President Trump signs into law FAA Reauthorization, Denham priorities included

October 5, 2018

Contact: Jessica McFaul or Emily Carlin, 202-225-4540

President Trump signs into law FAA Reauthorization, Denham priorities included

WASHINGTON - Today, President Donald Trump signed H.R. 4, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018, which reauthorizes programs of the Federal Aviation Administration and includes provisions that U.S. Representative Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) inserted to protect communities from wildfires and other disasters and build infrastructure projects in California faster.

The disaster provision designates an additional 6% set-aside from the Disaster Relief Fund for pre-disaster resiliency, policy from Rep. Denham's SMART Rebuilding Act.

"Investment before disaster strikes will save lives and taxpayer dollars," said Rep. Denham. "Policy reforms like my SMART Rebuilding Act that include incentives to build more resiliently will position us to more quickly recover in the future. Wildfires aren't going away - they're getting worse. We must plan ahead."

Rep. Denham introduced the SMART Rebuilding Act which enables states and communities to build stronger both before disaster strikes by establishing a National Public Infrastructure Pre-disaster Mitigation Fund to improve infrastructure. Additionally, the legislation includes building standard implementation and enforcement as a reimbursable expense in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Public Assistance program. According to FEMA, every $1 invested in mitigation results in $4 in disaster cost savings for our taxpayers. In the last two years, the U.S. has seen mass destruction from large-scale wildfires to hurricane winds and flooding, costing the American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in disaster relief. This bill would save lives and money by reducing natural disaster impacts across the nation.

Rep. Denham has a proven legislative record with congressional disaster response. He authored the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act of 2013 (SRIA), which was signed into law on Jan. 29, 2013 to address inefficiencies in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) programs that slow down and increase costs of recovery. The measures helped communities and tribes recovering from Hurricane Sandy but were written with future disasters in mind, such as the California wildfires and recent hurricanes in the southeastern United States and Puerto Rico.

SRIA was signed into law with the Disaster Supplemental under Rep. Denham's leadership as the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Emergency Management, and it established procedures where local governments can accept recovery grants based on fixed, capped estimates, with the flexibility to spend the money in the best way possible as determined by locals.

While SRIA has been a huge success, the initial project limit of $120,000 has proven to be too low for major disasters. On March 27, 2017, the House passed H.R. 1214, the Disaster SAVE Act, which Rep. Denham co-sponsored, to increase the disaster assistance threshold to $500,000. With costs soaring in the billions, states would benefit from the red-tape reductions that this bill presents. The bill awaits action in the Senate.

In addition to disaster mitigation, the FAA Reauthorization includes Rep. Denham's provision to reduce the burden of environmental reviews by improving an existing Denham law that established the Program for Eliminating Duplication of Environmental Reviews. Under the program, state laws that are more comprehensive than the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) may preempt federal law, allowing states like California to undertake only one review. This will reduce project timelines and costs, delivering much-needed infrastructure projects faster and more efficiently. The new provision passed in the FAA Reauthorization further improves the process, reducing the period of time when lawsuits can be filed against project review documents from 2 years to 150 days, which is the federal standard for highway projects. The result is less liability for project sponsors and a more attractive program for California.

"Project reviews take too long, costing American businesses and taxpayers trillions of dollars," said Denham. "With this bill, California will participate in my program that drastically streamlines major infrastructure projects to keep pace with our country's ever-growing infrastructure needs."