Sneak Preview: FEMA Proposes To Update Flood Mitigation Assistance Rules
(The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants 360 article.) A recent proposed rule to amend regulations under the Department of Homeland Security Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant program, if finalized, would affect award selection, cost sharing requirements and certain funding caps.
The proposed amendments to regulations under the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant program would incorporate statutory changes under the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 (BW-12), (Pub. L. 112-141), as well as revise FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) and mitigation planning regulations to better align them with the Office of Management and Budget’s uniform guidance.
HMA’s three grant programs — the FMA program, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) and the Pre-disaster Mitigation Program — provide funding for eligible mitigation activities that reduce disaster losses and protect life and property from future disaster. HMA program regulations also cover mitigation planning and requirements for property acquisition and relocation for open space.
The National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (NFIA), 42 U.S.C. 4104c, as amended, authorized the FMA program to reduce or eliminate claims under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The program provides funds on an annual basis for projects to lower the risk of flood damage to buildings, manufactured homes and other structures insured under the NFIP. FEMA regulations require that all state and tribal applicants must have a FEMA-approved state or tribal mitigation plan to receive FEMA mitigation grants, including FMA grants.
BW-12 reformed and streamlined NFIA’s hazard mitigation grant programs. Prior to BW-12, three distinct grant programs existed under NFIA: (1) FMA; (2) the Repetitive Flood Claims (RFC) program; and (3) the Severe Repetitive Loss (SRL) program. BW-12 eliminated the RFC and SRL programs and consolidated aspects of those programs into a reformed FMA program.
Although FEMA previously had implemented the provisions of BW-12 that affected the HMA grant programs, the agency, in an Aug. 28 Federal Register proposed rule, sought public comments on plans to update the FMA program regulations (currently under 44 C.F.R. Parts 78 and 79) to reflect the revisions made by BW-12 and consolidate all of its program regulations under a new 44 C.F.R. Part 77.
(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)
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