Delivering climate resilience funding to tribal nations
Kelbie Kennedy
Choctaw Nation
Federal Emergency Management Agency
Disasters do not discriminate. Yet, the impacts can be felt differently across communities, including tribal nations, perpetuating pre-existing inequalities. Moreover, tribal nations face unique challenges as increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events threaten their traditional homelands and headquarters.
In the Pacific Northwest, coastal erosion and storms are forcing tribal nations to move their communities inland. While in the Southwest, tribal nations are grappling with severe drought, crop loss, and drinking water shortages.
These issues are top of mind as the Federal Emergency Management Agency distributes valuable funding to support tribal nations facing the threats of climate change, and ensure they not only survive but thrive.
In the last few years, FEMA’s hazard mitigation funding opportunities and technical assistance for grants has significantly increased for tribal nations. Our agency is working diligently to make the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic level of resilience grant and mitigation funds accessible across the country. This includes tribal nations, who have been the original caretakers of their homelands since time immemorial.
The numbers tell the story.
Last month, FEMA announced nearly $3 billion in climate mitigation project selections nationwide to support communities and tribal nations strengthen their resilience. In total, more than 50 percent of these projects will benefit disadvantaged communities, and in particular, 70 percent of Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities projects will do the same.
These results further underscore the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to equity and reaffirms FEMA’s mission of helping people before, during, and after disaster, delivering key funding to the communities that need it most. We make this commitment not because of any mandate or political agenda, but because it is the right thing to do.
For the annual BRIC grant cycle for fiscal year 2022, FEMA set-aside $50 million in federal cost-share funding specifically for tribal nations to strengthen their emergency management capacity and capabilities. These funded activity types include building codes adoption and enforcement, partnerships, project scoping and mitigation planning related activities.
The results of these type of investments speak for themselves, with hazard mitigation funding already benefiting many tribal nations across Indian Country.
The Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe in Washington received FEMA resilience funding to build an evacuation tower to guard against tsunamis. The Tokeland Tower is a first in the United States and will not just house tribal citizens after an earthquake and potential tsunami, but any residents from surrounding areas.
The Citizen Potawatomi Nation used hazard mitigation funding to build a two-story safe room attached to their tribal casino. This safe room can protect up to 5,000 people when disaster strikes and serves as a gathering space for tribal trainings, conferences, and meetings. During the application and post-award process, we worked closely with the Citizen Potawatomi Nation to provide the flexibility required to meet the tribal nation’s needs.
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These are just a few of the powerful resilience stories happening across Indian County where tribal nations are not only building resilience withing their own communities but are also ensuring that their neighbors and everyone inside of their jurisdictions, both native and non-native, are safe when disasters strike. We will continue to partner with Tribal Nations to ensure these stories of resilience are supported and continue being told.
However, we know that many tribal nations may not have the emergency management personnel or resources to even begin the process of accessing these critical grant programs.
That’s why FEMA has removed barriers for tribal nations to receive this funding. For example, FEMA no longer requires that a tribal nation complete a Benefit-Cost Analysis before submitting an application.
We also offer BRIC non-financial direct technical assistance to any tribal nations to help them with the grant application process. Through this assistance, FEMA staff and resources are dedicated throughout the application and pre-award phases. BRIC direct technical assistance provides hands-on help to navigate sometimes complicated grant requirements.
FEMA is using direct technical assistance to help the Chippewa Cree Tribe in north-central Montana create a BRIC application for a solar array project that will connect to the micro-grid, which will supply power to multiple tribal buildings and residences. Similarly, the Red Lake Nation in northern Minnesota is using this non-financial assistance to build a micro-grid for resiliency and power generation infrastructure.
FEMA recently published a blog where you can learn more about BRIC direct technical assistance and how it can be used to strengthen your tribal nation capabilities for disaster planning, response and recovery.
From flood mitigation to earthquake and tornado protection, to establishing tribal energy sovereignty, BRIC direct technical assistance has supported many tribal nations over the last two years, and in this latest grant cycle, FEMA selected an additional 20 tribal nations to receive this critical assistance. We anticipate that even more support will be delivered across Indian Country in the next funding cycle as well.
With the number of disasters increasing, tribal nations across the country must move forward with meaningful mitigation efforts to become more resilient to natural hazards and extreme weather worsened by the climate crisis. This is the time to reach out to your Regional Tribal Affairs Liaison and see if your tribal nation could benefit from this free FEMA technical assistance to access grants that would build upon tribal innovative and forward-looking resilience projects.
We want to encourage tribal nations to continue to think several generations ahead as they plan for future disasters. Through our hazard mitigation grants and technical assistance programs, we will work to fulfill FEMA’s treaty and trust responsibilities to tribal nations to help ensure the safety of their tribal communities, ancestral homelands, and future generations across Indian Country.
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