Leading the charge

Legislature should approve bill bolstering Virginia’s resilience efforts

The House of Delegates on Tuesday passed legislation that promises to streamline the commonwealth’s work to protect communities from flooding and the worsening effects of climate change.

By creating an Office of Commonwealth Resilience headed by a chief resilience officer, Virginia can better coordinate adaptation efforts and ensure the most effective use of available funds.

Both the Senate and Gov. Glenn Youngkin should back this measure and see that this bill becomes law.

Since 2018 the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission has recommended that our region prepare for 1.5 feet of sea-level rise by 2050 and as much as 4.5 feet by 2100. Estimates suggest adaptation and mitigation projects here could be as much as $40 billion.

That’s the enormity of the challenge facing our region, to say nothing about other communities facing similar threats. These include cities in Northern Virginia that see tidal flooding from the Potomac River and towns in Southwest Virginia that have seen devastating flash floods in recent years.

Virginia needs someone in a leadership role as it works to protect vulnerable communities from steadily rising seas.

In Hampton Roads, sea-level rise is more pronounced thanks to subsidence, the gradual sinking of our land. The commonwealth is on the clock as flooding becomes more frequent, intrusive and destructive with each passing year.

Former Gov. Ralph Northam was smart to create the position of chief resilience officer in 2018 to help organize, coordinate and lead Virginia’s adaptation efforts. His Executive Order 24 designated the secretary of Natural Resources to serve in that role.

In 2020 the General Assembly approved legislation that made the office a permanent part of state government, an important step as Virginia launched several initiatives aimed at accelerating resilience work in flood-threatened communities.

These included development and implementation of a Coastal Resilience Master Plan for the commonwealth and creation of the Community Flood Preparedness Fund to pay for extensive and often expensive infrastructure projects.

The fund received more than $370 million through Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and was used for projects across the state.

In 2022 the General Assembly also created the Resilient Virginia Revolving Fund, a pool of money distributed to local governments which is then loaned to property owners to make improvements that guard against flooding. It was seeded with $25 million from the Flood Preparedness Fund and received an additional $100 million through the budget agreement reached last year.

Prior to that legislation’s approval, Youngkin and lawmakers engaged in a backand-forth about how best to oversee these various funds in order to ensure proper oversight and thoughtful use of every dollar.

At the time, the governor expressed the need for “a single state entity to develop, manage and integrate resilience efforts and [make] real progress on long-delayed projects and solutions for the commonwealth,” according to the Virginia Mercury.

The bill passed by the House this week would do precisely that.

It proposes the creation of a separate office under the governor focused exclusively on flooding projects and hazard mitigation headed by the chief resilience officer, moving that position out of Natural Resources.

It creates two advisory review committees through the Department of Conservation and Recreation to oversee use of the two flood funds, would increase transparency by requiring all grant requests be made public and foster public engagement through comment periods before money is distributed.

These changes make sense for the commonwealth and reflect the urgency needed as Virginia looks to protect its communities from flooding.

From Hampton Roads’ perspective, creating an office solely dedicated to resilience is long overdue, and elevating the chief resilience officer in this way should ensure that state agencies, local governments and other stakeholders are working together.

The commonwealth, and our region, cannot afford to wait. We need someone at the highest levels of state government leading these efforts, with the resources to ensure the effectiveness of that office.

The House bill accomplishes that and the Senate should pass it expeditiously.