ERA urges Congress prioritize hard infrastructure legislation
ERA has joined with the NRCA and other stakeholders to sign on to a letter from the Building Resilience Advocacy Coalition (BRAC) which urges Congress prioritize hard infrastructure legislation. This is important because the vote will be separate from the 3.5 trillion reconciliation and has definitive allocated money for buildings.
Text of the letter is below:
September 27, 2021
Dear Members of the House of Representatives,
We, the undersigned organizations, represent a broad coalition of industries in the design and
construction community who are committed to improving the resilience of the built environment. The
Senate-passed infrastructure bill, H.R. 3684, correctly includes investments in buildings as part of federal
infrastructure investment. Due to the important policies to improve the resilience and energy efficiency
of our nation’s buildings, we urge you to support passage of H.R. 3684 when it comes before the House
of Representatives.
Americans spend over 90% of their time indoors. However, too many of our nation’s buildings are
unprepared to withstand the hazards we can expect from the 21st century. Severe weather events and
man-made hazards are becoming more frequent and destructive. The problem is not localized to only
one region of the country; millions of buildings are at high-risk for damage from flood, wind, fire,
subsidence, sea level rise, and seismic shocks. Between 2014 and 2019, the United States experienced
77 weather and climate-related disasters where the overall damage was at least $1 billion. This resulted
in total costs of over $550 billion and nearly 4,000 lives lost.
Our industries can attest that disaster mitigation works. It protects building occupants and saves
taxpayer dollars. A recent study from the National Institute of Building Sciences shows that federal
mitigation grants save $6 for every $1 spent and private sector building retrofits save $4 for every $1
spent.
H.R. 3684 includes critical investment in disaster mitigation and improved energy efficiency, including:
• $3.5 billion in funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program
• $1 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s Building Resilient
Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program
• Establishing a federal Wildfire Mitigation Commission and adding wildfire to the list of predisaster mitigation expenses covered by federal Stafford Disaster and Emergency Assistance
grants
• $500 million in funding for grants established through the STORM Act
• $500 million for energy-efficient public schools
• $225 million for the Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office (BTO) to support
implementation of updated building energy codes
We urge you to support H.R. 3684 and would like to partner with you on additional legislation to address
the climate adaptation and mitigation of the built environment. Thank you for your work to improve our
nation’s infrastructure.
Sincerely,
American Council of Engineering Companies
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
American Society of Interior Designers
EPDM Roofing Association
Flood Mitigation Industry Association
International Code Council
National Ready Mixed Concrete Association
National Roofing Contractors Association
National Society of Professional Engineers
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors