  Milky-Way and intergalactic dust extinction and reddening must be accounted
for in measurements of distances throughout the universe. This work provides a
comprehensive review of the various impacts of cosmic dust focusing
specifically on its effects on two key distance indicators used in the distance
ladder: Cepheid variable stars and Type Ia supernovae. We review the formalism
used for computing and accounting for dust extinction and reddening as a
function of wavelength. We also detail the current state of the art knowledge
of dust properties in the Milky Way and in host galaxies. We discuss how dust
has been accounted for in both the Cepheid and SN distance measurements.
Finally, we show how current uncertainties on dust modeling impact the inferred
luminosities and distances, but that measurements of the Hubble constant remain
robust to these uncertainties.
