Republicans in Congress are trying to save an Obama administration program threatened by the coronavirus pandemic designed to protect against climate-related natural disasters and extreme weather events.
More than a half-dozen GOP lawmakers told the Washington Examiner they support giving states and towns more time to spend money awarded to them through the program, the National Disaster Resilience Competition, which was created in 2014 after Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast.
The support of congressional Republicans for the program is noteworthy because it backs up their stated interest in addressing climate change, which many Democrats have questioned.
“Climate resiliency is good for our communities and good for our economies,” said Nathaniel Sizemore, a spokesman for Rep. Tom Reed of New York. “This is something we would be happy to support because it logically makes sense.”
Last week, state officials told lawmakers that the coronavirus will prevent them from meeting a congressionally imposed deadline to use money from the program to build projects that provide defense from floods and wildfires.
The Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development distributed the money in 2016 to projects in 13 states and cities or counties, including for building an underground flood wall in Connecticut, raising roads in Norfolk, Virginia, and relocating residents of a coastal village in Louisiana, Isle de Jean Charles, that has lost 98% of its land due to sea level rise in the Gulf of Mexico.
The money had to be spent by September 2022, but officials representing all 13 grant recipients sent letters to their congressional representatives as a group requesting them to extend the deadline by three years.
Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, the top Republican of the House’s special select climate change committee, told the Washington Examiner the program was a “fantastic idea to inspire innovation in community resilience.”
He said he’s skeptical about delays in implementing the projects, blaming “bureaucratic regulatory red tape” more than the coronavirus. But he would support new legislation to allow states and communities more time to finish work.
“If we are going to adapt our communities and natural resources to the threats they currently and soon will face, we must have a project development and delivery process that reflects the urgency,” Graves said. “We will support the extension with appropriate reforms to allow dirt to turn, the projects to get built and stop wasting money and time.”
Cole Avery, a press secretary for Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, said his boss also supports an extension.
Pat Forbes, executive director of Louisiana’s Office of Community Development, which is running the Isle de Jean Charles project, said it is expecting to finish construction ahead of the 2022 deadline on new homes for residents in a settlement further inland, called The New Isle.
But he said climate resilience projects are complex, untested, and time-consuming. Contractors have struggled to keep up construction during the coronavirus as workers worry about exposure.
“By definition, the competition projects are complex and large and innovative, so you are dealing with things that are game changers in most cases for things people have never done,” Forbes told the Washington Examiner. “The coronavirus and all the unknowns it carries just pile onto that.”
Just Monday, Forbes said, residents of Isle de Jean Charles were forced to evacuate because of Tropical Storm Cristobal.
“It’s a tough existence where they live on the coast,” Forbes said. “They love the place they grew up and where their parents grew up, but it’s becoming more and more untenable.”
Addressing problems like this fits squarely into a climate change agenda unveiled this year by House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and top lawmakers on energy-related committees that promotes investing in clean energy technology to reduce emissions, along with “adaptation and preparation” measures to guard against sea level rise and extreme weather.
“The state and local projects that rely on funding from HUD’s Natural Disaster Resilience Competition aim to protect communities from natural disasters and combat climate change,” an aide to the Energy and Commerce Committee’s top Republican, Rep. Greg Walden, told the Washington Examiner. “As COVID-19 continues to impact every American, adjustments to previously scheduled deadlines should be made when possible.”
Republican supporters of addressing adaptation or “resilience” to climate change describe it as a component of fiscal discipline.
The National Institute of Building Sciences has estimated that every $1 invested in building mitigation saves $6, on average, in disaster costs.
“This is a program Republicans absolutely should go to bat for because it’s a step toward realigning resources toward investing in mitigation to avoid disasters, rather than paying to fix the damage they leave behind,” said Ray Lehmann, director of finance, insurance, and trade policy at the R Street Institute, a free market think tank.
The Trump administration is less interested in addressing climate change and its effects.
For example, in August 2017, President Trump revoked Obama-era building standards to protect federally funded infrastructure projects from future flood risk. The Trump administration promised to replace the rules but has not done so.
But even red-state Republicans in the Midwest are growing concerned about the risks of climate change as its effects occur not just in coastal areas. Some of the projects funded by HUD’s competitive grant program are in states like Iowa, North Dakota, and Tennessee, which have experienced record flooding in recent years.
“We will see different communities affected in different ways, but everyone will want assistance from the federal government to help prepare and reduce these impacts,” said Alice Hill, who was senior director for resilience policy on the Obama administration’s National Security Council.
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa suggested Congress should act because the pandemic has caused “significant disruptions, jeopardizing the ability of grant recipients to meet the deadlines for various federal programs.”
“Congress needs to take this into account and make sure these programs continue to function as intended,” Ernst told the Washington Examiner.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican from Tennessee, also supports an extension for the deadline by which states can use funding for HUD’s disaster resilience competition, according to his spokesman Justine Sanders.
Evan Hollander, a spokesman for Democrats of the House Appropriations Committee, told the Washington Examiner that his panel would take the lead on addressing the issue in a future supplemental bill related to disaster relief.
“We would obviously seek bipartisan support as we developed one if and when the need arises,” Hollander said.
