Taxpayers for Common Sense joined a diverse coalition in sending a letter in support of H.R. 7242, the Community Disaster Resilience Zones (CDRZ) Act of 2022. This bill is a critical, foundational step toward prioritizing and directing a whole-of-nation focus on the most vulnerable communities facing the risk of potentially life-threatening and economically devastating climate and natural disaster events.

Read the letter below or download it here.

April 27, 2022

Dear Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves:

We, the undersigned organizations, write to express support for H.R. 7242, the Community Disaster Resilience Zones (CDRZ) Act of 2022. Collectively, our organizations represent a wide variety of constituencies, including business, conservation, emergency managers, housing, infrastructure, local government, public safety, science, and taxpayer organizations. We commend bill sponsors, Representatives Sharice Davids and Garret Graves, for their bipartisan leadership and thank them for introducing the CDRZ Act. This bill is a critical, foundational step toward prioritizing and directing a whole-of-nation focus on the most vulnerable communities facing the risk of potentially life-threatening and economically devastating climate and natural disaster events.

The CDRZ Act would amend the Stafford Act to establish a statutory structure to identify and designate CDRZ communities that are the most in need and most at risk to natural hazards, such as hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, and wildfires, to increase public and private sector investments in housing, infrastructure, and community-wide resilience. Building smart, modern, resilient infrastructure, including nature-based infrastructure, has long been among our top priorities. We support the CDRZ Act, which would:

Amend the Stafford Act by adding a requirement that FEMA maintain and update products and tools that define natural hazard risk across the U.S. and use that dataset to identify and designate CDRZ communities that are the most in need and most at risk to natural hazards; Authorize the President to provide CDRZ-designated communities with assistance and
funding for pre-disaster mitigation planning and projects to increase resilience against the identified hazards; and Help prioritize and attract additional public and private sector funding (including publicprivate partnerships) for resilience projects in or primarily benefitting CDRZ-designated communities.

Thank you for your leadership. We look forward to continuing to work with you and Congress to ensure our communities most threatened by climate and natural disaster risk and most economically vulnerable have the support, resources, and opportunities they need to improve their resilience.

Sincerely,

US Resiliency Council (USRC)
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS)
SBP
Resilience Innovation Hub
Reinsurance Association of America (RAA)
R Street Institute
National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
National Special Districts Coalition (NSDC)
National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS)
National Emergency Management Association (NEMA)
National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC)
National Association of Counties (NACo)
Interstate Council on Water Policy (ICWP)
International Code Council (ICC)
International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM)
Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS)
Ecological Restoration Business Association (ERBA)
The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers (CIAB)
Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC)
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES)
BuildStrong Coalition
Big City Emergency Managers (BCEM)
American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA)
American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA)
American Planning Association (APA)
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC)
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