FEMA making $1 billion available for extreme weather events
CBSN
The Biden administration is making $1 billion available to states, territories, rural communities and tribes to prepare for hurricanes and other extreme weather events, events the administration believes are linked to climate change. It's double the amount that was made available for that purpose in fiscal year 2020.
The White House says the cost of extreme weather events has been extremely high, and in 2020, 22 different weather and climate-related disasters cost the U.S. more than $1 billion each for a total price tag of almost $100 billion. The $1 billion available through the Building Resilience Infrastructure and Communities program, a FEMA pre-disaster mitigation program, is smaller than some climate advocates had hoped, but larger than the $500 million that was available through the BRIC program in in fiscal year 2020. "I'm here today to make it clear that I will assist on nothing less than readiness for all these challenges," the president said ahead of a hurricane season briefing at FEMA headquarters in Washington, D.C. We're going to make sure that men and women are famous, and are other keys have everything they need, everything they need because I've got an incredibly difficult job. Today I'm announcing that FEMA is going to make a $1 billion available to the states, territories and tribes and rural communities through the building resilience infrastructure and Communities program, so-called BRIC program."Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.