Challenges we identified with disaster resilience as long ago as 1980 have persisted and were reflected in our work on disaster mitigation in 2007, as well as recent studies such as a 2012 National Academies National Research Council (NRC) study on disaster resilience. We testified in January 1998 that, for a number of reasons, state and local governments may be reluctant to invest in resilience-building efforts. For example, leaders may be concerned that hazard mitigation activities will detract from economic development goals and may perceive that mitigation is costly and involves solutions that are overly technical and complex. In our work on hazard mitigation issued in August 2007, we found that these issues persisted. We reported that hazard mitigation goals and local economic interests often conflict, and the resulting tension can often have a profound effect on mitigation efforts. For example, we reported that community goals such as building housing and promoting economic development may be higher priorities than formulating mitigation regulations that may include restrictive development regulations and more stringent building codes. In particular, local government officials we contacted as part of that work commented that developers often want to increase growth in hazard-prone areas (e.g., along the coast or in floodplains) to support economic development. These areas are often desirable for residences and businesses, and such development increases local tax revenues but is generally in conflict with mitigation goals. In 2012, the National Academies National Research Council (NRC) issued a report on disaster resilience, noting that understanding, managing, and reducing disaster risks provide a foundation for building resilience to disasters. Risk management—both personal and collective—is important in the resilience context because the perceptions of and choices about risk shape how individuals, groups, and public- and private-sector organizations behave, how they respond during and after a disaster event, and how they plan for future disasters. However, the National Academies report described a variety of challenges that affect risk management. As with our 1998 and 2007 work, one of the key challenges the NRC reported for state and local governments was reluctance to limit economic development with resilience measures. We testified in January 1998 that individuals may also lack incentives to take resilience-building measures. We noted that increasing the awareness of the hazards associated with living in a certain area or previous experience with disasters do not necessarily persuade individuals to take preventive measures against future disasters. Residents of hazard-prone areas tend to treat the possibility of a disaster’s occurrence as sufficiently low to permit them to ignore the consequences. We have also reported that the availability of federal assistance may inhibit actions to mitigate disaster losses. As long ago as 1980, we reported that individuals may not act to protect themselves from the effects of severe weather if they believe the federal government will eventually help pay for their losses. The 1993 National Performance Review also found that the availability of post-disaster federal funds may reduce incentives for mitigation. Moreover, FEMA’s 1993 review of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program concluded that at the state level there is “the expectation that federal disaster assistance will address the problem after the event. Concerns about individuals’ ability to appropriately evaluate risk and take action to protect themselves continued in our August 2007 work when we reported that individuals often have a misperception that natural hazard events will not occur in their community and are not interested in learning of the likelihood of an event occurring. Likewise, the 2012 NRC report on disaster resilience identified the key risk management challenge for homeowners and businesses in hazard-prone areas is the fact that they may be unaware of or underestimate the hazards that they face. In January 1998, we described three sets of issues that complicate assessing the cost-effectiveness of actions to build resilience. At the same time, we testified that a lack of comprehensive, reliable data to make decisions about cost-benefit tradeoffs may also inhibit local governments from deciding to invest in hazard mitigation activities. First, we noted that by definition, natural hazard mitigation reduces the loss of life and property below the levels that could be expected without mitigation, but it is impossible to measure what loss would have been incurred without mitigation. Second, the dispersion of mitigation funds and responsibilities across various agencies makes it difficult to determine the collective benefit of federal efforts. Finally, we noted that federal savings depend on the frequency of future disasters and the extent to which the federal government will bear the resulting losses, which is unknown. Moreover, in 2007 we reported that limited public awareness may also be a result of the complexity of the information that is needed for individuals to understand their hazard risks. We concluded that for local decision makers to develop mitigation strategies for their communities they need appropriate and easily understandable information about the probability of natural hazards and that efforts to improve public awareness and education are long-term and require sustained effort. Similarly, in our February 2014 testimony on limiting fiscal exposure from and increasing resilience to climate change, we noted that local decision makers need expert assistance translating climate change information into something that is locally relevant. The 2012 NRC study identified understanding how to share scientific information with broad audiences as one of the key challenges for resilience researchers. The challenges we identified in prior work—competing priorities for state and local governments, imperfect individual risk decision making, and imprecise, incomplete, and complex information about both risk and benefits—are difficult issues that are likely to persist. These issues are longstanding and difficult policy issues. Indeed, the increasing number of federal disaster declarations and the growing role of the federal government in funding post disaster relief and recovery efforts may serve to exacerbate some of the inherent challenges. We are encouraged that DHS finalized the National Mitigation Framework in 2013 to coordinate interagency and intergovernmental efforts and that the framework established a Mitigation Framework Leadership Group to coordinate mitigation efforts of relevant local, state, tribal, and federal organizations. The framework and the group create an avenue for interagency and intergovernmental leadership to pursue solutions to these difficult policy issues. As part of our ongoing work, we plan to evaluate the status of the Mitigation Framework Leadership Group and the actions taken to date to apply the National Mitigation Framework in the context of recovery from Hurricane Sandy. In ongoing work on federal resilience efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, we identified three high-level actions that demonstrated an intensified federal focus on incorporating resilience-building into the recovery. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, President Obama signed Executive Order 13632 on December 7, 2012. The Executive Order created the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, chaired by the HUD Secretary and consisting of more than 23 federal agencies and offices. Among other things, the executive order charged the task force to work with partners in the affected region to understand existing and future risks and vulnerabilities from extreme weather events; identify resources and authorities that strengthen community and regional resilience during recovery; and plan for the rebuilding of critical infrastructure in a manner that increases community and regional resilience. The order also charged the task force with helping to identify and remove obstacles to resilient rebuilding and promoting long-term sustainability of communities and ecosystems. In August 2013, the Sandy Rebuilding Task Force issued the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy, which contained 69 recommendations to various federal agencies and their nonfederal partners aimed at improving recovery from both Hurricane Sandy and future disasters. Among these 69 recommendations are many that take into account the President’s charge to facilitate planning and actions to build resilience in the Sandy- affected region. Introducing the strategy, the task force chair acknowledged how critical it was that efforts to rebuild for the future make communities more resilient to emerging challenges such as rising sea levels, extreme heat, and more frequent and intense storms. The task force report notes that many of the recommendations have been adopted and describes actions underway to implement them as part of the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort. Key examples of long-term resilient rebuilding initiatives to address future risks to extreme weather events include the Rebuild by Design effort and the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program. In June 2013, HUD and its partners launched the Rebuild by Design competition to challenge communities to develop solutions to address structural and environmental vulnerabilities exposed by Hurricane Sandy. Of the 148 applicants, HUD selected 10 to move forward. The selected teams then worked with local stakeholders to tailor their projects to the communities and hosted over 50 community workshops to educate the communities on their proposals and the theme of resilience. On April 3, 2014, the final proposals were exhibited and evaluated by an expert jury. Winning design solutions may be awarded disaster recovery grants from HUD and other public and private partners. Some resilience aspects of the designs include elevating streets and adding breakwater systems. The New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program is another mitigation program that provides over $650 million for additional rebuilding and revitalization planning and implementation assistance to Sandy-affected communities. As of May 2014, six regions of New York composed of 102 localities and 50 New York Rising communities created plans that assessed storm damage and current risk, identified community needs and opportunities, and developed recovery and resilient strategies. Each locality is eligible for $3 million to $25 million from HUD and other public and private partners. According to the State of New York, as of May 2014, multiple projects had been awarded funding. As part of our ongoing work on resilience-building as part of the Hurricane Sandy recovery, we are identifying recommendations from the task force report that particularly support resilient rebuilding and assessing the actions taken to date to implement them. We plan to issue a report on these issues later this year. In January 2013, Congress passed and the President signed the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013 (Sandy Supplemental), which appropriated about $50 billion in funding to support recovery. The Sandy Supplemental appropriated funds—primarily for programs and activities associated with recovery from Hurricane Sandy— to nineteen federal agencies. Among the nineteen agencies, four—DHS, HUD, the Department of Transportation (DOT), and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)—received amounts that represent over 92 percent of the total with appropriations ranging from $5 billion to $15 billion.