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FEMA quadrupled mitigation grants. It's still not enough.
More than 1,000 applicants are requesting $5.6 billion from two FEMA grant programs. But only $3.1 billion is available
CLIMATEWIRE | State and local governments are requesting a record amount of funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in disaster mitigation grants for projects aimed at making communities more resilient to the worsening impacts of climate change and disasters.
FEMA received more than 1,000 funding requests from applicants seeking a total of $5.6 billion — nearly twice the $3.1 billion that the agency has available under its two grant programs for climate resiliency, according to newly released data from FEMA. The requested funding is nearly $1 billion more than applicants sought last year.
The growing demand shows that federal funding is not keeping pace with state and local efforts to fortify communities against flooding, wildfires and other events that have been intensified by climate change, said Kristin Smith, a researcher at Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research organization in Montana.
“There are so many communities that don't have the time and the resources to put together an application, and yet they probably still have significant resilience and mitigation needs,” Smith said. Most of the applications FEMA received are likely to be from “higher-capacity places from coastal areas” that were able to complete paperwork on time, Smith added.
Five states — California, Louisiana, Oregon, Virginia and Texas — are requesting more than $2 billion combined from the FEMA programs, a FEMA release shows.
Smith said FEMA had made “positive strides” in the past two years, quadrupling funding for mitigation grants from the initial $700 million and providing technical assistance to smaller communities with limited funds.
"It is really exciting to see [disaster mitigation] being funded at the level it’s funded," Smith said. "It is a way more cost-effective use of taxpayer money to invest in mitigation.”
The FEMA grant programs are separate from the billions of dollars the agency spends each year reimbursing states for rebuilding and cleanup costs after a disaster.
The grant programs pay 75 percent of the cost of projects such as elevating buildings and infrastructure for flood protection, installing erosion-control measures to prevent landslides, and buying homes that have been repeatedly flooded to demolish structures and turn the property into green space. The programs are Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and Flood Mitigation Assistance.
Applicants this year are seeking roughly $2.5 billion in FEMA funding for projects that protect against flood damage.
FEMA has a record amount of grant money to spend this year because Congress approved extra funding for the flood grants and President Joe Biden directed FEMA to release more money for its BRIC program.
But the spending may change next year. The Congressional Research Service wrote in a report to Congress published Jan. 19 that “FEMA anticipates that $500 million will be available” next year for the BRIC program.
“You're really dropping down from the previous years,” said Amelia Muccio, director of mitigation at Hagerty Consulting Inc., which advises government agencies on disasters. “A falling back to $500 million for national competition really isn't going to be as significant as a mitigation resiliency opportunity we would have hoped for, especially after this year.”
Congress could act to secure more future funding for these “oversubscribed” grant programs, FEMA said in a statement.
“State, local, tribal and territorial governments continue to submit historic requests for resilience funding,” wrote Eric Letvin, FEMA’s acting assistant administrator for mitigation, in an email. “This demonstrates the need for hazard mitigation nationwide to help build climate resilience in the most at-risk and disadvantaged communities.”
FEMA said it will announce the grant recipients this summer.
