Florida Emergency Management Division Issues Public Comment on FEMA Proposed Rule

WASHINGTON, April 14 -- Jared Moskowitz, director of the Florida Emergency Management Division, Orlando, has issued a public comment on the Federal Emergency Management Agency proposed rule entitled "Cost of Assistance Estimates in the Disaster Declaration Process for the Public Assistance Program". The comment was written on April 12, 2021, and posted on April 13, 2021:

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The State of Florida appreciates the opportunity to continue to provide comments regarding FEMA's proposed rule change, regarding the estimated cost of assistance, which raises the per capita indicator and minimum threshold. These comments are in addition to the comments provided by the State of Florida on March 10, 2021 and are related to how this rule change may impact successful implementation of future hazard mitigation and resiliency.

Florida has a successful mitigation program in large part due to the opportunities afforded by the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). Florida's mitigation successes have demonstrably reduced risk and saved taxpayers' dollars. The state's commitment to ongoing mitigation efforts is evidenced through continued State Hazard Mitigation Plan enhanced status, a unique HMGP administrative process outlined in the Florida Administrative Code 27P-22, and participation in FEMA's Program Administration by States (PAS) for the HMGP. While FEMA's proposed rule change may not affect these elements directly, unintended consequences to the State's ongoing mitigation efforts and reduction in public confidence in mitigation financial support may result.

A hard truth of the HMGP is that its funding is contingent on Presidential Disaster Declarations and often is a community's sole hope of leveraging limited funds to achieve necessary future risk reduction. By raising the per capita indicator and minimum threshold amount, it may reduce the number of Presidential Disaster Declarations Florida would qualify for, and thus reduce HMGP availability for communities. If the proposed rule change is intended as a cost-saving measure, the effect of this change achieves the opposite in practice by removing the single, most effective and long-term option available to communities to reduce disaster costs through their investment in mitigation via the HMGP. The Florida record of HMGP administration demonstrates a strong and consistent return on investment.

Additionally, if thresholds are increased to qualify for federal assistance, this ultimately removes some incentives for States and communities to effectively and regularly engage in mitigation. Currently, the goal of mitigation is to reduce or eliminate the risk of loss or damage caused by natural hazards. Much of this is achieved through ongoing HMGP efforts and other mitigation grant programs with performance of these activities documented through Loss Avoidance Studies. We recognize that this information is not lost in the final determination of providing federal assistance, as outlined in 44 CFR

206.48(a)(4). However, the application of this citation is significantly qualitative in nature and therefore may not be fully reflect an investment worthy incentive to offset the potential reduction in future declarations. For example, the presence and implementation of a Statewide Building Code is cited although no reliable quantitative measure is established to provide credit for this mitigation activity that clearly and substantially reduces disaster related costs thereby undermining the intent of incentivization.

With a reduction in HMGP funding resulting from a rule change, the potency of HMGP funded avoided losses will diminish as less funding is available for additional mitigation efforts. The remaining disaster threshold will then need to be met using direct damages and may outpace mitigation efforts, depending on the severity of the proposed increase. We strive along with our FEMA counterparts to reward communities for their forward-thinking investments in mitigation and would be doing them, and ourselves, a disservice by undercutting their effort with an additional burden to meet before they can have access to more mitigation funding.

Finally, FEMA's latest program, Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) was created as a new and innovative way to fund mitigation and resiliency projects across the nation through a 6% set aside from each major declared disaster. By increasing thresholds now, FEMA may declare fewer disasters, which would lead to less money going to fund the BRIC program each year. We know that FEMA puts great effort into promoting and soliciting buy-in for their mitigation grant programs, BRIC being the latest, as it picks up where the Pre-Disaster Mitigation program left off with a renewed purpose. We believe it is worth considering the down-stream effects that these proposed changes would have on future mitigation efforts, particularly on a program that has only just been established.

We offer these concerns as a state fully invested in mitigating our communities against natural disasters with all the available resources afforded to us. FEMA's mitigation grant programs allow Florida and other states the opportunity to make the best of the worst situations following a natural disaster by ensuring that communities don't repeatedly sustain similar losses. These programs offer many hard-hit communities a way out of a never-ending cycle that they would not have been able to achieve without adequate mitigation funding assistance. Our hope is that you consider the cascading impacts of this proposed rule change and avoid the unintended consequence of disinvesting in mitigation programs and disincentivizing mitigation practitioners that offer real long-term relief for communities following a natural disaster.

Sincerely,

Jared Moskowitz

Director, FDEM

Governor's Authorized Representative

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The proposed rule can be viewed at: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FEMA-2020-0038-0001

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