The Biden administration intends to make restaurants and other structures more resistant to hurricanes, floods and other weather-related disasters by pushing for a revamp of state and local building codes.
The revisions should also improve the energy efficiency of facilities and homes, the White House said in announcing the initiative on Wednesday.
The standards sought by the administration are not new. Indeed, the code provisions championed by President Biden’s National Climate Task Force have been adopted by roughly a third of the nation’s communities, according to the White House. It said it intends to use a stick-and-carrot approach to encouraging the laggard jurisdictions to embrace the modern standards.
The administration said it will push recipients of federal development dollars to meet modernized building standards “to the greatest extent feasible.”
On the incentives front, the executive branch will wield $225 million earmarked by Congress for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure to encourage local adoption of modernized building codes.
In addition, the administration said it would help communities prepare for natural disasters by having all relevant federal agencies identify and help in implementing best practices to protect local structures. Those areas will be encouraged to use mapping tools to identify their vulnerability to extraordinary weather-related events, including excessive heat, wildfires, earthquakes and tornados.
The White House said the push for broader adoption of updated building codes is necessary because of global warming and the extreme conditions it fosters. The 35% of communities that have upgraded their codes are saving about $1.6 billion annually in damage expenses, according to a study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The White House said that every dollar spent on meeting new weather-related standards results in an $11 savings in damage expenses.
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