Overcoming the Climate Justice Gap in Spending “Build Back Better” Billions
How to break a longstanding pattern in which prosperous communities get the most federal disaster-risk dollars
I love beaches as much as anyone. But how much should all Americans pay to "renourish" beaches, particularly in prosperous areas, all while facing centuries of rising seas with only the pace of the rise in question?
And how much will the country's most vulnerable communities share in the tens of billions of dollars in spending for climate-resilient infrastructure coming under the recently-passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (with more nigh if the Senate passes the Build Back Better Act)?
These are communities that also typically have the least capacity to seek government money.
And there's an inherent bias in government (or corporate or philanthropic) investments toward projects and programs that are easy to measure using traditional means.
Think about a typical infrastructure project, gauged in cubic yards of beach sand or miles of levees. Then think about what you'd invest in to boost the resilience or adaptive capacity of a community that has been been prejudicially marginalized for generations and faces outsize danger from heat, flooding or other environmental hazards.
The difference, to me, is conveyed in these images - of the Maldonado family, one of thousands whose homes were swamped by Hurricane Ida in Louisiana, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "Operation Big Beach" project in Virginia.
Operation Big Beach has been deemed a grand success, estimated to have averted storm losses totaling more than three times its $143 million cost. That fits the longstanding requirement for such projects that they save more than they cost. That's great. But such tallies implicitly favor places with the most physical or financial assets at stake.
The Maldonado family, in Barataria, Louisiana, and so many others battered by extreme events end up living in a long shadow of harms and costs - ranging from debt to interrupted childhood education.
As they took a boat to their trailer on August 31, Fusto Maldonado, the father, told Getty photographer Brandon Bell, "My family has lost everything and we're now trying to find help. We all live in this area and now it's all gone." (I'll try to track Maldonado down for an update.)
Where's the ribbon-cutting ceremony or victory march for transforming their lives?
President Biden signed the infrastructure bill into law on Nov. 15. (White House photo)
These questions are fortunately getting scrutinized with new intensity as the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress slowly hash out the next phase of the president's diminished, but still historic, investment in rebuilding America's rusting, flooding, overheating, eroding foundations and communities.
The need is clear and the Biden administration and allies know the path, which can be seen in the wider mandate for government programs issued last spring: "Methods and Leading Practices for Advancing Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through Government."
A keystone is Biden's Justice40 initiative, described by his White House team as "a whole-of-government effort to ensure that Federal agencies work with states and local communities to make good on President Biden’s promise to deliver at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities."
But the impediments built into government operations are enormous.
One example was described recently by Jeff Schlegelmilch, the director of Columbia’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, in one of my Columbia Climate School Sustain What conversations.
In a discussion with the disaster expert Samantha Montano and Federal Emergency Management Agency director Deanne Criswell, Schlegelmilch offered a look at the new FEMA program called BRIC, for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities.
It's exactly what's needed and is all too rare in government - a pipeline for proactive investments that cut vulnerability before the worst happens. The billion-dollar program aims "to support states, local communities, tribes and territories as they undertake hazard mitigation projects, reducing the risks they face from disasters and natural hazards."
But Schlegelmilch, who is also the author of Rethinking Readiness, said pursuing such grants is easier said than done for communities without resources.
"These are not easy grants to write," he said. "These take a lot of technical expertise, a lot of time. One of FEMA's pillars of their strategic plan is to simplify FEMA. I don't know how much of that is actually doable by FEMA and how much has to come in legislation.... I'm all for legislating more money, but we also need to legislate easier ways to access that money. Otherwise only those who can afford lawyers and professional grant writers will succeed."
Those with resources get resources
In the meantime, communities with resources have every advantage, as was vividly described in a fresh New York Times story on BRIC by Christopher Flavelle, a top reporter on the adaptation beat.
Here's how Flavelle summarized the situation in a tweet: “Biden says he wants to focus billions in climate resilience money on disadvantaged communities. But much of that money goes through competitive grant programs that tend to do just the opposite - and it's not clear if his team has found a way around that.”
His article noted that most of the first-round winners of BRIC grants this summer "were wealthy, predominantly white areas in a handful of coastal states."
The story centered on an analysis of the grantees by Anna Weber of the Natural Resources Defense Council. In her report, she wrote:
"Only about 9 percent of the proposed BRIC sub-applications were from 'small, impoverished' communities. Two were selected under the national competition: one for resilient infrastructure development in Princeville, NC and one for a vertical tsunami evacuation structure in Westport, WA. However, the criteria for small, impoverished communities—which are determined by Congress—are very narrow, excluding any locality larger than 3,000 people. This leaves many communities in a 'donut hole' where they do not receive priority points or a better cost share but still struggle to compete for funding."
To get a closer-focus look at how federal disaster-mitigation money, under existing laws and rules, follows monetary risk more than wider community needs, explore this immersive Bloomberg report: "Unlimited Sand and Money Still Won’t Save the Hamptons."
I hope you'll read every word by Polly Mosendz and Eric Roston and explore the illuminating Jeremy C.F. Lin graphics. As they write, over the next 30 years, $1.5 billion will be spent to help limit storm and surge risk along 83 miles of Long Island waterfront in the Fire Island to Montauk Point project managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers map of the Fire Island to Montauk Point project
This paragraph must be excruciating for anyone in a low-income, front-line community vying for federal resilience dollars:
In managing the immense flow of federal funds into the region, the Corps says it’s acting to forestall the most economic damage. 'We are spending the money where we get the biggest bang for our buck,' says James D’Ambrosio, a spokesman for the Army Corps in New York. 'It may sound hardhearted, but to be fiscally responsible and to be stewards of taxpayer money, we have to abide by the greater benefit of the public good.'
D'Ambrosio and the Corps aren't evil. This is their job until your elected officials change it.
I'm convinced the Biden team is doing the best it can to overcome decades of institutional, legislated bias in existing programs. The Justice40 commitment also provides a focal point and measuring stick for those pressing for change.
But it won't be easy, as Maria Rachal reported for Smart Cities Dive last summer in "Equity concerns drive changes to federal community hazard mitigation program."
Here's a sobering insight from the article from Amelia Muccio, director of mitigation at Hagerty Consulting, which helps various clients prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters:
"Outreach to disadvantaged communities is very, very difficult," said Muccio, who has a background in public health work. "What works in more resourced areas, it's not the same approach we could take when we were going out to rural communities ... So while I think we're trying to focus on equity and these communities, nothing's really changed in getting that message down to them."
I'll be writing a lot more on this theme and crave your help identifying examples showing progress or illuminating areas of injustice and abuse.
Please weigh in with a comment below or use the feedback form!
Resources
I hope you (and the Biden administration) will explore "Making Justice40 a Reality for Frontline Communities," a new report from The Justice 40, a coalition of organizations, practitioners and scholars (along with the Luskin Center for Innovation at UCLA) that identified state-level initiatives providing models for how to shape Biden administration equity efforts.
Here are the core points:
Develop an accountability framework with clear objectives rooted in equity to guide agencies as they implement the Justice40 Initiative.
Identify who and where to target investments by using screening tools that identify and track the five types of disparities.
Set clear, accessible funding guidelines for the communities that need them most
Update and design investment programs that strengthen frontline communities by providing technical assistance and capacity-building services.
The Nicholas Institute at Duke University hosted a recent illuminating discussion on "Advancing an Inclusive and Just U.S. Climate Resilience Strategy":
Relevant Sustain What posts
To Spend Infrastructure Billions Without Worsening Climate Risks, "Unbuild" Back Better, Too
As Extreme Storms Strike Again, It's Time to Shake out Community Climate Vulnerabilities
Behind Global "Climate Emergency" Rhetoric, Solvable Vulnerability Emergencies Abound
Columbia Climate School Sustain What webcasts
In Crowding Climate Danger Zones, Seeking Paths to ‘Managed Retreat’
Pathways to Change and Justice for Underserved and Indigenous Communities Along Changing Coastlines
Here are two of dozens of great sessions at the June, 2021, Columbia Climate School conference "At What Point Managed Retreat? Resilience, Relocation and Climate Justice":
Before You Jump Ship: How to Engage Coastal Communities
Managed Retreat - Policy, Equity and Relocation
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Parting shot
Here's a classic instance of "sunny day flooding" I experienced several years ago after a visit with leaders of the Isle de Jean Charles band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe in Louisiana. You can learn about and support their post-Hurricane Ida recovery effort here.
