Edison Electric Institute Issues Public Comment on FEMA Notice

WASHINGTON, May 16 -- Robert T. Stroh, associate general counsel for reliability and security at the Edison Electric Institute, has issued a public comment on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's notice entitled "Hazard Mitigation Assistance: Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities". The comment was written on May 11, 2020, and posted on May 13, 2020:

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The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) submits these comments in response to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) April 10, 2020, Notice of Request for Comments in connection with its proposed Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Policy./1

The BRIC Policy can offer valuable support for strengthening the resilience of the electric grid and all of the community lifelines that depend on electricity to function. The comments below are intended to help FEMA, through the BRIC program, provide that value and achieve FEMA's other stated goals.

Background

On October 5, 2018, the President signed into law the Disaster Recovery Reform Act (DRRA). The DRRA contains approximately 50 provisions that acknowledge the shared responsibility for disaster response and recovery, aim to reduce the complexity of FEMA and build the nation's capacity to respond to the next catastrophic event. FEMA's proposed BRIC Policy addresses Section 1234 of the DRRA, titled "National Public Infrastructure Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation," which amended section 203 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and authorizes FEMA to set aside six percent of estimated disaster expenses for each major disaster to fund BRIC programs. FEMA states that BRIC programs will supersede the existing FEMA PreDisaster Mitigation program and will promote a national culture of preparedness through encouraging investments to protect our communities and infrastructure and strengthening national mitigation capabilities to foster resilience. FEMA lists the following principles to guide the BRIC Policy:

* Support communities through capability and capacity building

* Encourage and enable innovation

* Promote partnerships

* Enable large projects

* Maintain flexibility

* Provide consistency

Comments

Electric infrastructure is essential to our national security and prosperity, and maintaining a resilient infrastructure is an important component of reliable electric service. Mitigating loss of electric service means building electric systems to mitigate outages, and EEI members seek to build their electric systems to reduce customer outages. The BRIC program could be useful in aiding investment in electric infrastructure resilience efforts, which in turn benefits those communities that rely on the infrastructure. FEMA proposes (at lines 15, 135-36) to award financial assistance for certain "mitigation projects" that are intended to increase resilience and public safety, including damage to critical services and facilities. EEI suggests that FEMA include a reference to national security and national defense as key elements of these mitigation projects. EEI members are dedicated not only to providing resilient power to hospitals, water systems and other critical services and facilities, but also to vital military bases and other national security-related facilities. The National Response Framework (NRF) emphases the need to "help maintain essential services for critical national security installations."/2

Consistent with the NRF, resilience projects that help ensure the flow of power to such installations should be eligible for funding under BRIC. Thus, EEI suggests a change to line 15 (and conforming change to lines 135-136) to include "installations essential for national security and national defense." The NRF also notes that "potential adversaries are developing advanced weapons and capabilities that could threaten U.S. critical infrastructure," and emphasizes the need to "strengthen Nation's ability to withstand and recover rapidly from attacks and natural disasters."/3

EEI suggests that the BRIC Policy reflect this all hazards approach and expand (on line 44) the reference to hazards to include manmade hazards.

In the proposed BRIC Policy, FEMA acknowledges (at line 87) the need for public-private partnerships to support resilient electric infrastructure investment through the BRIC policies. EEI members own significant electric infrastructure and would welcome the opportunity to work with state and local governments to determine whether mitigation projects might benefit from these partnerships. That said, EEI suggests that FEMA consider revising the principles to include (at line 43) clarifying language to promote such partnerships. EEI members frequently establish public-private partnerships to execute projects to strengthen resilient electric service, including with the public sector entities eligible for funding under the proposed BRIC Policy. For example, Arizona Public Service Company built a microgrid at USMC Air Station Yuma that provides the base power during outages and provides the overall community with added grid resiliency. Hawaiian Electric built a 50 MW power plant with blackstart capabilities at the Army Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu. This plant serves a dual purpose - for Hawaiian Electric it secures generation on higher land away from potential flooding and for the Army it provides more resiliency to accomplish its national security-related mission. Public-private partnerships like these could be an essential element to achieve the purposes and priorities of the BRIC Policy. EEI proposes that the BRIC Policy be revised to indicate that partnerships include public-private partnerships with private sector companies, public power utilities, and rural cooperatives. EEI also requests that FEMA clarify whether private entities can participate in these partnerships if the private entities are not otherwise eligible for FEMA assistance.

Conclusion

EEI applauds FEMA's development of the BRIC Policy and suggests that FEMA revised the policy as described above to support energy projects for building a resilient grid.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert T. Stroh

Associate General Counsel, Reliability & Security

Edison Electric Institute

Washington, D.C. 20004

[email protected]

(202) 508-5000

May 11, 2020

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Footnotes:

1/ Hazard Mitigation Assistance: Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, Notice of Request for Comments, 85 Fed. Reg. 20,291 (Apr. 10, 2020).

2/ National Response Framework, Fourth Edition (Oct. 2019), p. 1, https://www.fema.gov/media-librarydata/15828255901942f000855d442fc3c9f18547d1468990d/NRF_FINALApproved_508_2011028v1040.pdf

3/ National Response Framework, pp. ii and 3

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The notice can be viewed at: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FEMA-2019-0018-0001

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