The Trump administration has failed to apply building standards to protect federally funded infrastructure projects from future flood risk, more than a year after pledging it would do so.
The lack of action adds to the damages from disasters such as Hurricane Florence by enabling federal taxpayer money to support rebuilding efforts that don’t have to account for withstanding increasingly intense storms, heavier rain, and more frequent flooding.
“We have federal investments happening right now that are at much higher risk of flooding and subsequently wasting taxpayer money because we are building at-risk buildings,” Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, a national nonprofit group dedicated to reducing losses from flood events, told the Washington Examiner.
“Unfortunately, flooding is a phenomenon we are seeing more and more, affecting more and more folks in the country.”
President Trump issued an executive order last August — just days before Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas — revoking an Obama-era federal flood standard requiring federally funded infrastructure such as highways, schools, and wastewater treatment plants that are damaged by floods to be rebuilt to a higher elevation.
The move was part of the Trump administration’s push to speed a massive rebuilding of America’s infrastructure by removing barriers that could get in the way.
But weeks after Hurricane Harvey, Trump administration officials seemed to express regret.
White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, who has since resigned, indicated at a Sept. 8, 2017 press briefing that the Trump administration was considering replacing the 2015 standard with a new one that imposes similar requirements to “build back smarter and stronger.”
The Washington Examiner has learned the Trump administration has not replaced the standard. And stakeholders say the federal government does not appear to be prioritizing the issue.
“It does not appear to be a priority,” Ray Lehmann, director of finance, insurance, and trade policy at the R Street Institute, a free market think tank, told the Washington Examiner. “The current status is it isn’t really anywhere at the moment.”
That is even true as the cost of rebuilding from storms is rising. The trio of Hurricanes Harvey, Maria, and Irma in 2017 combined to cost $268 billion, according to Moody’s, making it the most expensive year in 38 years. Florence, which hit the Carolinas last month, could cost another $38 billion to $50 in damages, Moody’s said.
“It’s even more obvious today that it was a major mistake to repeal the Obama-era executive order,” Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., the chairman of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “This was not just smart environmental policy. It is smart fiscal policy.”
President Barack Obama’s Flood Risk Management Standard required infrastructure projects that receive federal funds to be built 2 or 3 feet above the 100-year floodplain, or to use best available science, depending on how critical the project was. More urgent projects, such as rebuilding a federally-funded hospital, police station, or nursing home, would be built to the higher 3 feet level. Infrastructure built in a 100-year floodplain has a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year.
The order also urged federal government agencies to avoid supporting development in any floodplain area when there is a “practicable alternative,” but it did not require that.
In addition, the standard specifically projected that damages from flood events would become worse in the future because of climate change, an attribution that likely discouraged Trump from keeping the rule in place.
“The purpose of the order was to safeguard federal taxpayer dollars,” said Alice Hill, who oversaw the development of the policy for Obama’s National Security Council, and is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution.
“It’s fiscal conservatism really. It’s a prudent thing to do. What may have been unusual with this order is it mentioned climate change as worsening the risk,” Hill told the Washington Examiner.
The Obama administration allowed the relevant federal agencies to write rules to implement the flood standard. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had begun the rulemaking process, proposing to require infrastructure projects funded by the agencies to be elevated.
However, spokespeople for those agencies confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the rules were never finalized because work stopped after Trump revoked Obama’s executive order.
“The proposed rule was never implemented,” said Brian Sullivan, a HUD spokesman, adding it was not considering a new rule absent an executive order from the Trump administration.
A FEMA spokeswoman said it had no ongoing rulemaking relevant to Obama’s flood standard, but the agency “remains committed to improving the nation’s preparedness and resilience against all hazards and will continue to encourage local communities to take actions that limit or reduce the impact of hazards.”
An administration official insisted the federal government is currently deliberating over replacing the Obama flood standard, an effort being coordinated by the National Security Council.
But supporters of the Obama standard say the Trump administration doesn’t appear to be leading, and that could discourage states and localities that have their own building policies from fulfilling them.
“In the absence of a federal flood standard, there is no push to get it done, and that is leaving it to happenstance, really,” Hill said. “Leadership matters.”
State and local governments have picked up some slack, according to Berginnis.
The Association of State Floodplain Managers conducted a data analysis that found 22 states, as of February 2015, had adopted policies forcing developers to build at least 1 foot above the 100-year floodplain.
Almost 62 percent of the U.S. population lives in a state or community with such a flood standard, the analysis found.
“The majority of Americans live in a community that now has a standard better than the federal government,” Berginnis said.
However, if the federal government contributes funding to construction in states or communities that have flood standards, the local rules don’t have to be followed, with the exception of certain grant-funded projects, Berginnis said.
Congress has also taken action to compensate for Trump not replacing the federal flood standard.
Lawmakers wrote language into the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act recently signed by Trump that requires the Pentagon to disclose when it wants to build a military installation in a 100-year floodplain, and to create a risk management plan when it does so.
If the military determines it has to build in a flood-prone area, it must constructed to an elevated level.
In addition, Curbelo said he is pushing for Congress to pass a bill he co-wrote with Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., that would reinstate the Obama flood standard, and codify it into law.
Curbelo hopes to attach the bill to Hurricane Florence disaster relief legislation that will likely be considered during the lame duck session of Congress.
But analysts say Trump’s buy-in is crucial, and they still hope to convince him that accounting for future flood risk is smart policy, regardless of what causes worsening weather events.
“If you are providing incentives to build in places that are risky, that is something anybody committed to the free market has to be concerned about,” Lehmann said.
