Politico reports:

The federal health department is creating a new office to address climate change as a public health issue, in an effort to tie growing environmental concerns to the administration’s broader health equity agenda.

The Office of Climate Change and Health Equity will take a wide-ranging approach to evaluating the impact that the warming planet is having on people’s health, including initiatives aimed at reducing health providers’ carbon emissions and expanding protections to the most vulnerable populations.

Senior National Institutes of Health official John Balbus will run the office on an interim basis, with plans to house it within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.

“The climate crisis is here, and the Department of Health and Human Services is rising to meet the challenge,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said Monday. “We’re going to use every tool at our disposal.”

The added emphasis on climate change comes after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana, knocking out power to New Orleans and sparking fears that, combined with the ongoing Covid-19 resurgence, it would leave a public health catastrophe in its wake.

The climate office will be small to start; HHS has requested $3 million from Congress to fund it next year, with plans to draw on existing resources until then. But Becerra insisted that it will play a central role in climate-related work across the department, characterizing it as an extension of the work he did as California attorney general to advance “environmental justice.” [Continue reading…]