Better budgeting of disaster aid, property and crop insurance reforms and additional technical assistance to state and local governments are among the steps the federal government should take to help communities build resilience to climate change and more frequent extreme weather events, members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee were told last week.
These recommendations were included in Government Accountability Office (GAO) testimony delivered at a hearing on the increasing frequency of extreme weather events and “the costs of not being prepared.” Appearing on behalf of GAO, Natural Resources and Environment Managing Director Mark Gaffigan testified the agency’s research has found that local officials “have not systematically incorporated potential climate change impacts” in their planning for water systems and other infrastructure, in part because of obstacles to obtaining relevant and usable climate change impact information. To address this, GAO recommended the federal government facilitate access to localized climate change information and more aggressively offer climate adaptation assistance to local communities.
Other witnesses included DHS Assistant Secretary of Policy David Heyman and Assistant Secretary of Infrastructure Protection Caitlin Durkovich, who pointed to Hurricane Sandy as a “vivid example” of extreme weather’s potential to deliver “devastating impacts” to water systems and other infrastructure. They described DHS’ ongoing work to build disaster preparedness and said the department intends to expand its Resilience STAR program to cover critical infrastructure. The program currently certifies private homes that are built to “code-plus” standards and thus are believed less likely to incur major damage due to natural disasters. Expanding the program beyond homes, they said, will enhance the nation’s extreme weather resilience “one bridge or critical asset at a time.”
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Carper (D-Del.) said during the hearing the government “can no longer afford to ignore the impacts these weather events are having on federal spending,” and he called for “prudent, targeted investments” aimed at developing community-level resiliency.