National Audubon Society Issues Public Comment on FEMA Notice

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 -- Jessica Grannis, interim vice president of coastal conservation at the National Audubon Society, New York, has issued a public comment on the Federal Emergency Management Agency notice entitled "Request for Information on FEMA Programs, Regulations, and Policies". The comment was written on July 21, 2021, and posted on July 22, 2021:

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On behalf of the National Audubon Society and our more than 1.8 million members, we are submitting the following comments responding to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Request for Information on programs, regulations, policies and changes that could be made to help FEMA meet goals related to advancing equity for all. These comments are being submitted electronically via Docket ID: FEMA-2021-0011.

The National Audubon Society is a bipartisan conservation organization with 23 state and regional programs, 41 centers, more than 450 local chapters, and more than 1.8 million members. We work with communities around the country to advance natural infrastructure and climate resilience projects that address increasing risks of natural hazards to people and wildlife. And we've seen firsthand the difficulties that lower-wealth, underserved, and marginalized communities face in accessing FEMA and other federal funding programs. For example, Audubon recently co-designed and collaborated on a training related to FEMA's Building Resilient Communities and Infrastructure (BRIC) program with underserved rural communities in the Mississippi Delta. Audubon California has also been working with a community based organization, Shore Up Marin City, to co-design a wetland restoration projects to reduce flood risks to a lower income community of color in the otherwise affluent Marin County. These comments are informed by our work with these communities that are on the frontlines and already experiencing the devastating impacts of a changing climate, but that are too often underserved by federal programs.

As natural disasters are getting stronger and more frequent, FEMA's role is more important than ever. FEMA supports efforts to help communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters as well as efforts to reduce risks before disasters strike. We know that climate change is already increasing risks of natural disasters in communities around the country. Rising sea levels, more severe storms, heavier rainfall events, and more extreme heat, drought and wildfires are all affecting people, property and wildlife from coast to coast. More than 41 million Americans face rising flood risks and $1 trillion worth of properties are threatened by sea-level rise alone.

We also know some communities are being disproportionately affected by the increasing severity and frequency of natural disasters. Lower-income communities, tribal communities, and communities of color are being "hit first and worst" by increasing impacts from natural disasters and have the fewest resources to be able to withstand and rebound from disaster events. Discriminatory housing and land-use policies, like redlining, have increased the risks of natural hazards in communities of color leaving people in flood-prone areas and near polluting facilities and without the needed funding to upgrade infrastructure and reduce risks.

Recent disaster events have displayed the dramatic disparities in how communities are affected by natural disasters and in recovery outcomes. During Hurricane Katrina, of the seven zip codes that experienced the greatest damage, four of them had populations that were at least 75 percent Black/1 and nearly 80 percent of flooded neighborhoods were communities of color./2

Lack of financial resources and transportation affected the ability of residents to evacuate during Hurricane Katrina and, as a result, Black residents died at up to 4 times the rate of White residents./3

In Bay County on the Florida panhandle, Hurricane Michael damaged nearly three-quarters of the County's rental housing, causing severe housing shortages and an increase in homelessness./4

Additionally, proximity to polluting facilities greatly exacerbates the risks from and public health consequence of natural disasters, but this is not a factor that FEMA considers in allocating its financial resources. For example, in 2020, Hurricane Laura exacerbated environmental justice challenges in Southwest Louisiana as the storm caused a fire at a chlorine plant in the lower-income, predominantly African American community of Mossville, which led to the release of pollutants and displacement of residents in this region already overburdened by pollution because of the prevalence of the oil, gas, and chemical industries./5

Similarly, Hurricane Harvey damaged oil refineries and chemical plants in communities around Houston, Texas, causing widespread release of pollutants in lower-income communities of color that were also facing significant flooding./6

Environmental justice communities need to be prioritized in how FEMA in allocating scarce financial resources and exposure and proximity to pollution and polluting facilities need to be part of the criteria that FEMA considers when it is allocating resources to mitigate future risks from natural hazards.

Unfortunately, it has been well documented that underserved communities face the greatest barriers in accessing FEMA programs. Studies of recent hurricane recovery efforts have shown inequities in disaster assistance to lower income, communities of color, which have a more difficult time accessing aid, see lower appraisals for their homes resulting in lower disaster aid payments, and have their claims denied at much higher rates./7

These disparities have long-term consequences, as communities of color often never fully rebound after experiencing impacts from extreme weather events. Research has shown that while Black and Hispanic households lose approximately $28,000 on average after experiencing impacts from a disaster event, White households gain an average of $126,000./8

These disparities must be central part of FEMA's efforts to reform its programs and advance equity in its work.

To that end, Audubon offers the following suggestions for actions that FEMA can pursue to advance equity particularly in its funding programs that support both disaster recovery as well as hazard mitigation in communities.

(1) Work with Congress to ensure that more socially vulnerable communities are eligible for lowered non-federal match of 10%.

One of the main barriers that lower income and rural communities identify to accessing FEMA grant programs is finding the required 25% non-federal matching funds. Although the Stafford Act allows for FEMA to provide a lower non-federal match of 10% for "small impoverished communities" (defined at 42 U.S.C Sec. 5133(a) as "a community of 3,000 or fewer individuals that is economically disadvantaged..."), this definition is so limited that very few communities qualify for this lowered match. This definition also precludes FEMA from providing higher federal cost share for impoverished urban communities that have significant socioeconomic vulnerability to disaster events and that have limited financial resources to enable them to access the funding needed to reduce their risks. As we know, investments in hazard mitigation help to reduce future disaster costs offering a $6 return in terms of disaster costs avoided for every $1 investment. It makes sound financial sense for Congress and FEMA to expand the number of communities that can access critical funding needed to reduce future threats to growing disaster risks and to address the needs of the most at-risk communities. By doing so, Congress can ensure we are directing resources to the communities with the greatest need and reducing disaster recovery and flood insurance costs to the federal government.

In a training Audubon recently hosted with lower wealth, communities of color in the Mississippi Delta, the single biggest barrier the communities identified was finding non-federal matching funds that could be used to access FEMA grant programs. Even the smaller municipalities that would technically qualify under the Stafford Act's definition of "small and impoverished" did not have the capacity at the municipal level to develop an application that could comply with all of FEMA's application requirements. As a result, these smaller municipalities were looking to county and regional partners to help them develop a grant application and potentially precluding them from accessing the lowered 10% match.

FEMA should work with Congress to expand the definition of communities that are eligible to receive lowered match requirements to include both "small and impoverish communities". This will enable FEMA to offer grants to larger economically disadvantaged communities that also lack the financial resources needed to bring matching funds to projects that will reduce disaster risk. This would also enable FEMA to address well documented racial disparities in its grant making and the legacy of discriminatory housing and land-use policies, like redlining, that have left communities of color in areas of greater risk to flooding, urban heat and other hazards.

FEMA should also encourage Congress to permanent authorize the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). As you know, the CDBG-DR program provides vital support to lower income communities to drive more complete community-wide disaster recovery and more recently efforts to mitigate future risks to natural disasters. This funding is often coupled with FEMA funding because CDBG-DR is the only federal funding sources that can be used as non-federal matching funds for under-resourced communities that would otherwise be unable to access other federal disaster-aid programs. However, there is no permanently authorized disaster recovery program in HUD's enabling legislation - the Housing and Community Development Act. As a result, HUD has to issue new Federal Register notices on an ad hoc basis every time it is appropriated funds for disaster recovery. This delays getting the funds out the door and limits the ability of state and local governments to align this funding with disaster aid from other federal agencies, such FEMA and the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA). Permanently authorizing the CDBG-DR program will provide much-needed funding to help communities on the frontlines of climate impacts make important investments to reduce increasing threats from sea-level rise and extreme weather.

FEMA should also work to better align and coordinate planning requirements and administration other funding programs, like HUD's CDBG-DR and CDBG programs. This will help ensure that low- and moderate income communities can leverage HUD funding as match to bring other federal resources, like FEMA funding, to support important risk-reduction projects that would be otherwise out of reach. FEMA could also take other important steps to better align and coordinate FEMA and HUD funding programs, including by providing guidance to state and local governments to encourage consideration of LMI and CDBG-entitlement communities in FEMA hazard mitigation plans and alignment and coordination between FEMA-required hazard mitigation plans with HUD-required actions plans and consolidated plans, similar to how FEMA enabled coordinated planning with the Economic Development Administration (EDA).

(2) Offer more grants as advance payment rather than requiring payments as reimbursement, where feasible.

In addition to challenges finding non-federal matching funds, less well-resourced communities often also struggle to access federal funding that is offered on a reimbursement basis because they often don't have the financial resources to the front the costs of doing the work. To enable more communities to access FEMA grants, FEMA should consider opportunities to offer advance payment grants rather than reimbursable grants, where feasible and needed to ensure equity in the administration of its programs. If advance payment grants are not legally possible, FEMA should seek authorization from Congress to enable these types of grants to meet the needs of lower wealth communities. This will help ensure that most at-risk communities have access to the critical funding they need to implement risk-reduction projects.

(3) Change grant-making criteria to prioritize projects that benefit disadvantaged communities that face disproportionate risks from natural disasters as a result of socioeconomic factors.

FEMA should also update its grant-making criteria and point system to prioritize applications that address risks in the most socially vulnerable communities. In its FY20 BRIC application criteria, FEMA included one technical criterion related to socioeconomic vulnerability. Technical Criterion 8 awarded applicants 5 additional points for projects that benefitted a "small impoverished community." However, as described above the definition of "small impoverished community" is extremely limited and raises racial disparities by failing to acknowledge or reward projects that address the disproportionate risks faced by lower wealth, communities of color in more urban areas.

FEMA is not statutorily required to limit its technical criteria to "small impoverished communities" (as it is with matching funds) and could address racial and socioeconomic disparities by expanding Technical Criterion 8 to award points to projects that address risks in the most economically disadvantaged and vulnerable areas. For example, FEMA could award points based upon demonstrated benefits to underserved communities using tools like the National Risk Index, Social Vulnerability Index, or EJSCREEN, which would help FEMA prioritize projects in areas with the greatest socioeconomic vulnerability and that face environmental justice and pollution challenges that greatly exacerbate risks from natural disasters. FEMA could also look to HUD definitions of low-and moderate income communities prioritized under its programs; this would both direct resources to the communities with the greatest economic need while also helping FEMA better align funding with complementary HUD programs.

FEMA should also address the imbalance created by other technical criteria that weigh in favor of higher wealth states and communities that have greater staff capacity and more financial resources. For example, FEMA's technical criteria award points for communities that bring additional cost share to the table (5 points), have adopted building codes (35 points) and where an application is generated by a previous Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant (10 points). Although we understand the desire to incentivize better building codes and to advance projects where FEMA has funded early stages of design and feasibility analysis, these points reward communities that have more resources, staffing and technical capacity to take on these administratively onerous activities, which tend to be higher wealth and higher resourced states and communities. The sheer number of cumulative points awarded under each of these criterion could be disadvantaging applications from underserved communities.

These disparities in scoring are reflected in the applicants that were awarded funding through the FY20 BRIC national competition. Where a majority of the funding (~90%, $446 million) was made available to only 22 projects, which were selected for further review to potentially be awarded grants. The projects receiving the majority of the competitive grant funding (~54%, $268.8 million) were located in three high-wealth states: California, New Jersey, and Washington. Whereas lower-wealth states with higher vulnerability and exposure to impacts from natural disasters only received a small percentage of requested funding and most of the funding was limited to the $600,000 directly allocated to each state. Only one non-coastal state was selected for a competitive grant, Kentucky, and no states from the Gulf Coast, US Territories, Alaska or Hawaii were chosen from the competitive grant pool. Additionally, the largest single competitive BRIC grant of $50 million was awarded to Menlo Park, CA for a flood protection project in an affluent stretch of Silicon Valley along the San Francisco Bay with a median household income of $160,784. The second-largest competitive grant award went to Sonoma County, CA for $39 million for wildfire mitigation which has a median household income of $81,018. Additionally, FEMA only awarded two competitive grants to "small impoverish communities" out of a total of 98 applications meeting the definition of "small and impoverished." Of these 98 applications, 32 met FEMA's program requirements but were denied based upon the technical and qualitative evaluation, and 6 were denied for failing to meet the eligibility requirements. Additionally of the applications meeting the small and impoverished definition, 75% were from communities with majority White populations (greater than 80%). These statistics from the FY20 BRIC competition highlight potential racial and economic disparities in the allocation of FEMA funding.

To meet President Biden's commitment to ensure that 40 percent of the benefits of federal investments are flowing to the most disadvantaged communities, FEMA needs to evaluate these disparities and revise its scoring criteria to put greater priority on projects that benefit socially vulnerable communities. The scoring criteria should award points to projects that benefit communities that face the greatest threats from natural disasters due to broader set of socioeconomic factors and not limited points for projects that benefit small impoverished communities (which receive lowered match under the Stafford Act). Similarly, FEMA should reevaluate whether criteria related to building codes, additional match, and previous HMA applications unfairly favor higher-wealth, higher-resourced communities and revise its scoring criteria to both incentivize good mitigation practices while also directing resources to the communities with the greatest risks and need.

(4) Reduce technical barriers to accessing FEMA grant funding and provide more technical assistance to underserved communities

FEMA's technical requirements for accessing grant programs, particularly hazard mitigation grants, are especially onerous and create unnecessary barriers to entry for underserved communities. For example, FEMA applications require complicated analyses of the technical feasibility and cost effectiveness of the project, which can often require onerous data collection, detailed hydrology and hydraulics (H&H) modeling, and complicated benefit-cost analysis (BCA). Often completing these tasks requires hiring consultants with significant expertise in engineering and economic analysis, and fronting these costs is not an option for lower-wealth communities. These communities often do not have the staff capacity to meet these technical requirements and pull together applications on their own, nor do they have the financial resources to front the costs to hire expensive consultants to help them. These barriers to entry were demonstrated by the sheer number of applications - particularly from lower wealth states and communities - that were rejected as failing to meet FEMA's technical and eligibility requirements for the last round of BRIC funding. FEMA needs to address these barriers across all of its funding programs and with a particular focus on competitive grant programs, like BRIC, if it is to meet its goals of ensuring equity for all.

FEMA should offer more technical assistance (TA) and offer it on rolling basis, rather than in one-time offerings that align with grant application cycles. It can take many months to develop a project idea and conduct the technical review and analyses needed to prepare an application for FEMA funding. Because the timelines between when a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) is released and applications are due to FEMA are relatively short (and even shorter when accounting for state deadlines), state and local applicants often needed to have fully formed project ideas at the time a NOFO is released to be able to advance a competitive application. Therefore, TA should be offered throughout the year so applicants can start early and receive guidance on how to pull together needed data and complete technical analyses, like H&H modeling and BCA, such that they can quickly incorporate those technical details into an application when a NOFO is released. Additionally, FEMA should consider contracting with firms or nonprofit organizations that can provide technical support to state and local governments and help them develop project ideas and complete the technical feasibility and benefit cost analyses needed to advance an application. This will expand FEMA's capacity and build a broader bench of practitioners that can provide TA to communities bring their understanding of local and regional contexts. FEMA technical support offerings should prioritize underserved communities including lower wealth communities, tribal communities, rural communities and communities of color (both large and small).

Where possible, FEMA should also work to reduce technical barriers to accessing FEMA funding by simplifying the technical feasibility analyses required to submit grant applications. FEMA could provide more funding to help communities undertake early design stages of work including technical feasibility analyses and to help develop a pipeline of projects for future rounds of funding. As communities grapple with how to address increasing risk posed by climate change, funding for early design phases and feasibility analyses will be particularly important for ensuring that we are developing innovative resilience projects that account for address future climate risks. By requiring detailed feasibility analyses to even submit a grant application, FEMA is not only creating barriers for underserved communities it is also discouraging innovative approaches for addressing climate risks, like nature-based solutions.

(5) Reform methodologies for conducting Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) and reduce barrier to underserved communities

In addition to the technical feasibility barriers described above, FEMA's methodologies for assessing cost effectiveness also present significant barriers to underserved communities and contribute to an inequitable distribution of funding by undercounting the environmental and social benefits of projects. FEMA should simplify and reform its methodologies for assessing cost effectiveness, including by working with the Office of Management and Budget to address challenges posed by the federal discount rate. In addition to the disparities caused by overvaluing property values in BCAs, FEMA should also better account for ecosystem service benefits delivered by nature-based solutions (described in the section below).

FEMA should address the disparities that are caused by overemphasizing property values in its BCA methodologies. Current and past discrimination and racist housing and lending policies like redlining have created an enormous racial wealth gap, which not only affects the ability of communities of color to withstand and recover from natural disasters but also contributes to an undervaluation of property in these communities. The average White family has a net worth that is nearly ten times greater than that of the average Black family/9 and White families (72 percent) own their homes at almost double the rate of Black families (42 percent)./10

Additionally, homes in Black neighborhoods are often undervalued by on average 23 percent as compared to similar quality homes in predominantly White neighborhoods, which amounts to a $156 billion cumulative loss for Black communities./11

By including a heavy emphasis on property values when assessing the costs and benefits of a hazard mitigation project, FEMA is reinforcing this racial wealth gap and undervaluing the benefits of investments in communities of color. To correct for the bias, FEMA should consider other factors, beyond property values and property damage, when assessing a project's benefits, like the socioeconomic demographics of the communities that will be served by the project. It could also waive or reduce the 1:0 BCR requirement for economically disadvantaged communities.

(6) Reduce barriers nature-based risk reduction projects in underserved communities, including by better account for ecosystem service benefits in BCAs

FEMA should also address specific barriers to nature-based solutions. When residents are engaged in the selection and design of project, nature-based project are often the preferred choice because of the multiple "sunny day" benefits these types of projects provide. Nature-based solutions (NBS) restore and mimic natural landscapes - like wetlands, oyster reefs and barrier islands - with the goal of reducing threats to communities from natural hazards. In addition to resilience benefits, these types of projects deliver multiple other community benefits like improving air and water quality, creating habitats for birds and other wildlife, sequestering carbon pollution, creating recreational amenities for residents, and supporting jobs. NBS can address more effectively address multiple hazards; for example, a wetland restoration project not only absorbs flood waters and reduces flooding, it also reduces urban heat islands, and helps recharge groundwater aquifers to help address drought. Additionally, NBS projects grow and build over time and can be a more cost-effective and adaptable solution to addressing impacts from a changing climate when compared with "gray" infrastructure alternatives, such as seawalls, levees, and jetties. For example, a 2018 study comparing nature-based and traditional coastal adaptations along the Gulf Coast found that nature-based solutions outperformed gray infrastructure alternatives (including levees, floodwalls, home elevations,) in terms of net benefits accrued and cost-effectiveness, with wetland and oyster restoration projects providing the biggest return on investment./12

And while gray infrastructure will be necessary in some communities because of the density of populations and the magnitude of the threat, even these types of solutions can be coupled with nature-based features to create more durable and environmentally beneficial projects that create multiple lines of defense.

Despite the many benefits of nature-based solutions and the fact that these are often the preferred alternative when communities have a stake in the project design, these types of solutions face significant barriers accessing FEMA funding. State and local applicants struggle to apply FEMA cost-effectiveness and technical-feasibility requirements to nature-based project. Additionally, decision makers at all levels of government lack the expertise needed to plan for, design and implement nature-based projects. As a result, few nature-based projects were funded in the first BRIC competition, which shows that more work is needed to address barriers and to build capacity of decision makers to deploy nature-based solutions for addressing disaster risk in communities.

To that end, FEMA should provide technical assistance, training, and funding to ensure that state and local governments have the capacity to evaluate the protective value of natural infrastructure assets, identify nature-based solutions in hazard mitigation plans, and create a pipeline of nature-based projects and other ecosystem restoration projects that could be funded through FEMA programs to reduce risks from natural hazards in communities. Technical assistance should specifically prioritize underserved communities and help them explore nature-based solutions for addressing disaster risk, such as floodplain buyouts and restoration projects. As FEMA and other partners provide technical assistance, they should also be asked to report back on common barriers and make recommendation of broader reforms that FEMA could implement to address barriers to NBS.

As a first step, FEMA should simplify and improve its methodologies for showing the cost-effectiveness projects. Reforms to BCA methodologies need to fully account for the multiple benefits delivered by nature-based projects and the environmental and social costs of more traditional gray infrastructure approaches. Because nature-based solutions grow and build over time, their risk reduction and other benefits increase in value rather than depreciate like gray infrastructure solutions. Additionally, these types of projects have natural adaptive capacity and require far less maintenance than gray infrastructure solutions, making them much better for addressing sometimes uncertain future conditions. FEMA should update BCA methodologies to capture social benefits; more fully account for the costs and benefits of ecological services that are lost and gained, and allow grantees to justify investment in environmentally and socially beneficial projects where project benefits accrue over time and reduce future risks. FEMA should also develop more pre-calculated benefits for ecosystem services and common NS practices incorporate these values into its next BCA toolkit update. In developing pre-calculated benefits FEMA should expand the types of ecosystem service benefits it is evaluating and address regional variations in risk-reduction benefits from NBS where possible. Such improvements in BCA approaches should be incorporated into and aligned with methodologies used by other federal agencies funding flood risk reduction projects (including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), among others).This will help to level the playing field and create a more balanced comparison of the benefits and trade-offs of green and gray infrastructure alternatives for building community resilience.

FEMA should also work to remove barriers to, and identify and encourage adoption of best practices for floodplain buyouts that prioritize large-scale buyouts (e.g., several contiguous parcels or properties of 10 acres or more), restoration of bought-out parcels, and relocation and other incentives that can minimize the socioeconomic consequences for residents opting for buyouts. Specifically, FEMA should work to remove barriers to funding beneficial ecosystem restoration on acquired or undeveloped parcels that can reduce downstream flood risks for communities and increase groundwater storage in drought-prone areas. It should enable bought out lands to be transferred to private sector partners, like land trusts, that can restore and manage the land to enhance risk reduction benefits. FEMA should also align funding requirements for buyouts and environmental restoration with other federal agencies administering disaster recovery funding, such as HUD.

FEMA should also institute requirements for and fund post-implementation monitoring to evaluate the return on investment for mitigation activities, including the unique environmental and social benefits of nature-based approaches and to ensure that projects are meeting the needs of underserved communities. Monitoring is critically important for building our understanding of the resilience and environmental benefits of more innovative mitigation approaches and what communities are being benefitted by these federal investments. In developing monitoring protocols, FEMA should consult with other agencies including HUD, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

(7) Work with OMB to reduce the discount rate which presents a significant barrier mitigation projects that deliver long-term benefits, like nature-based solutions.

FEMA should also work with OMB to seek reforms to the federal discount rate governed by OMB Circular A-94, and its related discount rate of 7%. Notably, Circular A-94 has not been updated since 1992, nearly 30 years ago, when interest rates were much higher and our understanding of future climate risks was less developed. This 7% discount rate undervalues the benefits of investments design to enhance resilience to future climate impacts and nature-based solutions that grow and build over time delivering multi-generation benefits. In 2019 FEMA's National Advisory Council, composed of senior officials from major disaster recovery efforts, specifically cited the outdated 7% discount rate as a major barrier to truly cost-effective and beneficial mitigation projects. They recommended development of a reassessed benefit-cost analysis methodology with a lower discount rate of 1%-3% be considered by FEMA for mitigation projects./13

Under the Obama Administration, the President's State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience report recommended consideration of lowered discount rates for long-term investments where benefits are expected to accrue over a large period of time, particularly those like natural infrastructure that result in longer-term climate resilience./14

Leading economists have also provided theoretical justification for lower discount rates for projects with long lifespans when discount rates are uncertain./15

Specifically, OMB should be asked to take the following immediate steps to reform federal discount rates, including

* Issuing immediate guidance to agencies regarding the application and justification of alternate discount rates (pursuant to OMB Circular A-94, Section 8(b)(2)) for individual nature-based hazard mitigation projects. This guidance should include details regarding how to account for the intergenerational benefits delivered by nature-based projects that reduce future risks and restore ecosystems that will grow and build over time; and

* Convening an expert panel of advisors, representing a variety of relevant disciplines including environmental economists, to recommend to OMB any updates to Circular A94 and setting a discount rate that better accounts for equity considerations as well as mitigation projects where benefits accrue over a longer time period.

(8) Update Hazard Mitigation Planning guidance to require consideration of socioeconomic vulnerability and natural resource assets.

FEMA's approval of hazard mitigation plans is a prerequisite for accessing certain federal hazard mitigation funds and these plans help to direct important hazard mitigation funding to onthe-ground projects. However, many communities don't have the resources to develop plans and most plans do not include equity or environmental justice consideration, like socioeconomic vulnerability and proximity to pollution and high-risk polluting facilities, and even fewer consider the natural assets in communities that enhance community resilience.

FEMA should ensure that states and communities have the resources needed to complete hazard mitigation planning, with a focus on ensuring that underserved communities have these plans in place so they can access pre- and post-disaster programs, like BRIC and HMGP. FEMA should also offer guidance and more opportunities for states and local governments to coordinate and align plans across federal agencies, like Comprehensive Economic Development plans required by EDA and Action Plans and Consolidated Plans required by HUD. This will not only help communities combine funds to enable important planning activities, but it will also help these communities better align and coordinate federal dollars for projects that can help meet multiple community stressors, like poverty, crime, pollution, housing affordability and natural hazards.

FEMA should also provide guidance and direction to state and local governments on how to consider socioeconomic vulnerability and ecosystem services in hazard mitigation plans. Tools such as EJSCREEN, the Social Vulnerability Index, and the National Risk Index could help state and local governments identify communities that face disproportionate risks from natural disasters due to socioeconomic factors and help direct funding to projects in areas with the greatest need.

Additionally, hazard mitigation plans often fail to account for natural infrastructure assets that are already providing important resilience benefits to communities or to assess the potential nature-based solutions that could reduce future risks. This oversight means that communities are failing to protect and restore the natural landscapes--like open space and flood buffers-- that are already providing critical resilience and other ecosystem service benefits. It also means that communities are neglecting to consider nature-based solutions that could effectively reduce risks to natural hazards while also providing other community amenities. FEMA should provide technical assistance, guidance and tools to help communities evaluate the protective value of natural infrastructure assets and identify nature-based solutions that could be funded through FEMA mitigation programs.

(9) Seek reforms to Stafford Act programs to authorize grant making that can foster public-private partnerships and help expand capacity at the state and local level.

The nation has been repeatedly stretched beyond its capacity to manage the response to and long-term recovery of disasters. Climate change and events like the COVID-19 pandemic increasingly require FEMA, as well as state and local emergency managers, to manage multiple simultaneous disasters. Equally alarming is the lack of capacity for disaster preparedness planning and hazard mitigation work. The federal Mitigation Framework Leadership Group identified the need to improve local and state capacity as a priority for future mitigation investments./16

GAO has recently documented the shortfalls in FEMA's, as well as state and local emergency managers', capacity to perform their duties./17

These capacity constraints are particularly challenging for underserved communities. Planning and proactive hazard mitigation work are essential to avoid harm to communities from future disasters and to catalyze the large-scale efforts needed to adapt to future threats posed by climate change. And a broader cohort of stakeholders must be brought to the table to help communities plan for and recover from natural disasters and build resilience to future climate threats.

FEMA's limited authority under the Stafford Act hinders its ability to provide grants to nonprofit and academic partners that can build a bigger bench of practitioners working hand-in-hand with communities to advance climate resilience projects. Because the Stafford Act only allows FEMA to provide grants and technical assistance to state and local governments, this precludes grants to nonprofits and academic institutions that are often critical partners to communities. These types of partner organizations can add needed capacity and expertise to under-resourced local governments and can help in all stages of project development including planning, technical feasibility and benefit cost analyses, community engagement, leveraging matching funds, and design and construction. The added capacity that nonprofit and academic partners can bring is particularly valuable to underserved communities that have the least capacity and financial resources to hire contractors and engineers to develop plans, project ideas, and grant proposals. These types of partnerships are also particularly valuable and important for developing innovative resilience projects, like nature-based solutions, where new approaches to engineering with nature need to be developed and evaluated and where state and local emergency management agencies and hazard mitigation officials have limited expertise. State and local governments often feel like they don't have the capacity or expertise to develop more innovative solutions and are hesitant to put in the time and effort needed to pull together a competitive grant proposal, when funding is uncertain. They often look to their nonprofit and academic partners to do the leg work to pull funding proposals together and to bring other stakeholders to the table. FEMA's inability to grant to nonprofits and academic institutions significantly hinders efforts to foster these types of public-private partnerships that have been so valuable in advancing innovative resilience projects through programs, like the Rebuild by Design and National Disaster Resilience competitions led by HUD.

FEMA should work with Congress to seek reforms to the Stafford Act that would enable it to support public-private partnerships that can bring technical expertise and capacity to help underserved communities advance resilience projects for funding. Specifically, Congress could authorize FEMA to establish a demonstration grant program with the National Fish Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). This would bring NFWF's unique expertise to efforts to promote nature-based mitigation projects, build capacity at all levels of government, and help to demonstrate the efficacy and multiple benefits delivered by these types of projects. Additionally, NFWF has flexibility to build public-private partnerships to support natural infrastructure projects and to leverage private sector funding to support added investment.

NFWF was created by Congress in 1984 as a way to leverage public-private partnerships to efforts to protect and restore important habitats and imperiled species. NFWF has unique powers to accept and receive funds from and enter cooperative agreements with federal agencies to support projects consistent with the foundation's purpose of furthering the conservation and management of wildlife and natural resources. And NFWF has unique expertise in implementing grant programs designed to promote nature-based solutions for enhancing community resilience.

After Hurricanes Florence and Michael in 2018, Congress appropriated $50 million to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NFWF to support conservation and restoration projects to strengthen natural systems and enhance flood and climate resilience in disaster-affected communities, which NFWF administered through the Emergency Coastal Resilience Fund. Using these funds, NFWF leveraged an additional $54.7 million in matching funds to support investments in natural infrastructure approaches like construction of living shorelines, restoration of wetlands and reefs, and creation of dunes, in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, California, Florida, Virginia, and U.S. territories. NFWF is also supporting innovative resilience projects led by community based organizations in Mississippi and Alaska, two states that did not receive any funding through the BRIC competition. More recently, NFWF has also supported natural infrastructure approaches to enhance the resilience of military communities under a cooperative agreement with the Department of Defense.

Congress could specifically authorize FEMA to create a demonstration grant program in collaboration with NFWF focused on nature-based solutions. This would leverage the expertise NFWF has developed in supporting nature-based resilience projects around the country, help develop a pipeline of "shovel ready" projects that can be supported in future rounds of BRIC funding, and bring public-private partnerships with nonprofits and community-based organizations to the table to support implementation of natural infrastructure projects. NFWF can also help FEMA understand the barriers to nature-based solutions and provide recommendations on updates that could be made to the BRIC program, FEMA BCA methodologies, and other policies to remove barriers to underserved communities, increase the number of projects benefitting underserved communities, and increase the number of nature-based projects for future rounds of BRIC and other hazard mitigation funding programs.

(10) Support and fund more community engagement opportunities

A critical component of equity is procedural equity, ensuring that the people who will be most affected by a decision have a voice and a stake in decision making. However, too often there is limited time, capacity, and funding to undertake the robust planning and engagement that is required to ensure procedural equity. Communities need resources, support, and guidance on how to effectively engage residents in planning and project development, with a particular focus on ensuring participation from underserved and marginalized communities that are traditional excluded from decision making tables. FEMA should consider how it can better support, enable, and reward equitable, diverse and inclusive engagement processes in planning initiatives and in the design and development of projects that it is reviewing for grant funding.

We applaud FEMA for taking steps to make needed reforms to its programs, policies and regulations with the goals of advancing equity and environmental justice and seeking community input on this work. These issues are particularly important as FEMA looks to support recovery after the devastating past year of record-breaking natural disaster events on top of a global pandemic that disproportionately affected low-income communities and communities of color. As FEMA looks to direct significant investments in infrastructure to support economic recovery and to enhance resilience to increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather, it has an opportunity to ensure that resources are flowing to the frontline communities that face the greatest risks and to innovative nature-based projects. By doing so, FEMA can deliver multiple environmental and social benefits in the most underserved communities, including enhancing resilience to future climate threats, improving air and water quality, creating habitats for birds and other wildlife, increasing access to recreational and open space, and supporting high-paying jobs in the restoration economy. By supporting natural infrastructure solutions through its disaster recovery and hazard mitigation programs, FEMA will not only help reduce climate-risks in the most vulnerable communities, it can also enhance the environment and quality of life for residents. Please see Audubon as trusted resources moving forward on this and other issues where healthy communities, economies, and wildlife overlap.

Sincerely,

Jessica Grannis

Interim Vice President of Coastal Conservation

National Audubon Society

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Footnotes:

1/ Troy D. Allen, Katrina: Race, Class, and Poverty: Reflections and Analysis, J, Black Studies Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 466468 (Mar, 2007).

2/ Guillermo Ortiz et al., Center for American Progress (CAP), A Perfect Storm: Extreme Weather as an Affordable Housing Crisis Multiplier (Aug. 1, 2019), https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2019/08/01/473067/aperfectstorm-2/

3/ https://ldh.la.gov/assets/docs/katrina/deceasedreports/KatrinaDeaths_082008.pdf

4/ Guillermo Ortiz et al., Center for American Progress (CAP), A Perfect Storm: Extreme Weather as an Affordable Housing Crisis Multiplier (Aug. 1, 2019), https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/reports/2019/08/01/473067/aperfectstorm-2/

5/ Maria Sacchetti, Brady Dennis, Steven Mufson & Darryl Fears, Hurricane Laura didn't cause pollution in this Louisiana town. It

just added to it, The Washington Post (Aug. 28, 2020), https://www.washingtonpost.com/climateenvironment/2020/08/28/hurricanelaurachemicals-pollution

6/ Jeff Mosier, Impact of Hurricane Harvey on Health, Environment Still a Concern a Year Later, Dallas Morning News (Aug.16, 2018), https://www.dallasnews.com/news/harvey/2018/08/16/texas-petrochemical-plants-spewed-8-million-poundsairpollutantshurricaneharvey-hit; Environmental Integrity Project, Preparing for the Next Storm: Learning from the Man-Made Environmental Disasters that Followed Hurricane Harvey (Aug. 16, 2018), https://www.environmentalintegrity.org/wpcontent/uploads/2018/08/Hurricane-Harvey-Report-Final.pdf.

7/ Liz Hamel, et al., Kaiser Family Foundation, An Early Assessment of Hurricane Harvey's Impact on Vulnerable Texans in the Gulf Coast Region: Their Voices and Priorities to Inform Rebuilding (Dec. 2017), https://www.kff.org/other/report/an-early-assessment-of-hurricane-harveys-impact-on-vulnerabletexans-in-the-gulf-coast-region-their-voices-and-priorities-to-inform-rebuilding-efforts/; see also Chrishelle Palay, Disaster Aid Perpetuates Inequality, Shelterforce (May 13, 2019), https://shelterforce.org/2019/05/13/disaster-aid-perpetuates-inequality/; and Rebecca Hersher & Robert Benincasa, How Federal Disaster Money Favors the Rich, NPR (Mar. 5, 2019), https://www.npr.org/2019/03/05/688786177/how-federal-disaster-money-favors-the-rich

8/ American Flood Coalition, Turning the Tide: Opportunities to Build Social Equity Through Federal Flood Disaster Policy (2020), https://medium.com/american-flood-coalition/turning-the-tide-toward-equitymaking-federal-flood-programs-work-for-low-income-people-434ac6facce7 [citing Junia Howell & James R. Elliott, Damages Done: the Longitudinal Impacts of Natural Hazards on Wealth Inequality in the United States, Vol. 6, Iss. 3 Social Problems 448-467 (Aug. 2019), https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/66/3/448/5074453?guestAccessKey=339b3f1e-825b-48c9-af4b1a2bb9908326)]; see also Junia Howell & James. R. Elliott, Disaster Costs Rise, So Does Inequality, Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World Volume 4: 1-3 (2018), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023118816795.

9/ Kriston McIntosh et al., Brookings, Examining the Black-white Wealth Gap (Feb. 27, 2020), https://www.brookings.edu/blog/upfront/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/

10/ Jung Hyun Choi, Urban Wire the blog of the Urban Institute, Breaking Down the Black -White Homeownership Gap (Feb. 21, 2020), https://ldh.la.gov/assets/docs/katrina/deceasedreports/KatrinaDeaths_082008.pdf

11/ 7 Andre M. Perry et al., Brookings Institute, The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods: The case of residential property (Nov. 27, 2018), https://www.brookings.edu/research/devaluation-of-assetsin-black-neighborhoods/.

12/ See Reguero B.G., Beck M.W., Bresch D.N., Calil J., Meliane I. Comparing the cost effectiveness of nature-based and coastal adaptation: A case study from the Gulf Coast of the United States (2018). PLoS ONE 13(4): e0192132. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0192132

13/ See National Advisory Council, Report to the FEMA Administrator (2019). https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/fema_nac-report_11-2019.pdf

14/ See President's State, Local, and Tribal Task Force On Climate Preparedness and Resilience. Recommendations to the President Report (2014). https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/task_force_report_0.pdf

15/ See Weitzman, M. L. (1998). Why the far-distant future should be discounted at its lowest possible rate. Journal of environmental economics and management, 36(3), 201-208; See Newell, R. G., & Pizer, W. A. (2003). Discounting the distant future: how much do uncertain rates increase valuations?. Journal of environmental economics and management, 46(1), 52-71.

16/ Mitigation Framework Leadership Group, National Mitigation Investment Strategy, August 2019, p. 7.

17/ GAO, National Preparedness: Additional Actions Needed to Address Gaps in the Nation's Emergency Management Capabilities, GAO-20-297, May 2020. (hereafter "GAO, National Preparedness"); GAO, FEMA Disaster Workforce: Actions Needed to Address Deployment and Staff Development Challenges, GAO-20-360, May 2020.

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The notice can be viewed at: https://www.regulations.gov/document/FEMA-2021-0011-0001

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