The White House announced today that it held a virtual convening meeting of the White House Coastal Resilience Interagency Working Group that was led by Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory, NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, and Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy David Hayes.
Mallory addressed the role of coastal communities in mitigating climate change and strengthening resilience and the importance of ensuring federal funding opportunities and data tools are accessible to all communities, while Spinrad discussed the urgency of coastal resilience and the economic impact that equitable investments in coastal habitat restoration and nature-based infrastructure can have for the country.
Created in June by the National Climate Task Force, the 11-member Working Group was established to elevate, coordinate, and accelerate the federal government’s efforts to increase the resilience of the nation’s coasts and coastal communities to the impacts of climate change.
Its initial focus areas are aligning major federal involvement in coastal resilience activities, developing grant-making and data implementation strategies that facilitate a coordinated working partnership with state, tribal, territorial, and local governments, and facilitating the use of the federal government’s data sharing and mapping resources to improve coastal resilience investment decision-making.
