Steve Koller

Everything Trump does between now and November is about keeping a Republican majority in Congress. That’s the whole game. Keep that in mind, and everything else will make sense.

A line graph showing NSF grant awards made through 2/27/26 for fiscal year 2026 compared with grant awards for fiscal years 2021-2025.

NSF Update (Awards through 2/27/26)

Directorates to follow

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Quite a trend. Great reporting from Bloomberg. From a housing supply standpoint, this has a negative impact on the # of units in a neighborhood, even if the total sq. footage of residential space stays the same.

Interesting to think about zoning to require a minimum # of apartments per building.

Beautiful day to walk past an active construction site that will eventually host 29 new affordable, all-electric homes in a walkable neighborhood in Cambridge, MA 🚜 🏠 ⚡️

The Power Grid Just Passed Its Biggest Test in Years Podcast Episode · Shift Key with Robinson Meyer · February 13 · 47m

Following this week's nor'easter that knocked out power for hundreds of thousands, reflecting on this recent episode of @heatmap.news's Shift Key that speculated: "we expect the winter to take over [from the summer] as the most electricity-intensive time of year."

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

How Tariffs Impact the Home Building Industry For years, NAHB has been leading the fight against tariffs because of their detrimental effect on housing affordability. In effect, the tariffs act as a tax on American builders, home buyers and consu...

Tariffs have played a role here too: according to an April 2025 survey from NAHB and Wells Fargo, builders estimated "a typical cost effect from recent tariff actions at $10,900 per home."

www.nahb.org/advocacy/top...

According to the Insurance Information Institute, from December 2024-December 2025 the price of construction materials rose 6.2%, well above the core inflation rate over the same period.

This not only makes building new housing more expensive, it also raises property insurance costs for homeowners.

Sea Level Rise and Sunny Day Flooding, with Miyuki Hino Miyuki Hino details the complexities of researching coastal flooding and the importance of context-dependent data collection and community engagement to capture accurate data and help communities comb...

Informative @rff.org podcast episode with Prof. Miyuki Hino on the frontier of coastal flood monitoring using land-based sensors in North Carolina.

As sea levels rise and storms intensify, adoption of sensors like these can help communities "measure what matters."

www.resources.org/resources-ra...

New flood model intercomparison just dropped!

Cat models used in NFIP pricing (KatRisk/Verisk/RMS) are within 4% of claims. KCC is 13x lower than peers. First Street is ~2x! as high across US.

"climate risk products require public validation to be a beneficial service"

With populous states like Florida, Illinois, and New York recently passing renter flood disclosure laws, nearly half the US population now lives in a state requiring landlords to disclose flood risks to prospective tenants.

New blog digs into the details and limits of these new requirements 👇

Please consider my departure letter highlighting my friend & now-former colleague @arpitrage.bsky.social 's housing quality rule, brilliantly adapted from an old RGB tenant rep idea.

Arpit's proposal would combine tenant protection with sustainable RGB cost-based guidelines for the first time 👇

Rent Board Resignation Clears Path for Mamdani Rent Freeze Promise The new mayor is now able to appoint a majority to the Rent Guidelines Board, giving him the numbers for a signature campaign promise.

NEW: @aarmlovi.bsky.social resigned from the Rent Guidelines Board today.

This gives @mayor.nyc.gov a total of six seats to play with on the nine-member board. His appointments could deliver his promise of a rent freeze for a million rent-stabilized apartments.

www.thecity.nyc/2026/02/17/r...

Informative resource on post-LA fires housing instability.

~70% of respondents (total N=2,443) still in temporary housing in December '25.

Among those relying on property insurance to pay for temporary housing, 22% in Pacific Palisades reported they've "already ran out" of displacement coverage.

From the American Academy of Actuaries letter on NCAR:

"When the scientific foundation for understanding natural hazard risk is weakened, insurers must assume wider loss distributions and higher tail risk, which translates directly into higher premiums for consumers."

actuary.org/wp-content/u...

18 Days, 20 Lives: New Yorkers Who Didn’t Survive the Cold Freezing days and nights claimed the lives of a grandmother, a dancer, a dispatcher and a man who lived among a colony of feral cats.

Heartbreaking and essential reporting.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

A Response to the Decision to Rescind EPA's 2009 Endangerment Finding The AMS is a global community committed to advancing weather, water, and climate science and service.

AMS is deeply concerned by the repeal of EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which concluded greenhouse gas emissions harm health and well-being. The science remains clear: human-caused climate change is already causing harmful impacts.

Read the full statement: https://bit.ly/4tBwz9w

BYD to launch EVs with more than 1,000 km of range this year

Remember "range anxiety"?

Still there, but the definition has changed: Now it's anxiety of Western carmakers trying to catch up with BYD & Co.

thedriven.io/2026/02/12/b...

Trump's EPA Rollbacks Will Reverberate for 'Decades' The agency’s planned repeal of a cornerstone of US climate rules is part of an aggressive deregulatory agenda whose effects on the environment will outlast the president.

Trump is shrinking the EPA more quickly & aggressively than ever before, culminating in this week's move to rescind the crucial "endangerment finding" underpinning key regulations of planet-warming pollution.

Here's what it all means (a gift link @bloomberg.com): www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

According to the New York Fed, mortgage delinquency rates haven risen to the highest levels in a decade. The rise is steepest among lower-income groups.

In the bottom income quartile of mortgage holders, fully 3% are late on mortgage payments.

libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/wher...

National Lab of the Rockies, formerly NREL, lays off more than 130 employees The cuts impacted staffers engaged in both research and operations at the lab.

NEW: There's been another round of layoffs at the lab formerly known as NREL.

Weeks after scrubbing “renewable energy” from its name, the National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden has cut 134 staffers.

www.cpr.org/2026/02/09/n...

Some nice views of wind turbine assembly and loading at the Port of New London, CT from Amtrak window seat.

According to the New London Port Authority, this terminal supports offshore wind projects that will produce 1,760 MW of power or enough to power 1+ million homes.

statepiernewlondon.com

power transformers mentioned in halftime show ⚡️

Elevated houses on a stormy coast, with the large text "postdoc, coastal adaptation governance, first review Feb 1".

🌊📊 #Postdoc opening: Coastal Adaptation Governance

Research + practitioner partnerships. Interdisciplinary. Decisions, policies, ethics. First review Feb 1

careers.udel.edu/cw/en-us/job...

#adaptation #resilience #academicjobs

Nice to see a clear bike lane next to the frozen Charles River. 25°F is still fine bike commuting weather, as long as you’re wearing the right clothes.

Kudos to @boston.gov Department of Public Works for clearing!

Affordable Housing Requires Tackling Insurance Costs Buying a house is expensive enough these days. But the costs of owning one have been rising, too — not least because of soaring insurance premiums. As policymakers of both parties have made housing af...

Average homeowners insurance premiums rose almost 25% from 2019 to 2024 in real terms. Such costs have contributed to a slump in the condo market, with prices at a decade low. @bloomberg.com @stevekoller.bsky.social

shorturl.at/Gvss9

Homeowners insurance has understandably been a focus in discussions about rising property insurance costs.

This new report from Enterprise Community Partners highlights distinct insurance challenges and risk management strategies in the multifamily context.

enterprisecommunity.org/learning-cen...

fuels for heating, in a small way this decarbonization measure is a form of adaptation that will address the campus's future storm risks by mitigating future warming and sea level rise. (3/3)

www.nyc.gov/site/nycha/a...

occupant comfort, and ease of installation...".

The Beach 41st St. Houses suffered tens of millions dollars' worth of damages during Superstorm Sandy. So, this announced investment will not only reduce NYCHA residents' reliance on GHG-intensive... (2/3)

www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Proj...

This is an exciting win-win investment poised to deliver on both affordability and climate objectives for NYCHA residents.

NYSERDA's report on the Clean Heat for All pilot shows promising results for scalability, concluding heat pumps "showed strong performance in terms of energy savings...

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Arnold Ventures | Maximize Opportunity. Minimize Injustice. Viewing philanthropy as an engine of innovation, we rigorously research problems and answers in criminal justice, health, education and public finance.

Come join my team! I'm hiring a Housing Director to support implementation of pro-housing policies by state & local govts (zoning reform, streamlined development process). Looking for someone with substantial local/state govt experience in housing & land use. www.arnoldventures.org/careers/dire...