Federal Action for Resilient Coasts

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) launched a report, A Resilient Future for Coastal Communities: Federal Policy Recommendations from Solutions in Practice, and held a discussion of federal actions that can improve coastal resilience along our ocean and Great Lakes shorelines. The report highlights policy levers available to Congress, with 30 policy recommendations and case studies gathered from EESI’s year-long, 16-part briefing series on regional coastal resilience. The series featured 42 policy experts and coastal resilience practitioners from nearly every coastal state, from Maine to Wisconsin to Hawaii, covering topics from data-gathering to living shorelines to coastal retreat. This online briefing was conducted as a moderated discussion of coastal issues and policy solutions with four expert speakers from the briefing series. The discussion included specific case studies of solutions currently working to build community resilience to coastal hazards, along with policies and programs Congress or federal agencies can support or expand to replicate these success stories.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

 

Daniel Bresette, Executive Director, Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI)

• EESI’s new report, A Resilient Future for Coastal Communities, is the culmination of a 16-part coastal resilience Congressional briefing series that began in June 2019.
• 42 coastal resilience experts, practitioners, and community leaders brought their stories and experiences to EESI’s audience of policymakers.
• The report contains 30 policy recommendations across 6 thematic chapters, Community at the Forefront; Land Use and Development; Cultural Heritage; Climate Adaptation and Resilience Data; Disaster Preparedness; and Financing Adaptation and Resilience.
• Each recommendation is accompanied by specific examples being implemented by coastal communities throughout the United States.
• Four of the original panelists are back for this briefing to discuss their work and the recommendations from the report.

 

Rob Croll, Policy Analyst/Climate Change Program Coordinator, Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC)

• GLIFWC is an intertribal natural resource agency that works with 11 Ojibwe member tribes in the Great Lakes area to implement federal court orders and interjurisdictional agreements related to their ceded territory treaty rights.
  • In the late 20th century, tribal activists reaffirmed rights that had been taken from them.
• Tribal members engage in commercial fishing and subsistence hunting and fishing, gather medicines, perform ceremonies and songs, and access cultural sites throughout the region.
• Croll highlighted recommendation 4.1 in EESI’s report, "Federal agencies should encourage, through funding and program design, scientists and tribes to co-produce climate adaptation and resilience knowledge."
  • GLIFWC was able to access funding through the Bureau of Indian Affairs to increase its capacity and create a climate change program, but most tribes do not have the same resources.
  • Tribes have extensive place-based knowledge of natural resources and processes of where they live.
• Croll also emphasized recommendation 2.10, "Federal agencies should include tribal and indigenous communities early in the adaptation or relocation planning process so that concerns can be raised regarding tribal sovereignty."
  • Federal agencies are required to consult tribes on a government-to-government basis on projects that impact tribal members.
  • Consulting with communities helps ensure projects reflect the needs of those communities.
  • Taking this step is about creating respect and relationships and learning how to interact with the community in ways that value culture and perspective.
• GLIFWC focuses on how climate change will affect tribes that depend on natural resources for subsistence, medicines, ceremonies, and income. These natural resources are decreasing or shifting due to climate change.
  • In 2019, GLIFWC published the first version of its climate change vulnerability assessment, which looked at species that are culturally important and impacted by climate change.
  • The report combines scientific knowledge—climate projections and species' adaptive capacity—with Traditional Ecological Knowledge to assess the vulnerability of culturally important species.
• Ojibwe tribes highly value wild rice, which is the most vulnerable species within the assessment. Wild rice is closely tied to Ojibwe identity, so its potential loss represents an existential threat to their cultures and identities.
• The assessment also informed Dibaginjigaadeg Anishinaabe Ezhitwaad: A Tribal Adaptation Menu, which identifies culturally appropriate climate adaptation strategies. These include: consider cultural practices and spiritual guidance; learn through careful and respectful observation; and support tribal engagement in the environment.

 

Liz Williams Russell, Coastal Community Resilience Director, Foundation for Louisiana

• Foundation for Louisiana was founded after Hurricane Katrina as a philanthropic organization to connect resources from all over with communities on the ground.
• Ever since European colonization, the management and mismanagement of the Mississippi River delta system has contributed to the loss of land and the loss of natural protections wetlands used to provide, making the impacts from hurricanes more severe.
  • Every parish (district) in the state has been under at least one federal flood declaration in the past 15 years.
• Russell highlighted the following recommendations from EESI’s report:
  • 1.1—In order to establish and strengthen long-term relationships, federal agencies should consult with communities to ensure that projects and programs are designed with the community and specifically address community needs.
  • 1.2—Federal agencies should provide funding within adaptation and resilience grant opportunities for local leader training. 
  • 1.3—Federal funding for adaptation and resilience should be designed so that communities have more decision-making authority in project implementation.
• Policymakers should focus policy efforts around communities that are suffering the most, include disadvantaged communities in the decision-making process, and provide adaptation and resilience training opportunities for local leaders.
  • Foundation for Louisiana’s Lead the Coast program is a leadership, education, advocacy, and development program that offers opportunities for local leaders to connect their personal experience of natural disasters with decision-making pathways, so they can take action in their communities.
  • In 2017, the Foundation partnered with the Louisiana Office of Community Development to launch the LA SAFE program. In this program, community-led planning events decided how to spend a $40 million natural disaster community resilience award. Participants of the Lead the Coast program led these community meetings.
• Russell also emphasized land use and development (2.1, 2.7, 2.8, 2.11, 2.12), disaster preparedness (5.2, 5.4), and financing adaptation and resilience (6.1, 6.2, 6.3) recommendations. See the report for details.

 

Kate Boicourt, Director of Resilience, Waterfront Alliance

• The Waterfront Alliance works to ensure that the New York and New Jersey waterfronts and surrounding communities are vital, vibrant, accessible, and lasting for generations. The Waterfront Alliance educates and works with communities, designs guidelines to encourage more sustainable waterfront development, advocates, and builds consensus.
• There are over one million people in the New York/New Jersey floodplain today.
• The Waterfront Alliance is calling for:
  • Passing the Water Resources Development Act of 2020 (a stimulus for green jobs, according to Boicourt).
  • Funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other resilience programs, to prepare for disasters before they strike. This is especially important now that the pandemic has tightened state and local budgets.
• Boicourt called attention to recommendation 2.1 in EESI’s report, "Congress should ensure that all land use planning is designed—and all infrastructure is built—to anticipate and withstand future climate conditions."
  • The Waterfront Alliance has created Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines that distill climate and flood data to inform a set of guidelines for future coastal land use and design.
• She also emphasized recommendation 4.2, "Federal agencies should communicate climate data in a format that is accessible to non-experts, and provide avenues for state, local, and tribal entities to access technical support to interpret and apply this data to decision-making."
• Boicourt highlighted recommendation 5.2, "Congress should update the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to discourage construction in risk-prone areas, including by requiring that flood insurance rate maps consider climate projections and reflect actual risk, and continue to ensure the affordability of premiums."
  • We need to invest in FEMA and update its flood maps and reform the NFIP to discourage construction in risk-prone areas.

 

Anukriti Hittle, Climate Coordinator, Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources

• There is a need to correct the imbalance between adaptation and mitigation funding. Adaptation has consistently received less funding globally.
• Hawaii’s main climate stressors are rising sea levels, higher temperatures, and fewer but heavier rain events.
• Equity is now a post-pandemic stressor, as the state has been particularly impacted by the economic effects of the pandemic.
• The Department of Land and Natural Resources has been looking at nature-based and community-based coastal resilience solutions with an emphasis on how the local community can be at the center of solutions.
• There is a need to “climate proof” and “climate mainstream” the daily operations of government.

 

Q&A Session

 

All of the speakers at this briefing are from different types of entities (i.e., NGOs, state agencies, tribal commissions, foundations). Can you speak to the unique way these entities can contribute to our conversation on resilience and federal policymaking?

• Hittle: The role of the state is to catalyze, facilitate, and amplify what our communities are doing. Government should be part of the community, so there should be no need to reach out to the greater community. We need to ditch the old model and ensure that we are already representing the interests of the community.
• Boicourt: The Waterfront Alliance is in a sweet spot because we can talk with communities and government staff and act as synthesizers. We can be the advocate for what good adaptation policy looks like.
• Croll: There are 578 recognized tribes in the United States. Our organization is unique because we are an intertribal natural resource agency. We can help connect tribes with the state and federal government. Tribal knowledge is intellectual property, and we must recognize that it is shared at the behest of the tribe and should not be taken for granted.
• Russell: We are not a traditional philanthropic organization. We are able to invest in things the state cannot, such as stipends for local leaders, food, childcare, and transportation to public meetings. Most of our funding goes to Black and Indigenous community programs.

 

What is a key lesson learned from your work that would be helpful for a policymaker interested in working on climate adaptation and resilience to understand?

• Croll: It is important to approach tribes from their perspective, and not from where you are. Communication and cooperation require personal relationships that you have to earn over time.
• Hittle: Personal relationships are important; that is what helps people through difficult times like the pandemic. Another thing is developing the project pipeline capacity at the state and local government level.
• Russell: The speed of trust is slow; trust and relationships are the long-term investments necessary for this type of work to succeed.
• Boicourt: Good intentions can have unintended consequences when you do not engage and empower communities in the process; we need to be just about our process.

 

Highlights compiled by Hamilton Steimer