FEMA ANNOUNCES NEARLY $3 BILLION IN FUNDING SELECTIONS TO DRIVE
RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS
[https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20230828/fema-announces-nearly-3-billion-funding-selections-drive-resilience-climate]


Release Date: 
August 28, 2023 

Today, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, FEMA
Administrator Deanne Criswell, and Senior Advisor to the President and
White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu announced
project selections for nearly $3 billion in climate resilience funding
as part of President Biden’s Investing in America
[https://www.whitehouse.gov/invest/] agenda. The selections, through
two competitive grant programs, will help communities across the
nation enhance resilience to climate change and extreme weather
events.

Today’s selections include $1.8 billion for critical resilience
projects funded by the Building Resilient Infrastructure and
Communities
[https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/building-resilient-infrastructure-communities/after-apply/selections]
(BRIC) national competition and $642 million for Flood Mitigation
Assistance [https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/floods] (FMA)
community- scale flood mitigation projects. These selections build on
$160 million
[https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20230519/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-160-million-build-climate]
in BRIC and FMA selections that FEMA announced in May for efforts to
support mitigation projects, project scoping, and adoption of
hazard-resistant building codes. Combined, the funds awarded this
grant cycle of the BRIC and FMA programs total nearly $3 billion
including management costs.

“We are extremely pleased to announce that projects in Connecticut,
Maine and Massachusetts have been selected for this innovative federal
funding,” said FEMA Region I Regional Administrator Lori Ehrlich.
“Under President Biden’s Administration and through Administrator
Criswell’s leadership, FEMA has made climate change a top priority
and we continue to make progress to ensure communities become more
resilient with critical mitigation projects like these.” 

“From Hawaii to Maine, communities across the country are
experiencing more frequent and intense severe weather events,
resulting in devastating impacts to their homes, businesses, and
families. Though FEMA will always help communities respond and recover
to these disasters, it is also paramount to build resilience before
disasters strike,” said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
“Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we can
further our mission to help our state, local, territorial, and tribal
partners build a more resilient nation.”

The top five primary hazard sources of the projects selected in the
national competition
[https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/building-resilient-infrastructure-communities/after-apply/selections]
for each program include flooding, infrastructure failure, fire,
drought and dam or levee break hazards.

BUILDING RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE AND COMMUNITIES

Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts
received BRIC selections for a total of $132.62
million. In addition, Maine received a selection for the first time.

This includes critical mitigation projects and activities – three of
which use nature-based solutions to reduce natural
hazard risks for states, local
communities, tribes and territories. Nature-based solutions are sustainable planning,
design, environmental management and engineering practices that weave
natural features or processes into the built environment to promote
adaptation and resilience.

One project selection is the Saco, Maine Water Resource Recovery
Project. The project aims to make improvements to the city’s
wastewater treatment plant, including the addition of a berm and the
construction of structures at an elevation 3 feet above the 100-year
flood elevation or base flood elevation (BFE). The project would
reduce risk to the city and an estimated 12,206 residential users
served by the wastewater treatment plant.

This new wastewater treatment project will reduce combined sewer
overflow discharge, incorporate drainage improvements throughout the
site, reclaim green space for community use, and mitigate cascading
impacts of climate change in accordance with York County’s Hazard
Mitigation Plan. 

Learn more about the selected projects on the BRIC webpage on FEMA.gov
[https://www.fema.gov/grants/mitigation/building-resilient-infrastructure-communities].

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE FUNDING

President Biden has continued to provide additional funding to
FEMA’s annual resilience grant programs, increasing them from $700
million to $1.16 billion
[https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20220801/biden-harris-administration-announces-over-1-billion-project-selections-make]
during his first year in office to nearly tripling it in the 2022
funding cycle, $900 million of which came from the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law
[https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20221115/one-year-later-biden-harris-administration-fema-highlight-progress-made].
The increased amount allows FEMA to diversify its geographic scope in
funding selections and get more federal funds to communities needing
it the most to become safer from the effects of climate change.