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Funding for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and
Communities (BRIC) program, which funds projects that protect
people and infrastructure from natural hazards and the effects
of climate change, will more than double to nearly $2.3 billion.
The Flood Mitigation Assistance program, which funds projects to
help mitigate flood risks for homes and communities, will see a
five-fold increase in funding to $800 million.
Some of the funding for the two Federal Emergency Management
Agency programs will come from last year's bipartisan
infrastructure law, with $700 million for the flood program, and
$200 million for BRIC. The rest will come from FEMA's Disaster
Relief Fund.
"Chronic lack of investment in climate resilience has only made
matters worse for America’s crumbling infrastructure," FEMA
Administrator Deanne Criswell said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, these issues are magnified in
historically underserved communities." Through the funding "we
seek to correct this injustice and ensure that every community
is better able to prepare before disasters strike," Criswell
said.
Last year, in just one example of the type of disaster that
scientists say are made worse by climate change, Hurricane Ida
hit Louisiana as a Category 4 storm, killing nearly 100 people
and causing an estimated $64 billion in damage.
The White House said in April that the upper range of climate
change's hit to the U.S. budget by the end of the century could
total a 7.1% annual revenue loss, equal to $2 trillion a year in
today's dollars.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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