I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 403
To enhance predisaster mitigation to prevent future natural disasters, and
for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY14, 2025
Mr. S
WALWELLintroduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
A BILL
To enhance predisaster mitigation to prevent future natural
disasters, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Preventing Our Next 4
Natural Disaster Act’’. 5
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. 6
Section 203(a) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Re-7
lief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5133(a)) 8
is amended to read as follows: 9
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‘‘(a) DEFINITIONS.—In this section, the following 1
definitions apply: 2
‘‘(1) H
IGH HAZARD RISK.—The term ‘high haz-3
ard risk’ means high rating of a natural hazard risk 4
according to a tool such as the National Risk Index 5
or another tool developed by the Federal Emergency 6
Management Agency. 7
‘‘(2) E
NVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COMMUNITY .— 8
The term ‘environmental justice community’ means 9
a community primarily composed of communities of 10
color, low-income communities, or Tribal and indige-11
nous communities, that experiences, or is at risk of 12
experiencing, higher or more adverse human health 13
or environmental effects than most communities. 14
‘‘(3) S
MALL IMPOVERISHED COMMUNITY .—The 15
term ‘small impoverished community’ means a com-16
munity that is comprised of 50,000 or fewer individ-17
uals and that is economically disadvantaged, as de-18
termined by the State in which the community is lo-19
cated and based on criteria established by the Presi-20
dent.’’. 21
SEC. 3. TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE. 22
Section 203(e) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Re-23
lief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5133(e)) 24
is amended by adding at the end the following: 25
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‘‘(3) GUIDANCE.—The Administrator may de-1
velop guidance regarding how to incorporate climate 2
change into— 3
‘‘(A) the National Risk Index; 4
‘‘(B) cost-benefit analyses; and 5
‘‘(C) adopting improved relevant con-6
sensus-based codes, specifications, and stand-7
ards to address natural hazards. 8
‘‘(4) B
UILDING, RESTORATION, OR REHABILITA-9
TION.—The Administrator may issue guidance to en-10
sure that funds provided under this section are used 11
to support the building, restoration, or rehabilitation 12
of hazard mitigation projects that are— 13
‘‘(A) planned and designed around the fu-14
ture projections of climate change over the life 15
cycle of the project; and 16
‘‘(B) built to withstand future flooding, 17
wildfires, or other natural disasters.’’. 18
SEC. 4. CRITERIA FOR ASSISTANCE AWARDS. 19
Section 203(g) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Re-20
lief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5133(g)) 21
is amended— 22
(1) by striking ‘‘and’’ at the end of paragraph 23
(11); 24
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(2) by redesignating paragraph (12) as para-1
graph (13); and 2
(3) by inserting after paragraph (11) the fol-3
lowing: 4
‘‘(12) and prioritize communities that are in 5
high hazard risk communities, environmental justice 6
communities, communities with low tax revenue base 7
per capita, and communities with a low rate of code 8
adoption and enforcement and infrastructure main-9
tenance expenditures (the Administrator of the Fed-10
eral Emergency Management Agency shall establish 11
guidelines to develop measurable criteria to deter-12
mine such priority for high hazard risk communities 13
and integrate the data into a tool such as the Na-14
tional Risk Index and use the Resilience Analysis 15
and Planning Tool to help target the communities 16
with the greatest need of assistance); and’’. 17
SEC. 5. FEDERAL SHARE. 18
Section 203(h)(2)) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster 19
Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 20
5133(h)(2)) is amended to read as follows: 21
‘‘(2) S
MALL IMPOVERISHED COMMUNITIES AND 22
ENVIRONMENT JUSTICE COMMUNITIES .—Notwith-23
standing paragraph (1), the President may con-24
tribute up to 90 percent of the total cost of a miti-25
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gation activity carried out in a small impoverished 1
community or an environmental justice commu-2
nity.’’. 3
SEC. 6. NATIONAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE 4
PREDISASTER MITIGATION ASSISTANCE. 5
Section 203(i)(1) of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster 6
Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 7
5133(i)(1)) is amended— 8
(1) by striking ‘‘6 percent’’ and inserting ‘‘15 9
percent’’; and 10
(2) by adding at the end the following: ‘‘From 11
such total amount made available from the Disaster 12
Relief Fund, with respect to each major disaster, the 13
President may set aside 2 percent of the estimated 14
aggregate amount of the grants to be made pursu-15
ant to sections 403, 406, 407, 408, 410, 416, and 16
428 for the major disaster for community planning 17
and capacity building assistance.’’. 18
SEC. 7. COMMUNITY OUTREACH. 19
Section 203 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief 20
and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5133) is 21
amended by adding at the end the following: 22
‘‘(m) C
OMMUNITY OUTREACHASSISTANCE.—The 23
Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management 24
Agency, in collaboration with organizations, such as the 25
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United States Cooperative Extension System and the Ex-1
tension Disaster Education Network, shall provide com-2
munity outreach to communities under this section, with 3
a goal of increasing applications from communities with 4
high hazard risk, environmental justice communities, com-5
munities with low tax revenue base per capita, and com-6
munities with a low rate of code adoption and enforcement 7
and infrastructure maintenance expenditures, regarding 8
how to plan and prioritize projects based on current cli-9
mate conditions, future hazard risk, and social vulner-10
ability assessments as well as how to successfully develop, 11
submit, and administer a grant under this section.’’. 12
SEC. 8. IMPROVED DATA COLLECTION. 13
Not later than 3 years after the date of enactment 14
of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Emergency 15
Management Agency shall establish a central Federal 16
database at the Agency, in coordination with the Depart-17
ment of Housing and Urban Development, the Environ-18
ment Protection Agency, the Economic Development Ad-19
ministration, the Small Business Administration, the 20
Army Corps of Engineers, and any other relevant agencies 21
the Administrator chooses to include, to consolidate fund-22
ing data collected by all local, State, and Federal agencies 23
involved in post-disaster response and predisaster mitiga-24
tion spending and categorize the data by type of project, 25
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funding source, and hazard types using an user friendly 1
database and interactive map. Such database shall also in-2
clude— 3
(1) the collection and posting of census track 4
data and post aggregate demographic data, pursuant 5
to the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et 6
seq.) as well as any future guidance by such office 7
on data equity on the impact of natural disaster and 8
Federal recovery efforts to better allocate and trace 9
funds; and 10
(2) post-project evaluations by the Agency to 11
analyze disaster spending and report findings on 12
what may have been saved by proper predisaster 13
mitigation. 14
Æ
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