal government help communities upgrade the United States’ infrastructure to withstand more frequent and severe heat waves, storms, floods, and other climate-change-driven events? On Capital Hill, lawmakers were seeking answers to similar questions last week at the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on "Extreme Weather: the Costs of Not Being Prepared."