2014 BSCE

Bertram Berger Seminar

May 21, 2014

NICHIusa.org

The Triple Threat Rising Sea Levels, Extreme Storms, Aging Infrastructure

The Challenge• Threat to our National Security• Threat to our Home Land Security• Threat to our National Economic Security

1. Change National Policy from Respond and Repair to Plan and Invest

2. Establish Single Agency Federal Leadership

3. New Federal Funding with Dedicated Revenues

The ResponseThe National Institute’s Three Goals

A New National Policyfor Coastal Infrastructure Investment

• Current National Policy is to ‘Respond and Repair’

• It’s Wasteful, Unsustainable and Counterproductive

Our Current National Disaster Relief Policy is also Unsustainable

Disaster Relief Policy

The Unfunded Resiliency Gap

$ 4.7 trillion -- Social Security (Government Accountability Office)

$ 1.1 - 5.4 trillion -- Unfunded federal disaster (Cummins 2010 / Updated 2013)

$3 trillion -- Current US state National Catastrophe Insurance Coverage Fund

(Government Accountability Office)

75 year horizon / 2008 dollars

Weather Related Losses Rising

Our National Policy is Counterproductive

• The result is a weaker not stronger coastal infrastructure

• The policy rewards bad behavior–Bad behavior gets the money and the

new toys• FEMA flood insurance• Disaster Relief Funds

The Alternative• Have the Dutch Found the Answer?– The evidence• They have kept their feet dry and

maintained a strong national economy for over 600 years• They have not had to retreat from the

sea into Germany

The Alternative (2)

• The Dutch Solution–Understand the Threat and a Accept the Challenge– The Delta Commission– Learning to live with water

A Sea Change in Washington?• The President’s New Focus on Resiliency– President’s Executive Order– President’s Task Force– The Third National Climate Assessment– Biggert Waters– Programs at NOAA, HUD, FEMA,

• A Resistant Congress– Where’s the Leadership

• Forty Different Programs• Response to Biggert Waters

– Where’s the Money– Where’s the Political Will

Creating Political Will to Respond to the Triple Threat and to Seize the Opportunity to Build the Future

• National Political Will is Essential to Achieving NICHI’s Three Goals– A Change in National Policy– Single Federal Agency Leadership– New Dedicating Funding on an order of magnitude equal to

the Federal Interstate Highway System

• NICHI’s Plan Will Build Build Political Will by Focusing on Four Critical Constituencies– Coastal Communities– Business– Beltway Policy Makers– General Public

It’s time to Re-Imagine our Coasts

• To Protect our Coastal Communities

• To Protect, Preserve and Nurture on Natural Coastal Environment

• To Invest in the Globally Competitive Economic Future of the 22nd Century

We are Equal to the Challenge“Together, we can build our coastal

infrastructure to be as strong as our people.”

NICHIusa.org