Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Application Period Extension

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Federal Emergency Management Agency</SUBAGY> <CFR>44 CFR Part 206</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID FEMA-2024-0024]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1660-AB15</RIN> <SUBJECT>Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Application Period Extension</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Emergency Management Agency, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is revising its regulations to extend the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program's application period. This revision will allow FEMA to approve additional projects and offer applicants additional time for project approvals meant to address the effects of climate change and other unmet community mitigation needs. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective August 15, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The docket for this rulemaking is available for inspection using the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> and can be viewed by following that website's instructions. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Howard Stronach, Mitigation Directorate, Hazard Mitigation Assistance Division, FEMA, 400 C St. SW, Washington, DC 20472, (202) 646-3683, <E T="03">fema-hma-guide@fema.dhs.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">1. Legal and Factual Background</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program</HD> FEMA is responsible for administering and coordinating the Federal Government's response to disasters pursuant to the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (“Stafford Act”). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> There are two types of disaster declarations provided for in the Stafford Act: emergency declarations  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> and major disaster declarations. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Following a major disaster declaration, FEMA may provide several different types of discretionary assistance to applicants such as funding under its Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) which is authorized under Section 404 of the Stafford Act. 42 U.S.C. 5170c; 44 CFR 206.40. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, Public Law 93-288 (1974) (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. 5121 <E T="03">et. seq.</E> ) (“Stafford Act”). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Stafford Act, <E T="03">supra</E> note 1, section 501 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. 5191(a)); <E T="03">see also</E> Stafford Act, <E T="03">supra</E> note 1, section 102 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. 5122) which defines “emergency” as “any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, Federal assistance is needed to supplement State and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States.” </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  42 U.S.C. 5170; 5122 (defining “major disaster” as “any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the United States, which in the determination of the President causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under this Act to supplement the efforts and available resources of States, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused thereby.”). </FTNT> HMGP “ensures that State, local, Tribal and territorial governments have the financial opportunity to plan for and implement mitigation measures that reduce the risk of loss of life and property from future natural disasters during the reconstruction process following a disaster.”  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> HMGP funding is time-limited; “the award period of performance for HMGP begins with the opening of the application period and ends no later than 48 months from the close of the application period.” <E T="03">Id.</E> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Federal Emergency Management Agency, Hazard Mitigation Assistance Program and Policy Guide (“HMAPPG”), Part 10.A.4, p. 28, March 20, 2023, available at <E T="03">https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_hma-program-policy-guide_032023.pdf</E> (last accessed on August 1, 2024). </FTNT> Under HMGP, FEMA “may contribute up to 75% of the cost of hazard mitigation measures which the President has determined are cost-effective and which substantially reduce the risk of future damage, hardship, loss, or suffering in any area affected by a major disaster.”  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> States (which includes Territories)  <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> and Indian Tribal Governments are eligible applicants for HMGP funding, and upon award, will become recipients. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> State agencies, local governments, private nonprofit organizations, and Indian Tribal Governments  <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> are eligible subapplicants for HMGP who, and, upon subaward, will become subrecipients. note 1, section 404 (codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. 5170c(a)); the statute caps the maximum amount of financial assistance that FEMA may provide for hazard mitigation, providing that the total of contributions “shall not exceed 15 percent for amounts not more than $2,000,000,000, 10 percent for amounts of more than $2,000,000,000 and not more than $10,000,000,000, and 7.5 percent on amounts of more than $10,000,000,000 and not more than $35,000,000,000” of the estimated aggregate amount of grants to be made under the disaster declaration. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  “State” means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. 42 U.S.C. 5122(4). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>  44 CFR 206.431 at definitions of “Applicant” and “Recipient” </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>  Indian Tribal Governments have the option to apply as an applicant or a subapplicant. 44 CFR 206.431 at definition of “Indian Tribal Government.” An Indian Tribal Government acting as recipient will assume the responsibilities of a State, as described in 44 CFR part 206, subpart N, for the purposes of administering the grant. 44 CFR 206.431 at definition of “Recipient.” </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  44 CFR 206.431 at definition of “Subrecipient.” </FTNT> The HMGP lists all relevant program definitions at 44 CFR 206.431. In HMGP, a “grant application” is a request to FEMA for HMGP funding by a State or Tribal Government that will act as a recipient. 44 CFR 206.431. The “subaward application” is the request to the recipient for HMGP funding by the eligible subrecipient. 44 CFR 206.431; 44 CFR 206.436(a). The “grant award” is the total Federal and non-federal contributions to complete the approved scope of work. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> The “subaward” means an award provided by a pass-through entity to a subrecipient for the subrecipient to carry out as part of the Federal award. 44 CFR 206.431; 44 CFR 206.436(a). The “recipient” is the State or Indian Tribal Government that receives a Federal award directly from FEMA. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">Id.</E> at definition of “Grant award.” </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>  44 CFR 206.431 at definition of “Recipient.” </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Application Procedures</HD> HMGP applicants follow the procedures set forth at § 206.436. Upon identification of mitigation measures, the applicant submits an HMGP application to the FEMA Regional Administrator. The HMGP application includes a comprehensive narrative identifying intended mitigation projects, State or local contacts, project locations, description and cost estimates, an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of the mitigation measures, work schedules, justification for selection, relevant project management information and subrecipients. <E T="03">See</E> 44 CFR 206.436(c). Applications for HMGP serve to identify the specific mitigation measures for which HMGP funding is requested. Applicants must submit all local HMGP applications (also known as subaward applications or subapplications) and funding requests to the FEMA Regional Administrator within 12 months of the date of the disaster declaration. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> Under § 206.436(e), however, applicants/recipients may request that the Regional Administrator extend the application time limit by additional 30-to-90-day increments, not to exceed a total of 180 days. <FTNT> <SU>12</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 44 CFR 206.436. </FTNT> The amount of HMGP funding available to the applicant is based on the estimated total Federal assistance for the major disaster declaration, subject to the sliding scale formula that FEMA provides for disaster recovery. 44 CFR 206.432(b). FEMA establishes the amount of funding available for HMGP for each disaster  <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> (called the HMGP “ceiling”) at 12 months after the date of the disaster declaration (called the HMGP “lock-in”). <SU>14</SU> <FTREF/> FEMA provides two point-in-time estimates prior to the 12-month lock-in (at 35 days and 6 months) so that the applicant has some approximation of funding availability for each disaster in order to solicit and select among subapplications for mitigation projects. <E T="03">Id.</E> When major fluctuations of projected disaster costs occur, FEMA, at the request of the applicant, may conduct an additional review after the 12-month lock-in. If the resulting review shows that the amount of funds available for HM ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 95k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━