Climate Resilience: A Strategic Investment Approach for High-Priority Projects Could Help Target Federal Resources
Released: 2019-11-22T00:00:00

Letter

Background

This section describes (1) U.S. climate risks and related impacts, (2) enhancing climate resilience using a risk management strategy, (3) GAO’s Disaster Resilience Framework, and (4) benefits and costs of climate resilience projects.

U.S. Climate Risks and Related Impacts

Climate change poses risks to many U.S. environmental and economic systems, according to USGCRP’s Fourth National Climate Assessment. For example, high temperature extremes, heavy precipitation events, high-tide flooding events along the U.S. coastline, ocean acidification and warming, and forest fires in the western United States and Alaska have been observed and are all projected to continue to increase. In contrast, land and sea ice cover, snowpack, and surface soil moisture have been declining and are expected to continue to decline in the coming decades. Climate change is also altering the characteristics of many extreme weather and climate-related events, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment. Some of these events have already become more frequent, intense, widespread, or of longer duration, and many are expected to continue to increase or worsen. Furthermore, according to the assessment, many places are subject to more than one climate-related impact. Examples include extreme rainfall combined with coastal flooding, or drought coupled with extreme heat. The compounding effects of these impacts result in increased risks to people, infrastructure, and interconnected economic sectors.

According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, without significant reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions and regional efforts to pursue climate resilience, climate change is expected to cause substantial losses to infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century. The potential for losses in some economic sectors could reach hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the end of this century, according to the assessment.

Future climate risks are subject to several sources of uncertainty, as identified by USGCRP’s Fourth National Climate Assessment. According to the assessment, climate scientists find varying ranges of uncertainty in many areas, including observations of climate variables, the analysis and interpretation of those measurements, the development of new observational instruments, and the use of computer-based models of the processes governing Earth’s climate system. According to the assessment, the largest uncertainty in projecting future climate risks is the level of greenhouse gas emissions going forward, because the level of emissions depends on economic, political, and demographic factors that can be difficult to predict with confidence far into the future.

Enhancing Climate Resilience Using a Risk Management Strategy

According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, enhancing climate resilience entails a continuing risk management process through which individuals and organizations become aware of and assess risks and vulnerabilities from climate and other drivers of change, take actions to reduce those risks, and learn over time. In December 2016, we reported on a risk management strategy that may help guide federal climate resilience efforts. Enterprise risk management can help federal agencies identify, assess, and manage risks, such as preparing for and responding to natural disasters. In our report, we identified six essential elements of enterprise risk management: (1) aligning the enterprise risk management process to goals and objectives, (2) identifying risks, (3) assessing risk, (4) selecting a risk response based on risk appetite, (5) monitoring risks to see if responses are successful, and (6) communicating and reporting on risks. For example, we reported that assessing risks involves considering both the likelihood of the risk and the impact of the risk on the mission to help prioritize risk response. We also reported that selecting a risk treatment response involves leaders reviewing the prioritized list of risks and selecting the most appropriate treatment strategy to manage the risk.

GAO’s Disaster Resilience Framework

In October 2019, we issued the Disaster Resilience Framework to serve as a guide for analysis of federal action to facilitate and promote resilience to natural disasters. The principles in this framework can help identify opportunities to enhance federal efforts to promote disaster resilience, including building resilience to climate change. According to the framework, strategic resilience goals integrated across relevant national strategies can help decision makers work toward a common vision and help ensure focus on a wide variety of opportunities to reduce disaster risk. Federal efforts can focus attention on disaster risk reduction by creating resilience goals in all relevant national strategies and linking those goals to an overarching strategic vision. Federal efforts can also facilitate coordination and promote governance approaches that mitigate fragmentation by requiring or funding mechanisms to enhance the continuity of different efforts across jurisdictions. In addition, because much of the nation’s infrastructure is not owned and operated by the federal government, many resilience-related decisions ultimately are made by nonfederal actors, such as the states, and those decision makers face competing priorities. Incentives—in the form of federal regulatory requirements or as conditions of federal grant programs and cooperative agreements—can help promote investment in disaster risk reduction. As shown in figure 1, the framework is organized around three broad overlapping principles and a series of questions to guide analysis that can help users consider opportunities to enhance federal efforts to promote disaster resilience.

Each of the principles includes more specific sets of actions that those who oversee or manage federal efforts can consider when analyzing opportunities to enhance national disaster resilience. For example, according to the framework, bringing together disparate agency missions and resources that support disaster risk reduction can help to build a national culture of resilience. Accordingly, federal efforts can (1) facilitate coordination across programs, (2) facilitate the combination of federal funding streams, and (3) leverage the expertise of nonfederal partners.

Benefits and Costs of Climate Resilience Projects

Information on the benefits and costs of climate resilience projects suggests that such projects can convey benefits, such as protecting life and property from climate hazards, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment and other reports we reviewed. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, information on benefits is lacking in many sectors, though some information exists on the benefits and costs of resilience efforts in certain sectors, such as resilience efforts in coastal areas, resilience efforts designed to protect against riverine flooding (i.e., flooding that occurs when river flows exceed the capacity of the river channel), and resilience efforts related to agriculture at the farm level. According to this assessment, some of the actions in these sectors, at least in some locations, appear to have large benefit-cost ratios—both in addressing current variability and in preparing for future change. However, benefits may not exceed costs in some instances. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, more research is needed to comprehensively assess the benefits of specific strategies that individuals and organizations are considering.

Similarly, several other reports we reviewed also suggest that projects can convey benefits such as protecting life and property from climate hazards. For example, a 2018 interim report by the National Institute of Building Sciences estimated that benefits to society (i.e., homeowners and communities) would exceed costs for several types of resilience projects by protecting lives and property and preventing other losses, though precise benefits are uncertain. Specifically, this interim report examined a sample of hazard mitigation grants awarded by FEMA, the Economic Development Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 1993 through 2016 to address various hazards. These hazards included fires in the wildland-urban interface (i.e., fires in areas where homes are built near or among lands prone to wildland fire), hurricane- and tornado-force winds, and riverine floods. According to the interim report, for every grant dollar the federal government spent across the projects examined in the report, over time, society is estimated to accrue benefits amounting to the following:

About $3 on average from projects addressing the effects of fire in the wildland-urban interface, with most benefits (approximately 70 percent) coming from the protection of property (i.e., avoiding property losses).

About $5 on average from projects to address hurricane- and tornado- force winds, with most benefits (approximately 90 percent) coming from the protection of lives. This includes avoiding deaths, nonfatal injuries, and cases of post-traumatic stress.

About $7 on average from projects that buy out buildings prone to riverine flooding, with most benefits (approximately 65 percent) coming from the protection of property.

The interim report also projected that society could accrue benefits amounting to about $11 on average for every dollar invested in designing new buildings to meet the 2018 International Building Code and the 2018 International Residential Code—the model building codes developed by the International Code Council—with most benefits (about 45 percent) coming from the protection of property. The interim report has been cited by the Congressional Budget Office, in congressional hearings, and in other arenas to describe the benefits of investing in resilience. However, the benefit-cost ratios provided in the interim report are based on a relatively narrow set of disaster-loss data, and the report is not comprehensive.

In addition to conveying climate resilience benefits, such as protecting lives and property, climate resilience projects can also convey co- benefits—benefits beyond the primary protective function of resilience projects—according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment and several reports we reviewed. For example, according to a report by the National Academies, restoring coastal wetlands—a type of nature-based resilience project—may reduce an area’s vulnerability to coastal storms but could also provide co-benefits such as increasing biodiversity by creating new breeding grounds for fish and improving recreation and tourism amenities, thereby expanding the total potential benefits of a project. USGCRP officials we interviewed also told us that projects can convey a broad range of other co-benefits, including improvements in economic opportunity, human health, equity, and national security. However, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, quantifying these co-benefits can be difficult because different people value benefits differently.

Several factors can influence the likelihood that the benefits from resilience projects exceed the cost of implementing and maintaining the projects. For example, benefits from climate resilience projects implemented in high-risk locations, such as areas more exposed to hurricanes, are likely to be higher and therefore exceed project costs than projects implemented in other, lower-risk areas, according to one report we reviewed. Similarly, projects that protect high-value assets may also be more likely to have benefits that exceed costs, according to this report. Several factors that affect the extent to which project benefits exceed costs remain uncertain, according to several reports. For example, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, benefit–cost ratios can have large uncertainties associated with estimates of costs, the projection of benefits, and the economic valuation of benefits. Furthermore, according to the assessment, the benefits and costs of resilience projects are larger in scenarios with high emissions, but the level of future emissions remains uncertain.

The Federal Government Has Invested in Projects That May Convey Some Climate Resilience Benefits but Does Not Have a Strategic Investment Approach

Individual federal agencies have provided ad hoc funding for projects that may convey some climate resilience benefits, but our past work demonstrates an absence of government-wide strategic planning for climate change, and the federal government has not implemented key recommendations to improve strategic planning for climate resilience. In addition, the federal government does not have a strategic federal approach for investing in the highest priority climate resilience projects that includes periodically identifying and prioritizing projects as supported by enterprise risk management practices and our Disaster Resilience Framework.

The Federal Government Has Invested in Projects That May Convey Some Climate Resilience Benefits

Federal Mainstreaming Efforts Some agencies have made efforts to manage climate change risk within existing programs and operations—a concept known as mainstreaming—and these efforts may convey climate resilience benefits. For example, an agency planning to build a seawall to protect a coastal facility might build it higher to account for rising sea level projections. Alternatively, the U.S. military may consider climate change as part of existing construction plans on coastal installations by, for example, raising a building to include a “sacrificial” first floor and protecting critical assets—such as computer servers—from potential flooding by locating them on the building’s higher floors. The agency may use the sacrificial floor for parking. According to the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fourth National Climate Assessment, a significant portion of climate risk can be addressed by mainstreaming, which can provide many climate resilience benefits. However, according to the assessment, the practice may prove insufficient to address the full range of climate risks. Additional, strategic federal investments in large-scale projects—such as those discussed in our report—may also be needed to manage some of the nation’s most significant climate risks, since climate change cuts across agency missions and poses fiscal exposures larger than any one agency can manage. aim to reduce flooding and storm damage. These and other projects have the potential to convey climate resilience benefits by protecting communities from damage from flooding, storms, and other extreme weather events that may be exacerbated by climate change. The Corps of Engineers’ policy is to integrate climate change preparedness and resilience in all activities—a concept known as mainstreaming. However, the Corps’ civil works program balances several diverse missions related to navigation, ecosystems management, and flood control, among others. As a result, while projects may individually incorporate consideration of climate change risk and resilience, they may not be prioritized to address the most severe expected future climate change risks.

Even with ad hoc agency efforts, federal investment in projects specifically designed to enhance climate resilience to date has been limited. As stated in our Disaster Resilience Framework, most of the federal government’s efforts to reduce disaster risk are reactive, and many revolve around disaster recovery. To a lesser extent, the federal government also invests in activities to reduce risks not associated with a specific, recent disaster. As we reported in April 2018, since 1993 OMB has reported more than $154 billion spread across the government for federal activities to understand and address climate change. However, over that time frame, OMB reported only minimal funding directed specifically at climate resilience projects.

Our Past Work Shows an Absence of Government-wide Strategic Planning for Climate Change

We have issued multiple reports that review the federal government’s approach to addressing climate change, and these reports demonstrate an absence of government-wide strategic planning for climate change. Specifically, our past work identifies limitations related to strategic planning for climate change that include a lack of coordination, prioritization, and consolidation of strategic priorities. For example, we reported in October 2009 that the federal government’s emerging climate resilience activities were carried out in an ad hoc manner and were not well coordinated across federal agencies. In May 2011, we reported that federal officials did not have a shared understanding of strategic government-wide priorities related to climate change. In the same report, we found that there was not a consolidated set of strategic priorities integrating climate change programs and activities across the federal government.

In our March 2019 high-risk update, we reported that one area of government-wide action needed to reduce federal fiscal exposure is in the federal government’s role as the leader of a strategic plan that coordinates federal efforts and informs state, local, and private-sector action. For this 2019 high-risk update, we assessed the federal government’s progress since 2017 related to climate change strategic planning against five criteria and found that the federal government had not met any of the criteria for removal from the high-risk list. Specifically, since GAO’s 2017 high-risk update, four ratings regressed to “not met” and one remained unchanged as “not met.” (See fig. 2). We have made 62 recommendations related to the climate change high-risk area, 17 of which address improving federal climate change strategic planning. As of August 2019, no action had been taken toward 14 of those 17 recommendations—one dating back to 2003.

Executive Order 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth (Mar. 28, 2017). Executive Order 13653, Preparing the United States for the Impacts of Climate Change (revoked) (Nov. 6, 2013). Executive Order 13834, Efficient Federal Operations (May 17, 2018). Executive Order 13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade (revoked) (Mar. 19, 2015). The Mitigation Framework Leadership Group, an intergovernmental coordinating body, finalized the National Mitigation Investment Strategy in August 2019. However, as noted, our review of the strategy indicates that it does not include a detailed strategic approach to prioritize investments for disaster risk reduction that explicitly accounts for future climate change risks. According to FEMA officials, the strategy sets goals and recommendations that set the stage for developing approaches to address changing conditions. GAO, Climate Change: Improvements Needed to Clarify National Priorities and Better Align Them with Federal Funding Decisions, GAO-11-317 (Washington, D.C.: May 20, 2011); Climate Change: Information on Potential Economic Effects Could Help Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Fiscal Exposure, GAO-17-720 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2017); and Climate Change: Analysis of Reported Federal Funding, GAO-18-223 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 30, 2018). GAO, High-Risk Series: Substantial Efforts Needed to Achieve Greater Progress on High-Risk Areas, GAO-19-157SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 6, 2019).

The Federal Government Does Not Have a Strategic Approach for Investing in Climate Resilience Projects

The federal government does not have a strategic approach for investing in climate resilience projects—that is, an intentional, cross-cutting approach in which the federal government identifies and prioritizes projects for the purpose of enhancing climate resilience. Federal agencies may take actions to invest in projects with potential climate resilience benefits related to their own mission areas using funds from federal programs designed for other purposes. In addition, the National Climate Assessment provides high-level information on what is known about observed and projected climate risks in the United States. However, no federal entity looks holistically at the federal government’s investments to strategically prioritize projects to ensure they address the nation’s most significant climate risks and provide the highest net benefits relative to other potential projects. Several stakeholders told us that the federal government’s emphasis has been on funding post-disaster efforts instead of funding resilience projects before a disaster occurs. This is consistent with findings from our July 2015 report that most federal funding for hazard mitigation is only available after a disaster. In addition, according to FEMA officials, some of the agency’s hazard mitigation programs are designed to empower state and local governments to determine their mitigation funding priorities, and these state and local priorities may or may not align with the federal interest.

Although we did not identify a government-wide strategic approach specifically for investing in climate resilience projects, the National Mitigation Investment Strategy—a national effort under way to plan for pre-disaster resilience investments—represents a potential cross-agency vehicle for climate resilience planning. However, the strategy does not specifically address climate change or identify and prioritize specific climate resilience projects. In July 2015, we recommended that the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group—a multi-agency group led by FEMA to promote coordination of hazard mitigation efforts across the federal government—establish an investment strategy to identify, prioritize, and guide federal investments in disaster resilience and hazard mitigation-related activities and make recommendations to the President and Congress on how the nation should prioritize future disaster resilience investments. In response, in August 2019, the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group released a national strategy for advancing mitigation investment in the United States and increasing the nation’s resilience to natural hazards. The strategy acknowledges our 2015 recommendation and articulates several high-level recommendations that relate generally to climate resilience, including aligning program requirements and incentives. Specifically, the strategy states that successful risk mitigation requires shared priorities, consistent approaches, aligned funding, expanded incentives, and coordination between the federal government and nonfederal partners (i.e., state, local, tribal, and territorial governments and nonfederal organizations). However, the strategy does not explicitly address future climate change risks or include a strategic approach to identify and prioritize specific climate resilience projects for federal investment. According to FEMA officials, the strategy provides an overarching framework that can accommodate strategic investment related to changing conditions that impact disaster resilience. FEMA officials also told us that specific implementation strategies will be addressed in a later phase of the high- level strategy.

A Strategic Approach for Identifying and Prioritizing Resilience Projects Could Better Target Federal Investment at the Greatest Climate Risks

While current federal climate resilience investments are ad hoc and not aligned with the nation’s most significant climate risks, our past work and other sources show that an iterative and strategic risk-informed approach for identifying and prioritizing climate resilience projects could better target federal investment. In particular, in December 2016, we reported that enterprise risk management—which involves identifying and assessing risks, as well as preparing appropriate risk responses—can help federal agencies manage risks, such as preparing for and responding to natural disasters. Elements of enterprise risk management call for reviewing a prioritized list of risks and selecting the most appropriate strategy to manage those risks. Furthermore, according to our 2019 Disaster Resilience Framework, the integration of strategic resilience goals across relevant national strategies can help decision makers work toward a common vision and help ensure focus on a wide variety of opportunities to reduce disaster risk. For example, our framework states that in some cases federal efforts have been hindered by multiple agencies pursuing individual efforts without overarching strategies. In addition, the National Academies highlights the importance of an iterative approach to prioritizing climate resilience actions. According to the National Academies, many current and future climate change impacts require immediate actions to improve the nation’s ability to adapt, and possible options need to be prioritized based on where and when urgent action is needed. In addition, because knowledge about future impacts and effectiveness of response options will evolve, policy decisions to manage climate change risks can be improved if they are made in an iterative fashion, according to the National Academies.

However, no federal entity has been established to implement a strategic investment approach for climate resilience that includes identifying and prioritizing projects for federal investment in an iterative fashion. According to FEMA officials, without Congressional direction, no federal entity will identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment because existing federal programs are not designed to serve this purpose. Furthermore, investments by federal agencies are made according to their missions and operations within the federal investment guidelines put forth by OMB, according to officials from the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group. These officials explained that by law, agencies cannot make other investments, which hinders a more formalized climate resilience investment strategy at the agency level.

Several stakeholders told us that a strategic approach would allow for a more purposeful, coordinated, and comprehensive federal response to climate risks. Such an approach could help target federal resources toward high-priority projects—namely, those that address the nation’s most significant climate risks and provide the greatest expected net benefits relative to other potential projects—that are not already addressed through existing federal programs. In particular, a strategic and iterative risk-informed approach for identifying and prioritizing climate resilience projects for federal investment could supplement the agency- specific approaches to climate resilience investment currently carried out by individual agencies with different statutes, goals, constituencies, and funding streams. Such an approach presents an opportunity to enhance the nation’s resilience to climate change and reduce federal fiscal exposure.

Six Key Steps Provide an Opportunity for the Federal Government to Strategically Identify and Prioritize Climate Resilience Projects

Six key steps provide an opportunity for the federal government to strategically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects, based on our review of reports (including a National Academies report and the Fourth National Climate Assessment) that discuss adaptation as a risk management process, international standards, our past work (including our enterprise risk management criteria), and interviews with stakeholders. The six key steps are (1) defining the strategic goals of the climate resilience investment effort and how the effort will be carried out, (2) identifying and assessing high-risk areas for targeted resilience investment, (3) identifying potential project ideas, (4) prioritizing projects, (5) implementing high-priority projects, and (6) monitoring projects and climate risks. See Figure 3.

We use domestic and international examples—the Louisiana coastal master planning effort and the Canadian Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF), respectively—and the aforementioned sources to illustrate the six key steps for identifying and prioritizing climate resilience projects (see text box).

Domestic and International Examples of Approaches for Identifying and Prioritizing Climate Resilience Projects Two efforts—the Louisiana coastal master planning effort and the Canadian Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund—illustrate approaches for identifying and prioritizing resilience projects. The scale and purpose of each of these approaches is distinct, but both seek to identify projects that help enhance community resilience to several emerging risks, including risks associated with climate change.

Louisiana coastal master planning process: In 2005, the state of Louisiana consolidated coastal planning efforts previously carried out by multiple state and local entities into a single effort carried out by the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA). In this effort, CPRA periodically identifies high-priority coastal resilience projects designed to reduce flood risk and coastal land loss. With involvement from stakeholders from private industry and local communities, CPRA has published three coastal master plans in which it identified and evaluated potential projects. In Louisiana’s 2017 Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, CPRA identified $50 billion in high-priority projects to be implemented as funding becomes available.

Canadian Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund: In 2018, the federal government of Canada launched the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF), which seeks to enhance resilience by addressing the potential impacts of climate change in Canada. Canada’s DMAF is a financial assistance program that provides funds to other entities (e.g., Canadian provinces and territories, not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, local governments, and indigenous communities) for implementation. This US$1.5 billion fund will provide contributions over 10 years for large-scale, nationally significant projects that address a myriad of risks triggered by natural hazards such as floods, wildfires, and droughts. The DMAF also encourages partnerships between eligible recipients, according to a DMAF official. Canada’s DMAF effort is under way.

Step 1. Define the Climate Resilience Investment Effort’s Strategic Goals and How the Effort Will Be Carried Out

Reports, our past work, stakeholders, and our examples from Louisiana and Canada illustrate the importance of several steps to define the climate resilience investment effort, including defining the efforts’ strategic goals, designating an entity and providing authority for it to lead the effort, identifying participants and defining responsibilities, and determining how the effort will be funded.

Defining the Strategic Goals of the Effort

Clear strategic goals can yield more effective decisions about which projects to prioritize and increase the likelihood that projects are strategically aligned around a common purpose. In October 2011, we reported that strategic goals explain the purpose of agency programs and the results that they intend to achieve. Our domestic and international examples also demonstrate the importance of having defined strategic goals. Specifically, Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) defined five goals to guide its coastal master planning effort: reducing economic losses to homes and business from storm surge-based flooding, promoting sustainable coastal ecosystems, providing habitats for a variety of commercial and recreational activities across the coast, sustaining coastal Louisiana’s cultural heritage, and maintaining a viable working coast to support businesses and industry. The goal of Canada’s DMAF is to strengthen the resilience of Canadian communities through investments in large-scale infrastructure projects of national importance—including natural infrastructure projects—enabling these communities to better manage the risk associated with current and future natural hazards such as floods, wildfires, and droughts. This includes natural hazards that may be exacerbated by climate change.

Several stakeholders we interviewed identified potential strategic goals for a federal climate resilience investment effort, including increasing the resilience of communities to climate hazards and reducing federal fiscal exposure to climate change. Furthermore, several stakeholders explained that a goal of federal resilience investment should include helping communities that do not have the capacity to implement climate resilience projects on their own for various reasons such as limited funds to plan and implement such projects. According to one stakeholder we interviewed, because the federal role in investing in climate resilience projects could be broad, it will be necessary to precisely define the nature and scope of the funding effort in a way that is manageable, potentially restricting funding to resilience projects that would not occur without federal intervention. For example, federal resilience investment could focus on large-scale, long-term climate resilience projects that are otherwise too big, expensive, or cross-jurisdictional for local, state, or private-sector actors to address, according to several stakeholders.

Designating an Entity and Providing Authority for It to Lead the Effort

Based on our review of several reports and past GAO work and discussions with several stakeholders, various types of entities could lead a federal climate resilience investment effort. This could include various organizational arrangements such as a federal entity or interagency collaborative effort—task forces, special councils, interagency offices, or interagency working groups led by agency and department heads or program-level staff.

According to one stakeholder we interviewed, a federal climate resilience investment effort would need a high level of political support to be effective. Several other stakeholders explained that clear authority for the entity to conduct its work would be important to provide legitimacy for the effort and create buy-in among participants and the public. Authority for conducting a resilience effort could be provided via a legislative mandate or executive order. For example, in the case of Louisiana, the state legislature passed a law establishing CPRA, a state agency, in 2005 and providing it with a mandate to develop, implement, and enforce a comprehensive coastal protection and restoration master plan.

Identifying Participants and Defining Responsibilities

Identifying participants and defining responsibilities could involve identifying an interdisciplinary team of experts to help evaluate climate risk, generate project ideas, and evaluate projects. According to several stakeholders, experts should have a breadth of expertise in disciplines such as climate science, resilience, social sciences (e.g., economics), engineering, finance, urban planning, infrastructure, and knowledge of affected systems (e.g., transportation systems, public health, and ecosystems). Several reports and several stakeholders also identified the importance of involving representatives from the communities and groups impacted by potential projects, explaining that doing so can increase support for the process and help ensure projects meet communities’ needs. For example, a CPRA official told us that building trust and communicating projects’ necessity with external stakeholders is extremely important when prioritizing projects because some stakeholders will be directly impacted by certain projects. For this reason, according to CPRA officials, CPRA conducted extensive outreach with community groups and other stakeholders to understand their perspectives on projects under consideration and their potential impacts.

In addition, past GAO work identifies agreement on roles and responsibilities as one of several practices to enhance and sustain collaborative efforts. According to our September 2012 report, this includes considering clarity of roles and responsibilities and articulating and agreeing to a process for making and enforcing decisions.

Determining How the Effort Will Be Funded

Determining how the effort will be funded includes identifying potential funding options (discussed later in this report) and establishing a budget for investments in resilience projects. Based on the domestic and international examples we reviewed, there are different ways to identify a budget for resilience projects. The budget for Canada’s DMAF—the equivalent of about US$1.5 billion over 10 years—was established through the Canadian budget process. In contrast, Louisiana’s CPRA used economic analysis to identify the optimal budget for the coastal master planning effort—$50 billion—with funds for specific projects to be solicited from various federal and nonfederal sources.

Step 2. Identify and Assess High-Risk Areas for Targeted Resilience Investment

High-risk areas for targeted resilience investment could include regions of the country at high risk for climate hazards, economic sectors at high risk (e.g., agriculture, health, or energy), or severe or costly expected climate hazards (e.g., sea level rise), based on our review of several reports, illustrative examples, and interviews with several stakeholders. According to the National Academies and several stakeholders we interviewed, climate resilience actions should address climate hazards that are acute (e.g., the risk of more frequent or intense extreme weather) and chronic (e.g., sea level rise). In Louisiana, CPRA identified two climate risks—flooding risk and loss of coastal land—for targeted resilience investment.

The U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, a website designed to help people find and use tools, information, and subject matter expertise to build climate resilience, and several reports we reviewed identified several factors that influence a community’s level of climate risk. This information can help decision makers identify high-risk areas for targeted resilience investment. First, a community’s exposure is influenced by the population or assets exposed to a potential climate hazard (e.g., sea level rise, wildfire). For example, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, the expansion of human activity into forests and other wildland areas has been observed over the past few decades and is expected to further increase the exposure of people and property to fire risk. Second, the level of expected impact a community faces from a given climate hazard is influenced by the probability of a given climate hazard and its expected magnitude. Third, a community’s vulnerability to these hazards is influenced by its sensitivity to a given climate risk and its adaptive capacity—the ability to cope with stress or adjust to new situations. An area with high exposure but low sensitivity to a given climate hazard may have lower overall risk than an area with lower exposure to the same hazard but higher sensitivity. The degree of adaptive capacity can also serve to increase or decrease risks. For example, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, tribal nations are especially vulnerable to climate change because of their reliance on threatened natural resources for their cultural, subsistence, and economic needs.

We reported in September 2017 that while estimates of the economic effects of climate change are imprecise due to modeling and information limitations, they can convey useful insight into broad themes about potential damages in different U.S. sectors or regions. This information could help decision makers identify significant climate risks as an initial step toward managing them and provide insight into high-risk areas for targeted investment. For example, we reported in September 2017 that the two national-scale studies available at the time that examined the economic effects of climate change across U.S. sectors suggested that the potential economic effects of climate change could be significant and unevenly distributed across sectors and regions. According to one of the studies, the Southeast, Midwest, and Great Plains regions likely will experience greater combined economic effects than other regions, largely because of coastal property damage in the Southeast and changes in crop yields in the Midwest and Great Plains. (See fig. 4).

In addition, several stakeholders told us that USGCRP’s National Climate Assessment, which describes potential climate change risks to the United States, could help inform decisions about which regions of the country or climate risks to target for resilience investment. In addition, the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative has developed an interactive database that provides information on the level of climate risk U.S. cities face and these cities’ readiness to enhance resilience. Nevertheless, one official from the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group noted that identifying climate risks is challenging, in part, because opinions about which risks are most urgent will vary according to the perspective of the observer. According to the National Academies, even though there are still uncertainties about the nature, timing, and magnitude of climate change impacts, mobilizing now to increase the nation’s resilience can be viewed as an insurance policy against climate change risks.

Step 3. Identify Potential Project Ideas

Identifying potential project ideas that align with high-risk areas for targeted resilience investment is the third step in the process for identifying and prioritizing climate resilience projects for federal investment. Potential projects may differ in purpose and location and could include constructing hard infrastructure (e.g., flood defenses such as seawalls) and natural infrastructure (e.g., wetlands in coastal areas) to protect against climate hazards, relocating a community out of harm’s way, or developing a suite of projects designed to collectively address a climate hazard (e.g., wildfire risk or drought) in a particular region of the country, according to several stakeholders we interviewed and based on our review of several reports. From our interviews with several stakeholders and our review of our examples from Canada and Louisiana, we noted two methods for identifying ideas for resilience projects—”bottom up” and “top down”—that can be used individually or in combination.

Bottom-Up Method

Several stakeholders told us that project ideas could come from a “bottom-up” method in which the federal government seeks proposals from tribal, state, and local governments; regional groups; or other stakeholders for projects. For example, Infrastructure Canada, the federal department that administers the DMAF, sought project ideas from provinces, territories, municipal and regional governments, indigenous groups, and others. Under the DMAF, these entities applied directly to Infrastructure Canada for funding. Likewise, in Louisiana, CPRA also used a “bottom-up” method to identify projects by allowing citizens, state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, academics, and others to submit project ideas. Where necessary, staff at CPRA developed the more detailed plans needed to evaluate and operationalize the projects. CPRA officials said that involving the communities where climate resilience projects will be located in the project identification process helped create support for these projects.

Two stakeholders explained that the process for identifying potential project ideas must be sensitive to the fact that some communities do not have the administrative capacity to develop proposals. Otherwise, project ideas will primarily come from communities with ample institutional capacity, and locations with less administrative capacity—and the climate risks associated with these locations—will be missed. According to a 2014 report by the President’s State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, the federal government can drive more resilient community choices by, among other things, providing technical assistance to states, territories, tribes, and communities that lack capacity to adapt to climate change. In 2014, HUD launched the National Disaster Resilience Competition to fund disaster recovery and long-term community resilience in parts of the country that had recently been affected by major disasters. During the first phase of the competition, eligible states and communities impacted by a disaster from 2011 through 2013 could obtain technical assistance through resilience workshops. According to HUD, these workshops provided information and expertise to help communities understand resilience and identify various threats, hazards, economic stresses, and other potential shocks that could impact each community. The workshops also offered eligible applicants tools and concepts to better identify and assess their risk, engage with their communities, choose resilience- building opportunities, and develop strong applications.

Top-Down Method

Several stakeholders told us that projects could be identified through a “top-down” method, in which potential projects would be identified by an interdisciplinary group of federal officials and other experts. According to one stakeholder, a “top-down” method could facilitate consideration of cross-cutting projects that address multiple climate risks and regions of the country. In addition, according to two stakeholders, such a top-down method could help identify projects unlikely to be suggested by local stakeholders for various reasons, such as the local communities not having the administrative capacity to develop and submit such proposals or a local community’s interest being at odds with the national interest (e.g., relocation of a high-risk community when relocation would result in the loss of local tax revenue). However, officials from the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group explained that without the involvement of communities and prioritization of local needs, a top-down approach could be viewed as disconnected from community needs. In Louisiana, CPRA supplemented its “bottom-up” method with “top-down” identification of additional potential projects by, among other things, reconsidering past project proposals that were not selected and working with stakeholders to design potential projects.

Step 4. Prioritize Climate Resilience Projects

Prioritizing projects is the fourth key step in the process for identifying high-priority projects for federal investment. Based on our review of several reports and interviews with several stakeholders, prioritizing projects for federal investment should involve evaluating individual projects using scientific and data-based processes. For example, according to a 2010 report by the National Academies, managing risk in the context of enhancing resilience to climate change involves using the best available social and physical science to understand the likelihood of climate impacts and their associated consequences and then selecting and implementing the response options that seem most effective. Stakeholders we interviewed, the Louisiana example, and our past work indicate the need to solicit feedback from communities on the potential impacts of proposed projects. Furthermore, according to several stakeholders we interviewed, projects should be prioritized by an independent, interdisciplinary group of experts capable of assessing projects against measurable criteria. For example, according to Canadian officials, Infrastructure Canada seeks considerations on potential projects from two committees of experts: the first one is comprised of a panel of experts from other federal departments, and the other is comprised of nonfederal experts, including urban planners, sustainability professionals, and individuals with various regional expertise. We identified several potential criteria and tools that could be used to evaluate projects and identify those that are high priority, as described below.

Potential Criteria for Evaluating Projects

We identified various potential criteria for evaluating projects and assigning priority for federal investment, based on our review of reports, interviews with stakeholders, and the Louisiana and Canadian examples. Potential criteria fell into three general categories: goal-oriented criteria (i.e., criteria that measure the extent to which a project enhances resilience and meets other goals), efficiency criteria (i.e., criteria that measure a project’s ability to maximize efficiency, including by maximizing benefits and minimizing costs), and administrative criteria (i.e., other criteria that program administrators may want to consider). See table 1 for more details. The federal government can select a limited number of criteria for evaluation that align with the overall strategic goals of the climate resilience investment effort, based on our discussions with stakeholders.

Goal-oriented criteria. We identified several goal-oriented criteria— criteria that measure the extent to which a project enhances resilience to climate change and meets other goals—that decision makers may want to consider when evaluating which projects to prioritize, based on several reports we reviewed and stakeholders we interviewed. Several reports and several stakeholders suggested prioritizing projects that, among other things, focus on severe or costly climate hazards as well as climate hazards about which there is the most scientific certainty. Several stakeholders we interviewed explained that when prioritizing projects for implementation, it is important to consider a project’s potential to enhance resilience by protecting human lives, health, and safety, and assets that are critical, high- value, or culturally significant.

In addition, several stakeholders told us that decision makers should not place too much emphasis on the monetary value of avoided property losses from a project because doing so can overemphasize projects that protect high-value assets and leave socially vulnerable populations with limited economic resources less protected. According to one report, the loss of assets is more difficult for a poor household to absorb than a wealthy household that has more assets to begin with and more access to insurance and credit. Similarly, the Fourth National Climate Assessment notes that poor or marginalized populations often face a higher risk from climate change because they live in areas with higher exposure, are more sensitive to climate impacts, or lack the capacity to respond to climate hazards. Several stakeholders told us that to account for a lack of social equity, it is important to prioritize projects in communities that have limited capacity to enhance resilience without federal financial assistance, including communities with limited financial means.

In addition to these factors, several reports and several stakeholders discussed the importance of considering a project’s impacts on the environment, including its ability to protect unique or sensitive environmental habitats or species. Finally, several reports discussed the importance of considering the potential system-wide impacts of a project, including a project’s potential to provide benefits as well as the potential that risk may be transferred to neighboring communities. The DMAF applicant’s guide provides an example of potential risk transfer, explaining that the construction of new dikes along a river to protect a segment of the floodplain may confine the river, raising water levels upstream and increasing the velocity of the river downstream. This may reduce the hazard in the segment of river immediately adjacent to the structure but will transfer risk to upstream and downstream communities.

Efficiency criteria. We identified several efficiency criteria—criteria that measure a project’s ability to maximize net benefits—that decision makers may want to consider when evaluating which projects to prioritize. Several reports we reviewed identified the importance of considering how a project’s expected benefits compare to its costs to help ensure a project represents an efficient use of federal dollars. With respect to costs, one stakeholder identified the importance of considering the current costs of implementing a project as well as how costs might change in the future if a project’s implementation is delayed to a later date. With respect to benefits, several stakeholders indicated that while it can be difficult to estimate the monetary value of some benefits, it is important to consider all expected benefits— including co-benefits—as fully as possible to draw accurate conclusions about how a project’s benefits compare to its costs. For example, several stakeholders discussed the need to account for future benefits because much of the value of a climate resilience project may be realized far in the future as climate risks become more pronounced.

In addition, several reports identified ways to account for uncertainty about the specific nature of future climate risks when making decisions about which projects to prioritize. This includes, for example, prioritizing projects that provide benefits under a wide range of future climate scenarios or prioritizing projects that can be modified if future climate conditions are different than expected. In addition to these considerations, several stakeholders also suggested considering the long-term viability of communities being helped by a project. These stakeholders explained that some communities may face climate risks that are so severe over the long term that they preclude cost-effective investments in resilience. They explained that rather than make costly resilience investments in these communities, a more efficient use of federal funds might involve making investments in projects that help transition a community to a safer location. Similarly, according to a 2015 study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, given current and projected sea level and climate change trends, some of the built environment will become unsustainable for communities presently located there, which may mean that communities may have to relocate in a responsible manner to sustain their economic viability and social resilience. Another stakeholder suggested prioritizing resilience projects that are unlikely to be funded without federal investment, such as projects for the public good that do not generate revenue and likely would not attract private investors.

Administrative criteria. We identified several additional criteria that federal decision makers investing in climate resilience projects may want to consider when evaluating which projects to prioritize, including whether the project is feasible and timely. One stakeholder identified the importance of using federal dollars to invest in projects with novel resilience techniques since these projects otherwise might be unlikely to receive investment from other sources. For example, the Canadian DMAF awards merit to projects that offer effective solutions through unique innovative ideas. One stakeholder suggested that the federal government may want to consider the overall distribution of projects across hazards and regions to ensure that all hazards and regions of the country are getting at least some investment in resilience.

Tools for Evaluating Projects

Based on our review of several reports and illustrative examples, various tools used individually or in combination could help decision makers evaluate projects in order to identify high-priority ones and visualize project trade-offs. For example, using multi-criteria analysis involves decision makers identifying potential criteria, assigning weights to the criteria, ranking proposed projects against the weighted criteria, and using the results to compare projects and inform decisions about which projects to implement. In Canada, officials with the DMAF use multi-criteria analysis to rank potential resilience projects against multiple criteria including the extent to which projects strengthen community resilience and reduce the impacts of natural disasters.

Quantitative modeling is another tool that can help decision makers visualize the potential benefits and costs of proposed projects under multiple future climate change scenarios, and thus facilitate identification of high-priority projects. For example, in Louisiana, CPRA used computer modeling tools to evaluate how projects could reduce future land loss and flooding risk, among other effects. To account for uncertainty about future climate and economic conditions, the modeling tools estimated project outcomes under multiple future scenarios representing varied climate conditions (e.g., sea level rise and the frequency and intensity of storms), economic growth conditions, and other factors. According to the Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, information from the modeling tools helped support deliberations between CPRA and coastal stakeholders that helped identify high-priority projects for implementation.

Step 5. Implement High- Priority Projects

High-priority resilience projects can be implemented as funds become available, while decision makers consider the optimal timing of project implementation. For example, in Louisiana’s coastal master planning effort, CPRA identified $50 billion in projects to be implemented as various federal and nonfederal funding sources become available. CPRA sequences project implementation based on project effectiveness and benefits in the near term or the long term. See figure 5 for completed, ongoing, and planned projects.

Project implementation may be influenced by the presence of “windows of opportunity”—periods of time when outside factors make it advantageous or cheaper to implement a project, based on our review of several reports. For example, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, many jurisdictions and businesses have significant stocks of aging transportation, water, energy, housing, and other infrastructure, and new infrastructure investments and capital stock turnover provides one particularly favorable opportunity for low-cost, proactive climate resilience investment. In addition to the availability of funding and windows of opportunity, projects may also need final approval from a decision-making entity—the Minister of Infrastructure, in the case of Canada’s DMAF— before implementation. In the case of Louisiana, the state legislature must approve the overall master plan, although, according to a CPRA official, the legislature does not approve the inclusion of individual projects or project concepts.

Step 6. Monitor Projects and Climate Risk

Monitoring the projects being implemented and the state of climate risks can provide information to inform future decisions about high-priority climate resilience projects for federal investment. According to the 2010 report by the National Academies, policy decisions to manage risk can be improved if they incorporate the concept of “adaptive management”— monitoring progress in real time and changing management practices based on learning about and recognizing changing conditions. As an example, Louisiana’s CPRA monitors the performance of projects and the condition of the Louisiana coast using the results from these activities to adjust project management actions and inform future coastal master planning efforts.

We identified two options for focusing federal funding on high-priority climate resilience projects—coordinating funding provided through multiple existing federal programs with various purposes and creating a new federal funding source specifically for high-priority climate resilience projects—and these options have strengths and limitations. In addition, our analysis of these sources identified opportunities to increase the climate resilience impact of these two funding options.

Options for Focusing Federal Funding on High- Priority Climate Resilience Projects Have Strengths and Limitations

Options for focusing federal funding on high-priority climate resilience projects—coordinating funding provided through multiple existing federal programs with varied purposes and creating a new federal funding source specifically for high-priority climate resilience projects—have strengths and limitations, based on our review of our prior work, relevant reports, and the Louisiana and Canadian examples, as well as interviews with stakeholders. See table 2.

One option for focusing funding on high-priority climate resilience projects involves coordinating funds from multiple existing federal programs with varied purposes that were not designed specifically for climate resilience but whose purpose may be compatible with these projects. For example, the state of Louisiana’s coastal master planning effort uses multi-program coordination to fund projects. Specifically, funding for high-priority resilience projects identified in the master plan is provided via several federal and nonfederal programs designed for wetlands restoration, hurricane risk reduction, oil spill recovery, and community development, among other purposes, when the program’s purpose aligns with the project’s purpose. For example, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund—established in early 2013 as an outcome of plea agreements for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill—has been used to fund some projects consistent with the master plan that restore barrier islands and implement river diversions. Administrators of these federal and nonfederal funding programs, rather than CPRA, make decisions about how funds are to be spent, but they coordinate with CPRA to ensure decisions are consistent with the master plan.

As with the Louisiana example, high-priority climate resilience projects could be funded via one or more federal programs compatible with the project’s purpose. We identified federal programs related to flood control and hazard mitigation that could be used to fund individual projects that may convey climate resilience benefits, including FEMA’s hazard mitigation assistance programs (i.e., Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, Pre-Disaster Mitigation, Flood Mitigation Assistance, and Hazard Mitigation Grant programs), HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ civil works program. These programs are managed individually within their agencies and operate under different statutory authorities. However, no federal entity oversees funding for high-priority climate resilience projects, for example, by identifying which existing federal programs could be used to fund particular high-priority projects and coordinating the use of these programs to fund particular projects.

Based on our review of the Louisiana example, interviews with stakeholders, and a report we reviewed, we identified several strengths of coordinating multiple existing federal programs with varied purposes to fund high-priority climate resilience projects:

Leveraging existing programs. This option leverages an existing architecture of related federal programs and could encourage consideration of climate change in routine agency decisions, based on our interviews with several stakeholders and review of a related report. The federal government already has programs that address natural resources (e.g., coastlines, water resources, and forests) and human systems (e.g., public health, housing, and infrastructure) that will be affected by climate change, according to a 2010 report we reviewed and two stakeholders we interviewed. According to this report and stakeholders, rather than create an additional program to address climate change, it would be better to incorporate consideration of climate change into existing federal decision-making processes. Providing funding for high-priority climate resilience projects via existing federal programs could encourage agencies to think more intentionally about climate change on a regular basis when implementing their programs, according to several stakeholders we interviewed.

Providing access to specialists and expertise. Federal officials who have specialized, sector-specific knowledge (e.g., infrastructure, agriculture, or ecosystems) that can be useful when evaluating which projects to fund may have a greater opportunity to provide input if funding decisions are made within existing federal programs, according to several stakeholders. According to one stakeholder, specialized knowledge that resides within federal agencies is necessary when evaluating the trade-offs of potential projects that address diverse systems and assets. This stakeholder explained that, for example, evaluating a project to strengthen a shipping port against hurricanes requires different expertise than evaluating a project to protect the surrounding community against these hurricanes, and agency officials’ specialized knowledge would be useful in evaluating the value of such distinct projects.

Providing access to multiple funding sources. Using multiple existing federal programs means that multiple potential funding streams are available for projects. For example, one stakeholder whose community previously used federal funding to implement large- scale resilience projects said that when funding from one program is not available—for example, because the project does not match that program’s purpose or because of insufficient funds—having multiple existing programs from which to seek funding is advantageous. Similarly, Louisiana makes use of multiple federal and nonfederal funding sources to implement projects identified through its master planning effort.

On the basis of our review of the Louisiana example, relevant reports, and interviews with stakeholders, as well as our past work—including the Disaster Resilience Framework—we identified several limitations of using existing programs to fund high-priority climate resilience projects:

Administratively challenging to coordinate. Several stakeholders and a 2016 report we reviewed identified potential administrative challenges associated with using multiple existing programs with varied purposes to fund high-priority projects. For example, CPRA officials told us that the process of coordinating funding from multiple programs for coastal projects is complicated and requires dedicated staff to identify programs, assess whether projects meet program funding criteria, apply for funds, and ensure that program requirements are met. Several stakeholders told us that the budgets of existing programs may be too limited to fund large-scale climate resilience projects and that acquiring funding for a single project through multiple federal programs can be difficult. For example, FEMA officials told us that a potentially relevant FEMA program—the Pre- Disaster Mitigation Grant Program—has limited overall funding and restricts the financial size of a project, making it challenging to fund large-scale projects such as community relocation. Furthermore, according to a 2016 report about lessons learned from the HUD Rebuild by Design competition, grantees faced challenges combining funds from multiple programs to support comprehensive rebuilding visions because each program had its own procedural and administrative requirements, including different timelines for how and when the funds were made available. Similarly, according to our Disaster Resilience Framework, when multiple programs and activities and multiple funding streams are involved, there is a risk that the array of requirements will increase administrative complexity. As we reported in July 2015, jurisdictional officials engaged in disaster recovery have encountered complex review processes, conflicting federal guidance, and competing federal priorities that diminished the desire of localities to participate in resilience programs.

Programs may be siloed. Existing federal programs may be “siloed,” according to several stakeholders and two reports we reviewed, meaning that agencies may have limited visibility over how their projects affect other agencies’ mission areas or a limited ability to consider those effects. The two reports we reviewed identified challenges with siloed agency programs, including that they can discourage more holistic resilience projects with benefits in multiple sectors. For example, according to the 2016 report about lessons learned from the HUD Rebuild by Design competition, program rules may restrict the use of federal funds to certain activities (e.g., flood control), which can make it difficult to justify the additional cost of a more holistic resilience project with benefits in other sectors (e.g., a larger-scale flood control project with water quality co-benefits). According to the National Academies, climate resilience activities have the potential to be redundant or to work at cross purposes if they are not coordinated across sectors, actors, scale, and time frames. For example, the National Academies identified potential tradeoffs between resilience activities in the agricultural, water, and ecosystem sectors, such as increased irrigation in response to drought competing with natural ecosystem flows and domestic water needs.

Climate resilience is not the primary focus. Though it may be possible to use some existing federal programs to fund high-priority climate resilience projects, the primary purpose of these programs is not enhancing resilience to climate change, and they are not coordinated toward a common climate resilience goal, according to our work for this report. As a result, relying on existing programs for funding could result in inadvertent, ad hoc funding rather than intentional, coordinated, and strategic funding of high-priority projects, based on our past work and interviews with several stakeholders. In particular, according to FEMA officials, statutory and regulatory limitations could make it challenging to incorporate consideration of climate resilience into existing programs. Furthermore, according to several stakeholders, program funding criteria may not relate directly to climate resilience—this can lower the chance that climate resilience projects will receive funding. In our May 2014 report about DOD’s consideration of climate change in infrastructure planning, we reported that military installation officials rarely proposed climate resilience projects because the services’ criteria for ranking and funding potential military construction projects did not include climate change adaptation. In addition, a 2018 report about federal resilience policy we reviewed and several stakeholders we interviewed identified challenges with how cost-benefit formulas account for future climate risk when evaluating the costs and benefits of a project under consideration. Two stakeholders we interviewed told us that the discount rate—the interest rate used to convert benefits and costs occurring in different time periods to a common present value—used in federal cost benefit formulas may too heavily discount future benefits. They explained that when benefits accrue over long time horizons, this can result in future climate benefits appearing small relative to the current cost of project implementation and thus result in some climate resilience projects not being funded.

Existing programs may be reactive, not proactive. Some existing programs—for example, HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program and FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program—are limited to funding resilience projects after a disaster occurs, which may result in reactive instead of proactive funding, based on our review of our past work and discussions with several stakeholders. We concluded in July 2015 that funding hazard mitigation efforts in a post-disaster environment can create a reactive and fragmented approach in which disasters determine when and for what purpose the federal government invests in disaster resilience. Furthermore, tying climate resilience funding to a disaster can result in projects going unfunded in communities where there has not yet been a disaster but where there are legitimate risks from future climate change impacts—including chronic climate hazards such as sea level rise—according to several stakeholders we interviewed. For example, our past work and several stakeholders identified challenges in accessing funding from existing federal programs to relocate communities threatened by climate hazards, such as Alaskan native villages threatened by flooding and erosion caused by sea level rise. According to our June 2009 report, since many Alaskan native villages facing gradual erosion problems had not received a declared disaster designation, they did not qualify for some FEMA disaster recovery and hazard mitigation programs. In addition, according to a 2016 report we reviewed, disaster recovery programs tend to be reactive and backward looking, focusing on areas immediately affected by a disaster. This can limit the ability of grantees to fund projects that could more holistically reduce the full suite of future risks that a region or community face.

New Climate Resilience Funding Source

Another option for focusing federal funding on high-priority climate resilience projects involves creating a new funding source specifically for such projects. We identified two main ways a new funding source could be designed in the United States: (1) a federal financial assistance program that could provide grants, loans, or loan guarantees to nonfederal entities implementing high-priority climate resilience projects, or (2) a climate resilience infrastructure bank that could combine federal funds with funds from other sources to provide funding to nonfederal entities for implementing high-priority climate resilience projects.

The government of Canada employs both of these methods. Specifically, Canada created the DMAF as a one-time, centralized fund of about US$1.5 billion dollars for climate resilience projects over a 10-year period. Applications not eligible for or not selected to receive DMAF funding could be eligible under other infrastructure programs. Projects that could generate revenue are shared with Canada’s Infrastructure Bank for consideration.

Based on our review of the DMAF and interviews with stakeholders, we identified several strengths of creating a new funding source for high- priority climate resilience projects:

Administrative simplicity. Several stakeholders said that a new funding source avoids the administrative challenge of coordinating multiple funding sources to implement a large project or portfolio of projects. According to two stakeholders, such an option would avoid the challenge of having to utilize multiple programs with varying program rules, solicitation periods, and funding terms. Another stakeholder suggested that a single source would make it easier to track spending on climate resilience projects.

Focusing on high-priority climate resilience projects. Several stakeholders said that an advantage of a new funding source is that it would provide dedicated funding for projects undertaken for the explicit purpose of climate resilience. For example, Canadian officials said that with the DMAF, climate resilience projects do not have to compete with other infrastructure projects for funding as they do within other programs administered in Canada that include multiple eligible project categories (e.g., water, wastewater, public transit). Canadian officials told us that this increases the likelihood that large-scale, nationally significant climate resilience projects will be funded. According to another stakeholder, a new funding source for high- priority climate resilience projects would allow for a proactive focus on the most pressing climate resilience needs instead of reactive project funding through post-disaster spending. In addition, another stakeholder told us this option could encourage communities to think “intentionally” about developing resilience, rather than climate resilience being an afterthought. Furthermore, several stakeholders said that such a funding source could be used for projects that otherwise would not receive funding through existing programs. For example, some projects may not receive funding because they are not compatible with current programs or because current programs have limited funding.

Encouraging cross-sector projects. Several stakeholders told us that a new funding source for high-priority climate resilience projects could encourage cross-sector projects designed to achieve benefits in multiple sectors. According to one of these stakeholders, a dedicated fund for climate resilience could allow experts from multiple sectors— such as infrastructure, housing, transportation, and health—to collaborate on projects, leading to more creative, comprehensive approaches to enhance community resilience than would occur when funding projects through individual, existing federal programs. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, exploring the climate resilience nexus between sectors can identify co-benefits of resilience solutions and inform cost-effective resilience strategies. For example, the assessment describes co-benefits that resilience actions related to water consumption can have on the electricity sector. According to the assessment, California’s mandate to reduce urban water consumption to address drought conditions in 2015 resulted in significant reductions in both water use and use of electricity to treat and convey water and wastewater.

Based on interviews with stakeholders, we identified some limitations of creating a new funding source for high-priority climate resilience projects:

Practical challenges. Several stakeholders identified practical challenges with a funding source specifically for high-priority climate resilience projects. For example, such a funding source in the United States does not exist and would have to be created, which would require Congressional authorization. Furthermore, several stakeholders identified decisions that would have to be made about how to design such a funding source, including which agencies would be responsible for administering the fund. Two stakeholders identified additional challenges to success, such as designing effective programmatic rules and eliminating duplication with existing programs. For instance, if the funding source had overly restrictive or poorly designed rules, it might be challenging to use and provide only limited benefits relative to existing programs, according to one of these stakeholders.

Discouraging mainstreaming in existing federal programs.

Several stakeholders raised concerns that a new funding source for high-priority climate resilience projects could discourage mainstreaming climate change considerations into existing federal programs or lead to the elimination of other sources of funding for climate resilience projects. Several stakeholders explained that mainstreaming is a fundamental way the federal government will enhance resilience to climate risks. In particular, several stakeholders raised concerns that if federal agencies viewed a single funding source specifically for climate resilience projects as sufficient for addressing climate resilience, federal agencies might be less likely to consider climate change impacts when making routine agency decisions or place a lower value on climate resilience project attributes when making funding decisions.

Opportunities Exist to Increase the Climate Resilience Impact of Federal Funding Options

Opportunities exist to increase the climate resilience impact of options for focusing federal funding on high-priority climate resilience projects, based on our review of our past work, related reports, an international standard, and the Louisiana and Canadian examples, as well as interviews with stakeholders:

Using both existing and new funding options. Several stakeholders told us that using both funding options—multiple, existing federal programs with varied purposes and a new funding source for high-priority climate resilience projects—in a strategic, coordinated way could help increase the impact of federal investment. Several stakeholders told us that directing both funding options at high-priority projects could result in a more effective approach that makes it less likely that high-priority projects fall through the cracks and more likely that these projects will help agencies work toward a common strategic goal. Two stakeholders told us that in practice, multiple, existing federal funding sources that are not specific to climate resilience could be coordinated to fund projects when their purposes and rules align and adequate funding is available. A funding source specifically for climate resilience could be used to fund proposed projects when no related program exists or when existing programs do not have sufficient funding available, according to these and other stakeholders.

Helping ensure adequate and consistent funding. Several stakeholders we interviewed identified the need for adequate and consistent funding to implement high-priority climate resilience projects. For example, according to one stakeholder we interviewed, inconsistent, inadequate funding makes it difficult to complete large- scale projects and can lead to additional costs if significant delays occur during which existing work deteriorates. In addition, according to some international officials we interviewed for a May 2016 report, long-term consistency in budgeting provides predictable, reliable resources for climate resilience projects. According to USGCRP’s Fourth National Climate Assessment, adequate funding is a factor that contributes to the successful adoption and implementation of climate resilience by public-sector organizations. Furthermore, an industry standard identified the need to ensure that resources—including financial, human, and technical resources—needed for climate resilience actions are available. In addition to adequate and consistent funding, funding options should be designed to accommodate long-term projects since high-priority climate resilience projects can take multiple years to design and implement, according to two stakeholders we interviewed.

Encouraging nonfederal investment. Several stakeholders we interviewed told us that the federal government could use a federal climate resilience investment effort to encourage nonfederal investment in high-priority climate resilience projects, thereby increasing the impact of federal investment. For example, several stakeholders identified the importance of a cost-share component so that funding recipients are invested in a project’s success. Canada’s DMAF encourages nonfederal investment by partially funding projects of national significance and requiring different levels of cost-share from funding recipients, ranging from 25 percent for Indigenous recipients to 75 percent for private-sector and other for-profit recipients. Several stakeholders also identified potential funding mechanisms—for example, public-private partnerships and loan guarantees—that could leverage federal dollars to encourage additional investment in climate resilience projects by nonfederal entities, including the private sector. According to the 2014 President’s State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force report, one way the federal government can drive more resilient community choices is by encouraging innovative approaches that leverage private capital.

Encouraging complementary resilience activities. To increase the impact of federal investment, a federal resilience investment effort presents an opportunity to encourage complementary resilience activities by nonfederal actors such as states, localities, and private- sector partners, based on interviews with several stakeholders, the Canadian example, and reports we reviewed. Several stakeholders suggested establishing conditions that funding recipients must meet in exchange for receiving federal funding. Alternatively, according to the 2014 President’s State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force report and two stakeholders we interviewed, the federal government could use incentives (e.g., providing greater federal cost-share or giving additional preference in the project prioritization process) to encourage complementary resilience activities by nonfederal actors. Furthermore, our Disaster Resilience Framework states that incentives can make long-term, forward-looking risk reduction investments more viable and attractive among competing priorities. Specifically, incentives can lower the costs or increase the benefits of risk-reduction measures, which can help stimulate investment by state and local governments, individuals, and the private sector.

The federal government could use a federal resilience investment effort to encourage several types of complementary resilience activities by nonfederal actors. For example, the federal government could encourage the use and enforcement of building codes that require stronger risk-reduction measures, according to two reports we reviewed and several stakeholders we interviewed. In the case of the DMAF, to be eligible for federal funding, all projects under the DMAF must meet or exceed building code requirements for their jurisdiction. In addition, several stakeholders suggested using a federal investment effort to encourage communities to limit or prohibit development in high-risk areas to minimize risks to people and assets exposed to future climate hazards. One example of this would be through zoning regulations. Another stakeholder suggested that communities receiving federal funding for resilience projects should be adequately insured against future climate risks so they have a potential source of funding for rebuilding in the event of a disaster.

Allowing funds to be used at various stages of project development. Several stakeholders suggested that federal funds be allowed for use at multiple stages of project development—such as project design, implementation, or monitoring—to increase the impact of federal funds. For example, two stakeholders we interviewed told us that resilience projects can require significant amounts of design work to develop an implementable and effective project concept and that making funds available for project design could improve the quality of project proposals, thereby maximizing the impact of federal funds. Similarly, a CPRA official explained that many project proposals for Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast are in the “concept stage” when they are received so funds are needed to refine the concept and craft an implementable project design. In addition to providing federal funds for project design, one stakeholder suggested making federal funding available to measure project outcomes (e.g., how effectively projects increased resilience) to improve future decisions by both the federal government and others making resilience investments.

Conclusions

Individual federal agencies have provided ad hoc funding for projects that may convey some climate resilience benefits using existing federal programs. However, the federal government does not have a strategic approach for investing in climate resilience projects that targets federal resources toward projects that address the nation’s most significant climate risks. USGCRP projects that disaster costs will likely increase as certain extreme weather events become more frequent and intense due to climate change. The rising number of natural disasters and increasing reliance on the federal government for assistance is a key source of federal fiscal exposure. Investment in climate resilience projects can help prepare the country for the effects of climate change. We found that to strategically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment, the federal government could take six key steps, based on reports we reviewed, past GAO work, international standards, and stakeholders we interviewed. In addition, opportunities exist to increase the climate resilience impact of funding options, such as by encouraging the use of climate-resilient building codes. However, no federal agency, government-wide coordinating body, or other organizational arrangement has been established to periodically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment.

Our past work and other sources highlight the importance of a strategic and iterative risk-informed approach to climate change and the need to reduce the federal government’s fiscal exposure. However, the federal government has made little measurable progress since 2017 to reduce its fiscal exposure to climate change. Although we have made 17 recommendations that address improving federal climate change strategic planning, as of August 2019, no action had been taken toward implementing 14 of those recommendations—one dating back to 2003. A strategic and iterative risk-informed approach for identifying and prioritizing climate resilience projects for federal investment, with an appropriate organizational arrangement, could help target federal resources toward climate resilience projects that have the greatest expected net benefit and that address the nation’s most significant climate risks.

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Congress should consider establishing a federal organizational arrangement to periodically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment. Such an arrangement could be designed for success by considering the six key steps for prioritizing climate resilience investments and the opportunities to increase the climate resilience impact of federal funding options identified in our report. (Matter for Consideration 1)

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group for review and comment. These entities provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the appropriate congressional committees, the Executive Director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and other interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or gomezj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix II.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

In this report, we examine (1) the extent to which the federal government has a strategic approach for investing in climate resilience projects; (2) key steps that provide an opportunity for the federal government to strategically prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment; and (3) strengths and limitations of options for focusing federal funding on high-priority climate resilience projects.

To address all three audit objectives, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 35 stakeholders with relevant expertise, including federal officials, researchers, and consultants. We used a snowball approach to identify stakeholders with expertise on the topics addressed by our report. This involved identifying an initial list of stakeholders with expertise in climate resilience and hazard mitigation by reviewing related reports and based on stakeholder involvement in related present or past federal efforts—for example, work conducted by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)—the federal program responsible for coordinating climate change research and preparing the Fourth National Climate Assessment. We identified additional stakeholders with expertise in these and other relevant areas through interviews with this initial group of stakeholders and review of additional reports. We considered several factors when selecting stakeholders: the relevance of their expertise, the number of times they were recommended to us by other stakeholders as having relevant expertise, and their current or previous federal experience. We sought a balanced set of stakeholders with expertise in a variety of fields that could inform climate resilience decisions: climate resilience, decision sciences, hazard mitigation, economics and finance, insurance, engineering and project design, economic and community development, potentially related federal programs (e.g., Federal Emergency Management Agency hazard mitigation programs), and several affected resources (e.g., coasts, infrastructure, water resources, and ecosystems). We use the term “several” to represent three or more stakeholders or reports expressing a particular viewpoint. In other cases, we provide the exact number of stakeholders expressing a particular viewpoint. Because this is a nonprobability sample, our findings cannot be generalized to other stakeholders we did not interview. Rather, these interviews provided us with illustrative examples of (1) the extent to which the federal government has a strategic approach for investing in climate resilience projects, (2) key steps that provide an opportunity for the federal government to strategically prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment, and (3) strengths and limitations of options for focusing federal funding on high-priority climate resilience projects. In addition, the specific areas of expertise varied among the stakeholders we interviewed, so not all of the stakeholders commented on all of the interview questions we asked.

To determine the extent to which the federal government has a strategic approach for investing in climate resilience projects, we reviewed past GAO work on federal efforts related to climate resilience and climate change funding as well as reports from the Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office, the Council on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, USGCRP, and other sources. We also reviewed federal documents, including the National Mitigation Investment Strategy—a national strategy for mitigating natural hazards. We interviewed officials from USGCRP and FEMA, the federal agency responsible for leading the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group, the interagency group that developed the National Mitigation Investment Strategy under Presidential Policy Directive 8. We also interviewed several other stakeholders on the extent to which the federal government has a strategic approach for investing in climate resilience projects and the nature and scope of the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group’s activities. We reviewed federal documents and websites to identify examples of instances in which federal programs and funding sources designed for other purposes, such as disaster funding, have been used to invest in climate resilience projects.

To identify key steps that provide an opportunity for the federal government to strategically prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment, we reviewed our prior work related to risk management, climate change, climate resilience, and hazard mitigation, including our Disaster Resilience Framework and enterprise risk management report. We also reviewed approximately 50 reports and other sources to identify steps that provide an opportunity for the federal government to strategically identify high-priority climate resilience projects, several of which contained examples of potential criteria the federal government could consider when prioritizing these projects. We identified these reports and other sources through our review of other reports and related news, discussions with stakeholders, and searches of databases such as Scopus and ProQuest. The reports we reviewed included climate resilience planning guidebooks that outline steps communities can follow to design a resilience plan to address climate risks. We also interviewed stakeholders with relevant expertise to gather information on key steps the federal government could take and criteria it could consider to strategically prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment. During the course of this work, we identified domestic and international examples of governments that invest in climate resilience and related projects. We selected two of these examples for more in-depth review and presentation in the report: the state of Louisiana’s coastal master planning effort and the country of Canada’s Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund. These examples represent distinct approaches for investing in high-priority projects that help communities adapt to emerging risks such as those associated with climate change. We selected these examples for further review because they focus on projects that are large in scale; are of national or statewide significance; address multiple risks; represent well-defined, current processes for identifying and prioritizing projects; and had sufficient information available to understand their approach.

To examine the strengths and limitations of options for focusing federal funding on high-priority climate resilience projects, we identified relevant examples of the strengths and limitations of federal funding options in several of the reports we mentioned above. Where appropriate, we supplemented this review with a review of additional reports that discussed specific financial mechanisms that the federal government could use to fund large-scale climate resilience projects. We also interviewed stakeholders to discuss the strengths and limitations of options the federal government could use to fund climate resilience projects. When available, we gathered their views on specific funding sources that the federal government could use to fund large-scale climate resilience projects and additional steps that the federal government could take to enable more targeted federal resilience investment.

We conducted this performance audit from January 2018 to October 2019 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Joe Thompson (Assistant Director), Paige Gilbreath (Analyst in Charge), Taiyshawna Battle and Celia Rosario Mendive made key contributions to this report. Also contributing to this report were Colleen M. Candrl, Alicia P. Cackley, Kendall Childers, Steven Cohen, Christopher Curry, Cindy Gilbert, Kathryn Godfrey, Holly Halifax, Carol Henn, Susan Irving, Richard Johnson, Gwendolyn Kirby, Caroline N. Prado, Joseph Maher, Gregory Marchand, Diana Maurer, Kirk Menard, Tim Persons, William Reinsberg, Oliver Richard, Danny Royer, Jeanette Soares, Kiki Theodoropoulos, Sarah Veale, Patrick Ward, Jarrod West, Kristy Williams, Eugene Wisnoski, and Melissa Wolf.