ASAP Policy Round Up | Jan-April 2021

May 3, 2021

The Policy Practice Group is excited to launch our first quarterly policy digest! Each quarter, the Policy Practice Group will send out a policy round up including updates shared by members during monthly Policy Practice Group meetings. These policy updates are also collected live during meetings and can be found on the groups’ Policy Tracker. The tracker is updated after each meeting and we encourage you to reference it as a go to place for the latest adaptation policy being discussed by fellow members. When crafting our Policy Digest, we are paying particular attention to legislation that relates to ASAP’s policy priorities. You can explore the priorities here.

State and Local Updates 

Florida

  • A new state budget proposal was introduced in Florida this March to include over $1B for “Resilient Florida”. Learn more…

New York, NY

  • On March 18th, New York passed a law to amend the city code to include climate resiliency design guidelines and resiliency scoring content.  Learn more…

Federal Updates

Legislative Branch

Bills Passed

  • The Safeguarding Tomorrow through Ongoing Risk Mitigation (STORM) Act, passed into law in January, provides a revolving loan fund for pre-disaster mitigation. Learn more…
  • Passed into law in December, the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, while largely aimed at COVID relief, also  provides provisions from the 2020 Water Resources Development Act to provide funding for transportation, HFCs, and energy efficiency initiatives. Learn more…

Bills Introduced

  • The Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act reauthorizes and establishes several water infrastructure programs to provide safe drinking water. Learn more…
  • The BLUE GLOBE Act was introduced to improve data collection and monitoring of the Great Lakes, oceans, bays, estuaries, and coasts. Learn more…
  • The Insular Area Climate Change Act was introduced to provide funding and technical support for climate change planning, mitigation, adaptation, and resilience in U.S. Territories and Freely Associated States. Learn more…
  • The CLEAN Future Act was introduced to provide comprehensive legislation to combat the climate crisis including topics such as microgrids and energy resilience ,transportation, climate risk disclosure, and requirements for climate action planning for national security.  Learn more…
  • The GREEN Building Jobs Act looks to amend the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to fund job-creating improvements in energy and resiliency for Federal buildings managed by the General Services Administration. Learn more…
  • H.R.1984  aims to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a credit for those owning disaster resilient property. Learn more…
  • If passed, the Environmental Justice Mapping and Data Collection Act would establish the Environmental Justice Mapping Committee. Learn more… 
  • S.873  was introduced to establish the Climate Change Advisory Commission. Learn more…
  • The Flood Resiliency and Taxpayer Savings Act was introduced to require federal agencies to evaluate and mitigate the risk of floods to federally funded projects, safeguard taxpayer resources, and strengthen the Nation’s resilience against severe storms and flooding. Learn more…
  • The  WHIP+ Reauthorization Act was introduced to expand the Department of Agriculture’s Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+) to include coverage for crop loss due to wildfire. Learn more…
  • H.R.1936  was introduced to require the Comptroller General to evaluate and issue a report on the structural and economic impacts of climate resiliency at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Learn more…

Executive Branch 

  • During the Leaders Summit on Climate, President Biden announced a new target of a 50-52% reduction in greenhouse gas pollution from 2005 levels by 2030. Learn more…
  • Resilient infrastructure and investing in vulnerable communities were called out in the Biden-Harris American Jobs Plan that was released in March. Learn more…
  • President Biden signed an executive order in February aimed at rebuilding and enhancing programs to resettle refugees and planning for the impact of climate change on migration. Learn more…
  • The United States has formally announced it would rejoin the Paris Agreement on President Biden’s first day in office. The U.S. reentered the Agreement on February 19, 2021. Learn more…
  • In January, President Biden signed an executive order to protect public health and the environment and restore science to tackle the climate crisis. Learn more…

Professional Associations

  • The National Association of Insurance Commissioners established a new Climate and Resiliency Task Force to meet monthly to address climate and resiliency. Learn more…

Get Involved!

Interested in being part of live updates and discussing them as a group? Join ASAP’s Policy Practice monthly meetings! Each month we hear round robin updates on the latest adaptation policy from your fellow ASAP Member practitioners. The Policy Practice group has also developed ASAP’s 2021 Policy Priorities and is actively seeking member comments to submit to the Request for Information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the SEC’s regulation of climate change disclosures. Share your comments here. Hope to see you at a meeting soon! 

Join the Policy Practice Group
See all updates on the Policy Tracker

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