FEMA Selects First Recipients to Administer Resilience Revolving Loan Fund
FEMA has announced the eight recipients selected to receive a combined $50 million in capitalization grants to help communities reduce vulnerability to natural hazards and disasters.
These capitalization grants, provided through the Safeguarding Tomorrow Revolving Loan Fund Program, will enable states, territories, tribes, and the District of Columbia to administer revolving loan funds that will help local governments carry out hazard mitigation projects that build community climate resilience.
The following eight applications will receive the first year of funding:
District of Columbia: $6.1 million
Louisiana $6.9 million
Maryland: $6.5 million
Michigan $5.1 million
New Jersey: $6.4 million
New York: $6.2 million
South Carolina: $6.4 million
Virginia: $6.1 million
Local governments may use capitalization grant funding to make structures more resilient to natural hazards. This includes improving flood control, implementing changes in zoning and land-use planning needed to adapt to a changing climate, and enforcing adoption of resilient building codes. Local governments may also apply the funding to satisfy their cost-share requirement for FEMA hazard mitigation assistance grants, lessening their financial burden to implement climate resilience activities.
As these loans are paid back to the states, the funding can be used to finance additional mitigation projects, providing a sustainable local source of financing for protecting communities.
The Safeguarding Tomorrow Revolving Loan Fund Program complements FEMA’s hazard mitigation grant portfolio to support mitigation projects at the local government level and increase the nation’s resilience to natural hazards and climate change.
Anna Weber, an adaptation policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Grist’s Jake Bittle that the program could help fill the gaps in FEMA’s still-nascent effort to finance climate adaptation.
“The underlying way that we distribute funding for hazard mitigation currently serves to drive resources to places that already have resources,” she said. “There’s a lot of potential for this program to slot into this patchwork of funding in a way that fills in some gaps.”
In this, the inaugural year of the Safeguarding Tomorrow Revolving Loan Fund program, FEMA said it received applications requesting a total of $181.8 million in capitalization grants to fund mitigation projects in their communities. This made the program more than three times oversubscribed for the $50 million available. The oversubscription in requests for grant funding demonstrates the growing need for mitigation investments nationwide.
The agency anticipates releasing the next funding opportunity later this fall. FEMA will offer technical assistance through webinars, office hours, website updates and program support materials to help existing and future participants and make use of this innovative program. This first year of the program will inform future funding opportunities and ensure long-term viability and success of the program at all levels.
