Terry Gerton When people hear about renewable energy, they often think about climate or energy policy, but your report approaches it from a really different direction. How do renewable energy projects support FEMA’s hazard mitigation programs?

Janet McKelvey Yeah, sure. That’s a very interesting question. Hazard mitigation is really about proactively taking steps to reduce or eliminate risks to people, property, communities when you have some sort of natural hazard, be it a hurricane or a heat wave or flood or that type of thing. What FEMA does in this instance is that they have applicants apply for funding. And what we found in our report is that these are really small-scale renewable energy projects, and they’re really for things like secondary backup power for critical facilities to maintain essential infrastructure. So just think about if, say, the electric grid goes out in a hurricane or a flood or, you know, extreme weather event, then you’re going to want the hospital that’s nearby to have some sort of power source. And so you could use solar power, rooftop solar power panels or solar generators could be one source of power for that hospital to make sure that they have the power they need and that the people in the hospital don’t have problems with lack of ventilators or that type of thing.

Terry Gerton So it really is about resilience, especially related to energy and power. What did you find when you looked at the FEMA funding over the last several years?

Janet McKelvey Yeah, we looked at the funding for a three year period from fiscal years 2022 through 2024, and we found that FEMA funded small scale renewable energy projects, about $13.6 million for 14 different projects during that time frame.

Terry Gerton So that’s not a lot of money and also not a lot of projects. Is there any kind of limit on this? Is it is the limit on the number of projects a funding cap or is it just something else that’s going on here?

Janet McKelvey We didn’t look into whether there’s a limit, but it is a small amount. There’s several different hazard mitigation projects or hazard mitigation programs that FEMA has. We had three different programs that we looked at, their Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, a Pre-Disaster Mitigation Congressionally Directed Spending Program, and then Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program. And these three programs, that was just the number we didn’t look at whether there was any sort of cap.

Terry Gerton And these are, as you said, small projects, typically community-based or even locality, single structure-based, as said, like a hospital. Are larger utility grid projects part of this program or is that a different issue with FEMA?

Janet McKelvey Yeah, they’re not a part of this program. We did look across some FEMA funding to see if there were any utility scale renewable funding projects at FEMA. And what we found is that there were not, and what we’re thinking of there in terms of utility scale is generating power for the utilities. And, you know, utilities have a number of different sources. It could be renewables, like solar and wind, but also oil, gas that fund that help generate power for the grid. And that’s not the type of funding that FEMA is using. And we did ask FEMA about that, and they told us that, you know, that really is something they would depend on, say, the Department of Energy to do. They’re really focused on this hazard mitigation side of things. And, you now, where can they have strategies for preparedness in the event of a disaster? And that really where they spend their funding.

Terry Gerton Janet McKelvey is acting director of the Natural Resources and Environment team at GAO. Janet, let’s go back to the kinds of projects that these kinds of grants are funding. They’re typically critical facilities operating during disasters. Why are the microgrids and backup power systems getting attention in this context?

Janet McKelvey Yeah, micro grids and they’re really back to the sort of secondary backup power for critical facilities. They’re a way to make sure that there is power for hospitals or a recreation center. Think about a recreation center. If power goes out in a community and they have a heat wave, an extreme heat wave. They might not have any power, but maybe if you have power in the in the recreation center, then people have a place to go so that they can stay safe and stay cool in that heat wave. And so that’s really how this comes up in the context of hazard mitigation is if we have prepared for that in advance and we’ve provided funding for these micro grids or these solar generators for key facilities, critical facilities, then that’s gonna help when the next disaster or extreme weather hazard hits a community.

Terry Gerton And one of the points that you bring up in your report is that all of these projects have to demonstrate cost effectiveness in order to qualify for the grants. How does FEMA determine whether a project qualifies?

Janet McKelvey Yeah, FEMA has a benefit cost analysis that they do, and they really are comparing the project’s avoided future damage to the cost of the project over a lifetime. So we describe that process in our report, and that’s how they make sure it’s cost effective. Do the benefits outweigh the cost?

Terry Gerton But you also point out that doing that math can be challenging for some communities.

Janet McKelvey Yes, that’s right. And we also have some prior work that has identified some of the challenges that applicants have in completing that data. It requires a lot of resources and a lot of data. It can be hard to measure things like the impact of extreme heat, for instance. What is the cost of that?

Terry Gerton Do you have any recommendations for how communities can simplify that calculation?

Janet McKelvey We don’t have recommendations in this particular report, but we talk about some prior recommendations that we’ve had in our prior work and also steps that FEMA took since that prior work to simplify things for applicants. They’ve, for instance, they’ve reduced some of the data entry requirements. They’ve pre-calculated some benefit cost analyzes for key items like a hospital generator, so that, you know, if you’ve already got that cost in there, it’s gonna simplify coming up with that total benefit cost analysis. So they’ve taken steps.

Terry Gerton Again, sort of going back to the scale of this program, you mentioned 14 projects, $13.6 million. When you think about that in the context of the entire country and all of the natural disasters that could be experienced, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of uptake for this program. If the application process were easier, do you think more communities might take advantage of this program?

Janet McKelvey I definitely think that’s a possibility. I will point out that our focus here was on the renewable energy projects, and so there may be other projects that aren’t specifically renewable energy projects in these hazard mitigation programs, but we really wanted to see what was going on in the renewable space. So I’m sure there are other projects going on that were not within our scope. But that said, sure, I mean, simplifying the application process, making it easier for applicants, that is absolutely something that would increase the ability of others to apply.

Terry Gerton As you look forward, what lessons do you take from this report to look at the future of resilience investments? Do you think renewable energy-based projects are likely to remain sort of a niche use of this FEMA funding, or do you see growing interest?

Janet McKelvey I think we’ll have to wait and see on that. You know, certainly there is some interest, I think, in hazard mitigation and how in preparedness for disasters, you know, the more prepared you are, the easier it makes it when the disaster hits to focus on the key areas. So we’ll just have to see on there. But there’s plenty of work, I think, on FEMA and, you know, we’re always looking at new things about how FEMA’s doing in terms of disaster’s response.