WASHINGTON – Federal officials, showing how quickly the Biden government is revamping climate policy after years of denial under former President Donald J. Trump, aim to release as much as $ 10 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to protect against climate disasters before they strike. .
The agency, which is best known for responding to hurricanes, floods and wildfires, wants to spend the money to prevent damaging damage by building seawalls, raising or relocating flood-prone homes and taking other steps as climate change storms and other natural disasters intensify. .
“It will dwarf all previous awards programs of its kind,” said Daniel Kaniewski, a former deputy administrator of FEMA and now a managing director of Marsh & McLennan Companies, a consulting firm.
According to the FEMA plan, a budget maneuver is being used to reallocate part of the agency’s overall disaster spending to projects designed to protect against damage from climate disasters, according to people familiar with discussions within the agency.
In recent years, FEMA has played a leading role in the fight against Covid-19 – and the agency’s plan is to count on Covid spending on the formula used to divert money to climate projects. In doing so, the Biden government will be able to increase climate stability quickly and drastically without action by Congress, which will generate a windfall that could increase funding more than sixfold.
Michael M. Grimm, FEMA’s acting deputy administrator for disaster mitigation, said the agency’s initial estimates suggest that as much as $ 3.7 billion would be available for the program, called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC. By comparison, that program has so far raised only $ 500 million to award grants.
Grimm said in a statement that more of the $ 3.7 billion was “ahead”.
But some estimates suggest the amount of new money could rise to as much as $ 10 billion if FEMA also decides to raise Covid dollars for a similar fund, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, designed to help communities move to a disaster to rebuild. Mr. Grimm said the decision to provide funding has not yet been made.
According to people familiar with the plan, the proposal will not necessarily reduce the money available for tackling Covid. On the contrary, it would give FEMA the ability to withdraw additional resilience money from the government’s dedicated disaster fund, which Congress regularly replenishes once the fund is withdrawn.
FEMA’s plan must be approved by the White House budget office. After the victory of mr. Biden, members of his transition team said they see the new funding as a way for the incoming government to fulfill its promise to address climate change.
A White House spokesman, Vedant Patel, did not respond to a request for comment.
The proposal is an attempt by the Biden government to address what experts call climate adaptation – an area of climate policy that differs from reducing greenhouse gas emissions and focuses on better protecting people, homes and communities from the effects of ‘. a warming planet. These include frequent and severe storms, floods and wildfires, as well as rising seas.
The United States has a mixed record at the front.
In many coastal states, home construction is increasing the fastest in the most flood-prone areas, including places that may soon be under water. And despite strong public support for stricter building codes in high-risk areas, only one-third of local jurisdictions have adopted disaster-resistant provisions in their building codes.
Faced with the rapidly rising disaster costs, the Trump administration has taken some steps to make communities more resilient to the effects of climate change, even if they would not use the term. FEMA and other agencies have increased their focus on getting people out of vulnerable areas, rather than always paying them to rebuild. And the agency called on Congress to draft the BRIC program to help cities and states increase their preparedness before a disaster, rather than afterwards.
But federal officials have also been hampered by Trump’s insistence that climate change be exceeded.
In 2018, when FEMA released its four-year strategic plan for disaster management, the words “climate change” were nowhere to be found. Trump said the problem has been facing too many leaves on the forest floor, year after year of wildfires in California. Trump said rising temperatures were exacerbating the problem, to which he replied: ‘It will start to get cooler. You just look – you just look. ‘
As a candidate, Mr. Biden promises to focus on climate adaptation. And on his first day as president, he signed an order imposing higher construction standards for buildings or infrastructure in floodplains built with federal money. The order, first introduced by President Barack Obama, was passed by Mr. Trump recalled.
The step of mr. Biden received praise from disaster groups. “This action restores a future-oriented policy that will help ensure taxpayers are not washed away by the next flood,” said Forbes Tompkins, who works with the Pew Charitable Trusts, an advocacy group, on federal flood policy. .
But sending billions of dollars of new money to FEMA’s disaster programs would go beyond simply reinstating the Obama-era adjustment policies. The BRIC program was created in the wake of the cruel disaster season of 2017, when the United States was quickly hit in a row by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as wildfires in California that were then the worst on record. Federal disaster spending soared.
A few months later, federal investigators reported that he spent every $ 1 later on every $ 1 to protect a community from disaster. In 2018, Congress drafted the program to take advantage of the savings by providing more money in advance. The first awards would be presented this year.
If Biden’s White House approves the plan, he could find allies in Congress, even among Republicans.
The use of Covid funds to raise the money has received dual support in Congress in the past. In October, Representative Peter A. DeFazio, the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Transport and Infrastructure, which has jurisdiction over FEMA, sent a letter to the agency asking him to use the Covid money.
The letter was co-signed by Representative Sam Graves, the top Republican on the committee. However, according to former officials, FEMA could not get permission from the Trump administration’s budget office.
According to people familiar with the program, it will present new challenges. State and local governments have to provide 25 percent of the cost of any projects, a particularly important hurdle because the economic downturn in Covid has ruined the government’s budgets. And the officials have to plan projects on a large enough scale to make use of the new funds.
Still, the extra funding is worth striving for, Mr. Kaniewski, the former FEMA official, said. “The more mitigation dollars, the better,” he said. “It’s about as good of a taxpayer as you can find.”