The Federal Emergency Management Agency selected projects to receive $1.16 billion in climate resilience funding for the fiscal year 2021 funding round through two competitive grant programs to help communities be resilient to climate change and extreme weather events.
The projects will be funded through the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities national competition at $1 billion and Flood Mitigation Assistance communitywide flood mitigation projects at $160 million, a news release said.
“Climate change poses a very real threat to the safety, security and prosperity of the United States,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the release. “Its impacts are being felt in real time and are felt most acutely by the nation’s most vulnerable communities. While we can’t eliminate the threats we face as a nation, we can and must build our resilience against those threats – and that is why we are making this announcement today – because, together, we are building climate resilience.”
Funds from the Flood Mitigation Assistance program are “used to reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings insured under the National Flood Insurance Program," the release reported. Vice President Kamala Harris, Mayorkas and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell announced the selections Aug. 1.
Projects selected through the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program are from across “10 FEMA regions with 53 states and territories, the District of Columbia and 271 different communities, including 33 tribes,” the release reported. The Flood Mitigation Assistance projects are in 19 states and 72 communities.
Because communities are adversely affected by climate change and extreme weather events, FEMA and the Biden-Harris administration are doing what they can to be “better prepared for the threats we face today, along with the ones that will come tomorrow,” Criswell said in the release.
“Today’s announcement represents that continued commitment,” Criswell added, according to the release. “This funding will also help to ensure that our most vulnerable communities are not left behind, with hundreds of millions of dollars ultimately going directly to the communities that need it most.”
