Major Oceans Bill Puts Coastal Resilience at the Forefront | Article

The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act (H.R.8632), an ambitious piece of climate legislation recently introduced in Congress, aims to make major strides in improving the resilience of America’s coastlines to major storms and flooding exacerbated by climate change. The legislation was introduced on October 20 in the House of Representatives by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), along with 13 original Democratic cosponsors. Though the bill strives for a wide range of goals, from reducing carbon emissions to strengthening ocean conservation, much of the bill focuses on coastal resilience. The bill’s sweeping programs would promote smarter coastal development, open up greater access to federal grants and funding pools for recovery and resilience projects, promote research relevant to disaster management, and prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable coastal communities, including island jurisdictions and Native American Nations.

Improving Funding, Access, and Equity

The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act’s broadest resilience measures come in two sections, both of which provide greater federal funding for a wide variety of programs, make federal grants easier to access, and aim to advance equity with provisions tailored to the unique concerns of underserved communities. The bill’s first resilience-focused section is Title VI, which amends the Coastal Zone Management Act (CMZA), and the second is Title X, which establishes a set of new resilience programs.

The Act’s amendments to the Coastal Zone Management Act expand a longstanding federal program. The CZMA, passed in 1972, established several federal grant programs to enable states to manage their coastal areas and protect them from natural disasters and overdevelopment. Since its passage, 35 states have collaborated with the federal government to create Coastal Management Plans under the CZMA, including states on the Great Lakes.

The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act would ensure and increase federal funding for CMZA programs, which Congress has often neglected to re-authorize, and explicitly integrate climate adaptation into the CMZA’s set of goals. The Act would provide five-year re-authorizations for the CZMA’s Coastal and Estuarine Land Program at $60 million per year and the CZMA’s other grant programs at $123 million per year, with annual increases. Additionally, it would supply $100 million to the Coastal Zone Management Fund, which provides assistance with severe flooding hazards and ongoing emergencies but currently relies on contributions from states.

Crucially, the Act would also create a new grant program under the CZMA to supply Native American nations with coastal resilience funds, authorized at $5 million annually. Because nations face unique challenges in raising matching funds for federal grants, the Act would waive their matching requirements under most conditions.

Meanwhile, Title X of the Act provides for a range of new and expanded resilience programs. First, it would permanently authorize and restructure an existing fund for competitive grant programs through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and revise its designated purposes to emphasize resilience research, coastal planning, and expanded resilience infrastructure. The grants would be available to state, local, and tribal governments, as well as nonprofit organizations. The Act would amend the fund to enable easier grant access by states and Native American nations, establishing an easier grant application process and limiting required shares of state funding. The restructured fund would also encourage nature-based solutions and climate mitigation co-benefits by requiring reporting of the “blue carbon” benefits of its programs.

Next, the Title would create new grant programs for more specialized purposes. One new NOAA grant program would disburse $50 million for living shoreline projects for the next five years, and a second new program would fund research to improve resilience strategies and provide coastal communities with decision support tools.

Finally, for the near term, Title X would launch a $3 billion stimulus package for “shovel-ready” coastal restoration projects prioritizing people of color, low-income communities, tribal communities, and rural communities. The package is intended to aid in the economic recovery from COVID-19.

Limiting Dangerous Development

Title V of the bill prevents the creation of unnecessary coastal hazards by amending the Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) of 1982 so as to expand the regions in the Coastal Barrier Resources System (CBRS). The CBRS designation is intended to limit development in certain coastal areas vulnerable to flooding or natural disasters in order to protect natural resources, the built environment, and nearby communities. Development is not prohibited in CBRS areas, but it is strongly disincentivized by restrictions on federal financial assistance, particularly federal flood insurance.

The Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act would broaden the definition of “coastal barrier,” add new territory to the CBRS, and require disclosure of CBRS status by property sellers to prospective buyers in order to further disincentivize development. By limiting coastal development in these vulnerable areas, the bill seeks to prevent unnecessary damage, and by preserving the integrity of coastlines, it seeks to protect areas further inland.

Protecting Island Jurisdictions

The island jurisdictions of the United States—including territories like Puerto Rico and American Samoa and freely associated states like the Marshall Islands—will be among the first and hardest-hit by climate impacts, but have not been provided with sufficient resources to prepare. The Act addresses this by devoting Title VII to “insular affairs.” The section authorizes funding for direct climate adaptation assistance and three technical assistance programs: $5 million for assistance with CZMA Coastal Management Plans, $5 million for climate adaptation research programs at insular colleges and universities, and $5 million for weather data collection and forecasting. On top of these new funding streams, the Act enhances the islands’ access to existing federal grant programs by waiving matching requirements for grants related to resilience and recovery from natural disasters made pursuant to the Stafford Act. The Act would further buttress island resilience through nature-based solutions by creating a grant program for coral reef research and conservation projects.

Research and Data Collection

Title XII of the Act establishes several programs related to research and interagency collaboration, many of which are relevant to coastal resilience. It provides for increased coordination among agencies to improve data collection and storage, ensure data accessibility, and work with international bodies on ocean monitoring research. To better meet the needs of vulnerable communities, it would direct NOAA to engage with indigenous, subsistence, and fishing communities to tailor its datasets to the unique challenges of these communities and incorporate traditional knowledge into the data. It will also mandate that NOAA conduct a national sea level rise risk analysis.

Further, Title XII formalizes and expands two major research programs already operating under NOAA: the Digital Coast Program and the Integrated Ocean Observing System. Both of these programs provide datasets and guidance to communities in managing coastal affairs, including resilience. The Act would supply more funding to these programs and facilitate their collaboration with communities.

Conclusion

As the impacts of climate change intensify, improving the resilience of coastal communities is critical. With its holistic approach to resilience and its focus on the most vulnerable, the Ocean-Based Climate Solutions Act could help provide coastal communities with the resources they need to adapt.

Author: Joseph Glandorf