Biden-Harris Administration, NOAA Announce $575M to Make Coasts More Climate-Resilient

United States Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo has announced that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Commerce are recommending $575 million for the funding of 19 projects to increase climate resilience in the country’s Great Lakes and coastal states and territories.

NOAA’s Climate Resilience Regional Challenge is part of the Investing in America agenda, a press release from NOAA said. Funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, it is a competitive program, with awards made under NOAA’s Climate-Ready Coasts and Communities Initiative.

“As part of President Biden’s commitment to combating the climate crisis, we are investing $575 million to help make sure America’s coastal communities are more resilient to the effects of climate change,” Raimondo said in the press release. “This is a historic investment in our nation’s climate resilience, the largest in the history of the Commerce Department, and a key piece of the Biden-Harris Administrations’ ambitious climate agenda. Thanks to this Administration’s commitment to investing in America, we’re going to continue to help underserved communities across the country develop and implement new strategies to protect themselves from flooding, storm surge, and extreme weather events.”

The program was announced in 2023 and has received almost 870 letters of intent seeking more than $16 billion in funding.

The Climate Resilience Regional Challenge forwards President Joe Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which has a target of 40 percent of certain federal investments’ overall benefits being directed toward disadvantaged communities that are overburdened by pollution and marginalized by underinvestment.

“From sea level rise and storm surges to eroding infrastructure, coastal communities are on the frontlines of dealing with the worsening impacts of the climate crisis,” said Ali Zaidi, national climate advisor, in the press release. “With the historic funding being announced today, paired with the administration’s newly released Climate Resilience Game Changers Assessment, we are working collaboratively with state, local, and tribal governments to build capacity, upgrade aging infrastructure, and protect our most vulnerable communities from climate impacts.”

The funding offers two tracks. Awards for planning and capacity building focus on regions and communities that are advancing or initiating existing collaborative efforts for bolstering coastal resilience. They account for 11 out of the 19 projects recommended for funding, with the average amount of an award being $1.8 million.

“Coastal communities are already on the front lines of experiencing the impacts of extreme weather fueled by the climate crisis,” said John Podesta, senior international climate policy advisor to the president, in the press release. “These grants will better equip them to design locally-led projects to build a stronger and more resilient future in a warming world.”

The projects would enable communities and states to expand and build regional partnerships, partner and engage with historically overburdened and marginalized communities such as Tribes, assess their susceptibility to climate change risks, plan adaptation actions and resilience strategies and build workforce capacity and community for climate adaptation efforts.

Implementation awards include eight transformational projects recommended for funding from $56 to $75 million over the course of five years, with a total of about $555 million.

States and communities would use the funds to acquire vulnerable land, build natural infrastructure, strengthen and protect public access to natural resources on the coast, build regional capacity for continuing actions that increase resilience and update local and state codes and policies.

“This unprecedented investment will be transformative for our nation’s coasts following an extremely competitive award program,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in the press release. “Equity and inclusion, community engagement, and regional coordination are critical elements of this funding and NOAA’s efforts to build Climate-Ready Coasts.”

NOAA is also providing technical assistance to recipients of the awards for the support of successful project implementation.

The 19 projects that have been recommended for funding range from $78.9 million in Alaska to $71.1 million in California and $2 million in the Federated States of Micronesia. Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands have been recommended for implementation awards of $68.4 and $69 million, respectively, while Minnesota may receive a $1.85 million planning award.

“NOAA’s Climate Resilience Regional Challenge competitive grant program is focused on collaborative projects that increase the resilience of coastal communities to extreme weather and other climate change impacts, including sea level rise and drought and contributes to the vision laid out in the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Climate Resilience Framework,” the press release said.