USDOT Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) Interim Guidelines

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <DEPDOC>[Docket Number: DOT-OST-2024-0120]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2105-AF17</RIN> <SUBJECT>USDOT Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) Interim Guidelines</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the Secretary, DOT. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of availability; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The impacts of flooding affect the environment, economic prosperity, and public health and safety across the Nation. The Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) seeks to improve the resilience of communities and Federal assets against the impacts of flooding from extreme events and climate change. DOT has developed these FFRMS Interim Guidelines to advance the goals of the FFRMS and to outline the steps DOT is taking to implement the FFRMS across the Department. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments due by February 18, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may send comments, identified by docket number DOT-OST-2024-0120 by the following method: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for sending comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Heather Holsinger, 202-366-6263, <E T="03">Heather.Holsinger@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED"> SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: </HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Contents:</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Definitions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Purpose</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Interim Guidelines</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Exemptions And Exceptions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Resources</FP> </EXTRACT> <E T="03">Authority:</E> Executive Order 11988, Floodplain Management, among other authorities listed in the interim guidelines. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Definitions</HD> For these Interim Guidelines the following definitions apply: A. Action: The term `action' means the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, or repair of a Federal or federally financed, licensed, or approved transportation improvement (including any relocation housing built or moved to a new site); and the acquisition, management, or disposition of Departmental lands and facilities. (DOT Order 5650.2) B. Critical Action: The term `critical action' means any activity for which even a slight chance of flooding would be too great. (E.O. 13690). C. Base flood: The term `base flood' means that flood having a 1 percent chance of being exceeded in any given year (commonly known as a 100-year flood). (DOT Order 5650.2) D. Base floodplain: The term `base floodplain' means the area which would be inundated by a base flood. (DOT Order 5650.2) E. Encroachment: The term `encroachment' means an action within the limits of the base floodplain. (DOT Order 5650.2). F. Facility: The term `facility' means any element of the built environment other than a walled or roofed building. (DOT Order 5650.2). G. FFRMS floodplain: The term `FFRMS floodplain' means the area subject to flooding as determined by one of the following approaches (E.O. 13690): • Climate-informed Science Approach (CISA): The elevation and flood hazard area that results from using a climate-informed science approach that uses the best-available, actionable hydrologic and hydraulic data and methods that integrate current and future changes in flooding based on climate science; or • Freeboard Value Approach (FVA): The elevation and flood hazard area that results from adding an additional 2 feet to the Base Flood Elevation (BFE) and expanding to the corresponding horizontal extent for non-critical actions, and by adding an additional 3 feet to the BFE and expanding to the corresponding horizontal extent for critical actions; or • 0.2-percent-annual-chance Flood Approach (0.2PFA): The area subject to flooding by the 0.2 percent annual chance flood (also known as the 500-year flood). H. Natural and Beneficial Floodplain Values: The term “Natural and beneficial floodplain values' means values that include but are not limited to: natural moderation of floods, water quality maintenance, groundwater recharge, fish, wildlife, plants, open space, natural beauty, scientific study, outdoor recreation, agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry. (DOT 5650.2). I. Practicable: The term `practicable' means capable of being done within natural, social, and economic constraints. (DOT 5650.2). J. Resilience: The term `resilience,' with respect to a project, means the ability to anticipate, prepare for, or adapt to conditions or withstand, respond to, or recover rapidly from disruptions, including the ability to: (A) resist hazards or withstand impacts from weather events and natural disasters; or reduce the magnitude or duration of impacts of a disruptive weather event or natural disaster on a project; and (B) have the absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, and recoverability to decrease project vulnerability to weather events or other natural disasters. (23 U.S.C. 101(a)(24)). K. Significant Encroachment: The term `significant encroachment' means an action within the limits of the base floodplain resulting in one or more of the following construction or flood-related impacts: • A considerable probability of loss of human life; • Likely future damage associated with the encroachment that could be substantial in cost or extent, including interruption of service on or loss of a vital transportation facility; and • A notable adverse impact on “natural and beneficial floodplain values”, as defined above. It is not contemplated that detailed design would be necessary in order to determine whether there is a significant encroachment (DOT 5650.2; see also 23 CFR 650.105(q)). <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> Flood risks impact our environment, economic prosperity, public health, and safety. Floods can lead to damaged roads, bridges, rail systems, and other transportation infrastructure, and threaten the long-term investments that Federal, State, and local governments are making in transportation infrastructure. Flooding may also result in disrupted transit service or closed roads, potentially limiting access to key evacuation routes during extreme weather events. Climate change is expected to continue to have significant impacts on current and future flood risks, with associated increases in flood damages and risk to human life in many areas of the United States. A unified Federal approach to address the impacts of flooding began in 1966, with President Johnson's Executive Order (E.O.) 11296 (Floodplain Management). President Carter's E.O. 11988 (Floodplain Management) (May 24, 1977) was executed in order to avoid, to the extent possible, the long- and short-term adverse impacts associated with the occupancy and modification of floodplains and to avoid direct or indirect support of floodplain development wherever there is a practicable alternative. E.O. 11988 provided the definitions for “base flood” as a flood which has a one percent or greater chance of occurrence in any given year and “floodplain” as the lowland and relatively flat areas adjoining inland and coastal waters including floodprone areas of offshore islands, including at a minimum, that area subject to a one percent or greater chance of flooding in any given year. E.O. 11988 requires agencies to take action to reduce the risk of flood loss, to minimize the impact of floods on human safety, health and welfare, and to restore and preserve the natural and beneficial values served by floodplains. This includes avoiding siting an action within the base floodplain, unless it is the only practicable alternative, and in those cases designing or modifying the action to minimize potential harm to or within the floodplain. Federal agencies have implemented and complied with E.O. 11988 through various Orders, regulations, and guidance applicable to their specific missions. For example, USDOT Order 5650.2 (Floodplain Management) sets forth policies and procedures applicable to all USDOT operational agencies for the avoidance and mitigation of adverse floodplain impacts in agency actions, planning programs, and budget requests. Agency floodplain policies and procedures are closely aligned with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process and documented within an action's NEPA review. Complying with the requirements of USDOT Order 5650.2 (or any USDOT Operating Administration equivalent) ensures that USDOT actions and actions of recipients of USDOT funds or approvals align with E.O. 11988. On January 30, 2015, in order to improve the Nation's resilience to current and future flood risk, President Obama issued E.O. 13690 establishing a Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) which is a flexible framework to incorporate the most recent climate science into planning, NEPA procedures, and other processes for all federally funded actions. E.O. 13690 was revoked by E.O. 13807 on August 15, 2017, by President Trump. On May 20, 2021, President Biden issued E.O. 14030 that reinstated E.O. 13690 thereby reestablishing the FFRMS. Building on existing floodplain management requirements, the FFRMS takes into account changing flood hazards due to climate change and other processes ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> land use), redefining the base floodplain using one of three approaches to determine the vertical flood elevation and corresponding horizontal extent of the floodplain. ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the FFRMS floodplain). <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Purpose</HD> The USDOT is implementing E.O. 11988, as amended by E.O. 13690, by integrating the principles of all Executive Orders and the FFRMS into the Department's activities, policies, and programs, consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. USDOT is taking the following steps to implement the FFR ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━