I am a planner by training and in personality, doubly so since entering middle age and suddenly becoming my parents. Hazard mitigation just makes sense to me…make smart decisions today so we don’t suffer dumb consequences in the future? Sign me up. Invest money today to save money in the long-run? My Costco membership agrees. Take some responsibility for the future by discipling our actions today? The Hoosier conservative part of my brain is happy, and politely so.
And so it is with confusion and a little sadness that I report that hazard mitigation remains the fourth fiddle in the emergency management string band, falling far behind feel-good preparedness, action-packed response, and necessary recovery. We typically spend only 5-15% of our overall emergency management budget on mitigation, with the vast majority of funds going towards response and recovery. That is despite real (if halting) progress towards mitigation in federal law and policy since at least the 1990s, through programs like Project Impact and legislation like the Hazard Mitigation Act of 2000, and in more recent years with programs like Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, the Community Disaster Resilience Zones Act, and the Safeguarding Tomorrow Revolving Loan Fund Program.
This is all a long way of saying, I am excited to read about the mitigation reforms proposed in the FEMA Act. Let’s dive in.
Section 301 starts with a bang, proposing that all states and tribal governments prepare and submit a hazard mitigation plan that includes a list of projects for pre-approval. The legislation requires that there be at least one pre-approved project for each county or county equivalent in the state (thoughts and prayers for Texas, which is going to have to come in with a minimum of 254 projects). States or tribes that do NOT have a mitigation plan submitted would not be eligible for increased federal cost-share, which is a major incentive to get these plans done. The legislation then imagines that the President (via FEMA) would have a peer-review process in-place, to recommend whether the projects should be pre-approved or denied. Projects that are pre-approved are ready to go, and those that are denied can be revised and resubmitted.
While I have questions about how some of this would actually work (especially peer review), in general the idea of greatly speeding up mitigation spending via pre-approved projects is bold and interesting and furthers the major themes of the bill around timeliness local prioritization.
Sections later in the Act describes how mitigation recipients (i.e. SLTT governments) might do things like fund projects that are a partnership between multiple organizations, that are undertaken by a private nonprofit facility (e.g. church or resilience hub), undertaken by a public-private partnership, or achieved by combining multiple sources of federal funding.
This would seem to open the door for much larger and more ambitious projects that blend funds, and potentially for some really interesting PPP-experimentation.
Section 302 reforms the pre-disaster hazard mitigation program (section 203 of the Stafford Act) significantly. It moves from the BRIC structure that relies on states to recommend local governments for funding to a program where at least 50% of funds need to go to local governments implementing projects. It also converts the existing program - which was conceived as a competition - to a formula grant.
In the legislation, 40% of pre-disaster mitigation funds (what is currently BRICs budget) would be distributed equally among the states, 20% would be allocated to states with risk to their critical infrastructure (how are we defining infrastructure?), 20% towards states with relatively lower median incomes (read: Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky), and 20% to states with “the highest number of approved projects located in communities that meet the definition of an economically distressed community…or a rural area.” This last part has a LOT going on and we will be writing more about it at Urban later this week or early next…stay tuned.
There is a very interesting provision to establish a residential resilience retrofit program, costing not more than 10% of the annual pre-disaster mitigation budget. The kinds of activities listed (like home elevations, wildfire retrofits, tornado shelters) are broad and inclusive of different measures to strengthen the built environment. I also appreciate the ordering of a comprehensive report of this pilot…seems like there could be real incentive for innovation here, especially considering that these programs can be carried out through things like PPPs. I would LOVE to see this pass and get a chance to follow along and learn from all of the local implementations of the pilot.
Maybe my favorite part of the entire section of this bill - the Stafford Act would be amended to allow the federal government to provide the full federal cost share for mitigation projects BEFORE costs are incurred (!) This is up from just 25% of the federal share in the Stafford Act, and continues the theme of getting money into the hands of SLTT governments sooner (and with less red tape) than is currently allowable. I can’t emphasize how important this is, especially for smaller communities that simply can’t (or won’t) float mitigation project costs for YEARS while they wait for reimbursement.
Ok I lied, this is my favorite part of the section. The FEMA Act calls for study and reporting on the effectiveness, cost savings and strategic impact of federal mitigation spending. HUZZAH. I have been griping FOR YEARS that we can’t defend mitigation programs nearly well enough because we simply don’t have the data…everyone knows the 1:4 or 1:7 numbers from NIBS, but that is a single study and comes with lots of important caveats. How impactful and cost effective are state and local hazard mitigation plans? What are the losses avoided of specific large-ticket mitigation projects? What has been the real impact of mitigation spending on federal disaster outlays? Crickets.
That is my read. There are some other important things here…on building codes, utility resilience, etc. Overall I think the bill moves mitigation in the right direction. No, it doesn’t direct massive amounts more money towards pre-disaster mitigation or foundationally change the incentives or responsibilities for states to fund mitigation…it largely stays our current course by keeping our current system in place but improving its performance and potential.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments or on Bluesky, X or Linkedin.
PS - If you’ve made it this far, you might be just the type of reader who will want to tune into the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s markup of the FEMA Act, happening tomorrow (9/2/2025) at 10 a.m. EST.
Thanks for this breakdown! What’s an example of a pre-approved project?