 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Carol Werner. I'm the executive director of the environmental and energy study Institute otherwise known as the EESI It is my pleasure to welcome you to this afternoon's briefing I mean how many times do you get to come to an exciting briefing like this on a Friday afternoon? Come on folks, right? So anyway, we're very very glad that you are here And we are very glad to be sponsoring this briefing with the Center for Climate and Security and I also want to thank very much the Jackson Foundation as well as the David Rockefeller Foundation Without their support, we would not be able to do so much of this important work on climate insecurity That is so important to our country to our Security forces here and also around the world. And so I want to say thank you very very much To to those foundations for making this possible and all of the work that we are Trying to do to help bring these issues to policy makers so that everyone can understand more About the impacts that we are seeing and how it is very much related to security and to Both both in terms of our physical facilities as well as to the security of Societies around the world So as many of you probably know The Environmental and Energy Study Institute is an organization that was started as an independent nonprofit back in 1984 by bipartisan Congressional caucus We were charged By those bipartisan members with providing greater resources to policy makers on Energy and environmental issues that were coming before the Congress or issues that Probably should be coming before the Congress to find ways to look at policy options to provide more educational Opportunities so that there could be a better informed policy debate At all times Understanding that a healthy environment and a healthy economy go hand-in-hand So I would encourage any of you who are not familiar with the ESI Please go to our website learn more find out how you can participate in terms of Getting on our distribution lists for fact sheets for our briefings Etc because this is all about helping all of us become better informed so that we can all make better decisions Come up with more creative in common sense innovative solutions so to start off our briefing today and we have a Terrific panel that is dealing with this whole issue of military bases and the communities that support them and How we make these military bases and those communities more resilient we have a panel that is Very engaged in dealing with this on very much a day-to-day basis that has Been looking at this issue for a number of years has been doing a lot of thinking talking Advising at all levels within the military and with the communities. That's that support these facilities But to kick off our panel this afternoon I want to call on Susan wickwire who has been a member of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation board for 10 years and is currently vice president of the foundation and Susan Now lives in Seattle, but she had been here in Washington for many years Where she has worked on climate change clean energy and sustainability both at EPA where she Was very much involved in terms of directing national climate programs and Managed a number of international climate change projects and also participate on US delegations to the international climate change Discussions and she also served at the State Department as well so Susan Good afternoon everyone and thank you so much for coming We are so pleased to be able to hold this event with EES I and the Center for Climate and Security who's another one of our Grantees and we really appreciate having their voice on this panel as well the kinds of Significant risks that we're going to hear about today are exactly why senator Henry M. Jackson Cared so deeply about these issues and why the foundation that was established after his passing in the early 1980s wants to shine a spotlight on such a An important issue and on the national security implications of climate change For over 30 years the Jackson Foundation has been advancing the work of the senator Protecting the environment was one of his top priorities. He also emphasized a strong defense and supporting the military So this issue kind of brings together a lot of the interests of the senator and the foundation as we we continue his work When he was here on Capitol Hill many decades ago. He was always looking for informed policy Opportunities he consulted academics scientists wanting to be sure that he had all the right information He also prioritized working across the aisle in a bipartisan fashion. So that's something else that we're interested in promoting Currently Climate change is one of our highest priorities as we do consider it a national security threat For over 15 years both democratic and republican administrations have studied and concluded that climate change multiplies existing security threats the critical national security applications of climate change Including the challenges to our military installations and their surrounding communities must be addressed We have been closely monitoring recent reports that the NSC is looking to create a panel that will call into question some of the climate change science on impacts and on adaptation We are very concerned about this development at the foundation which only promises to politicize US military agreed assessment of the urgent climate change risks and it also threatens to undermine the scientific process Which we believe in we are deep deeply dismayed at the foundation that the NSC would choose to this path to go after the findings of the administration That's own intelligence defense and scientific agencies including the findings of the national climate assessment that came out just a few months ago So we believe that a unified response by the national security community Amplified like events that we're supporting here today will underscore the near universal consensus that climate change poses As a clear and present national security threat And so this is just a very timely opportunity for us to be supporting this important discussion to look at all aspects of the issue Including, you know, what happens here on the home front and how climate change is having an impact On our national security system. So thank you so much for letting us be a part of this. I Now would like to turn to rare admiral and Phillips Who is the special assistant to the governor for coastal adaptation and protection for the state of Virginia? I think this was one of the smartest appointments that the governor could have made Because in so doing he picked somebody who has been So very much on the ground in terms of working with the communities in the whole Hampton Roads area Knows that area so well and has been such an important leader planner Visionary in terms of bringing messages from there has been a star of documentaries looking at this whole area Prior to joining the governor's administration in Virginia Admiral Phillips has been working to address sea level rise and climate impact on national security at the regional national and international levels. She is a voice that many of us have been listening to asking questions of Really seeking out because of her thoughtful and always questioning always Asking for what kinds of steps need to be taken really closely observing the situation and always reaching out to bring more and more people together Admiral Phillips retired in 2014 after serving nearly 31 years on active duty in the US Navy And I have heard her refer to herself as a boat driver It's an honor to be here with all of you today and to be here again with the EESI and the Center for Climate and Security and I think I should Just update Carol's comments and say that there are actually two people here today Who have been on the ground on Hampton Roads working on things and you will hear from Ben McFarland Following me, I'm going to stick at the state of Virginia level today And Ben will tell you what he has been working on for a number of years to make progress in Hampton Roads I'm here to say that Hampton Roads is making progress And that they take this issue very seriously so First thank you again Carol for that kind introduction and finally Thank you to the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and the David Rockefeller Fund for their support of this event today I'm honored to be here and to be part of such a distinguished panel as Carol mentioned I am a surface warfare officer. I retired after 31 years driving ships for the Navy. I was trained Like my peers to view a mission in the context of strategic operational and tactical terms Clear-eyed pragmatic focus and to prepare for and execute based on engineering and scientific fact That carries through throughout the Department of Defense My experience with the impacts of climate and coastal adaptation on national security and on our federal properties and surrounding Communities really stems from my work the opportunity. I had to be a chair of a working group as a part of the intergovernmental pilot project that was conducted in Hampton Roads from 2014 to 2016 and Now as the special assistance of the governor of the state of Virginia for coastal adaptation and protection I'm here to talk today about the challenges we face in the state of Virginia In making our military bases and their surrounding communities more resilient Virginia is honored to be the home of some of the most exceptional defense infrastructure that our nation brings to bear Infrastructure and I will say this more than once hoping you'll remember that is not easily replicable in other locations We are arguably the state with the largest and most concentrated federal and Department of Defense presence According to the Office of Economic Adjustment and Report defense spending by state in 2017, which was just released Virginia derives 8.9 percent of our total State gross domestic product from the fence spending in the state the highest of any state in the union We also have the highest percentage of GDP of any state in the union We also have the highest percentage of defense personnel spending and We are second only to California in total defense spending and total defense contract spending So we care about the Department of Defense in the state of Virginia Care about all our federal partners, but DOD is the largest Coastal Virginia is in the grip of a slow-moving and relentless existential threat from rising waters and recurrent flooding caused by rain wind tides and storms in any combination We're experiencing sea level rise change at an accelerated rate compared to many locations In fact, we are the highest rate of change on the east coast of the United States because not only are we dealing with rising water But the land is subsiding This creates a serious and growing menace to our military federal facility and community readiness Resilience and therefore to our nation's ability to prepare for and execute our national defense strategy The challenge is particularly acute at coastal military installations, which are on the front lines I've said this before in this venue, and I'll say it again We are a crucible for the entire range of challenges Largely stemming from the fact that we're dealing with water in places We don't want need or expect it on an ever more routine basis We'll hear more details about Hampton Roads in particular when my colleague Ben McFarlane speaks here in a few minutes But let me tell you a few things about what the state is doing about our military presence and our surrounding community infrastructure Virginia boasts over 10,000 miles of tidily influenced coastline In our eight coastal planning district regions We have vast and matchless combinations of urban suburban and industrial infrastructure Including in addition to the federal infrastructure the port of Virginia the fifth largest us port Complex by container volume in the nation and one of only 17 maritime administrator designated critical infrastructure ports We also have the beauty of natural unspoiled coastlines barrier island systems and the support of Traditional waterman's communities long-time aquaculture and agriculture development as well as water and beachfront tourism We have national assets that are one of our kind facilities as I've mentioned with irreplaceable individual capabilities And they are where they are because of the unique Relationship they have with this geography and topography of our state In addition to our tremendous federal presence in northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads region I'll talk about some of these facilities. They include naval station Norfolk arguably our largest naval facility Our nation's only aircraft carrier construction and refueling facility and one of only two submarine construction facilities in the country Newport news shipbuilding One of four Navy owned nuclear repair shipyards Norfolk Naval shipyard, which is actually in Portsmouth, Virginia And on the eastern shore NASA wallops flight facility Which includes the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport US Navy surface combat system center and the Navy's missile test range All very unique facilities all of which are not easily moved We know well in Virginia that climate change is complicating our federal state and local communities ability to thrive and to maintain mission readiness and resilience In fact the Department of Defense actually has a long history in the state of collaborative and preparative work with the local communities to get ready for this threat One great example for those who may not have looked at this because it's four years old almost five now But it's excellent is the risk quantification for sustaining coastal military assets study Common vernacular is RC 1701 that the Army Corps led Dr. Kelly Brooks copes and completed in 2014 I want to read you a quote from that study Sea level rise it found is a significant and pervasive threat multiplier to mission sustainability It significantly increases loadings on built infrastructure and Dramatically increases risk to system capabilities and service provisioning and logistics Further the work identified Critical impacts to systems that were particularly vulnerable and likely to be incapacitated once sea levels rose above one meter The results of the study showed the probability of damage to infrastructure and losses in mission performance increased dramatically, however, if we even got to half a meter of sea level rise This indicated a tipping point or a threshold that should be considered when undertaking future planning or operational activities on the specific Installation where they focus their work That installation was Naval Station Norfolk And the Virginia Institute of Marine Science assesses we could have that additional half meter of sea level rise on or about 2050 30 years from now well inside the infrastructure planning timeline of any major critical infrastructure So how will we prepare for this encroachment by natural factors? And how will we look beyond the immediate local defense community and defense facility infrastructure to take on this system-wide threat to our collective resilience? In January 2018 the National Defense Authorization Act of Directed or a National Defense Authorization Act directed that do identify DOD identify a series of not January 2018 in 2018 the NDA Directed that DOD identify its top 10 most critical and vulnerable facilities by service that were impacted by climate This January 2019 that report was released. It identified 79 critical military installations 9 are in Virginia 8 reported recurrent flooding as an impactor and 4 all in Hampton Roads were specifically addressed as vulnerable to sea level rise and inundation That includes joint-based language Eustis Navy region-med Atlantic facilities including Naval Station Norfolk again And I guess Oceana and naval support activity Hampton Roads This validates what we already know is happening The challenge is that adapting to climate change requires future projected look from a whole of government and community perspective So that we can work with the defense community to identify threats evaluate the risk and plan to projected future circumstances So that we can implement collaborative mitigation and adaptation actions for the entire deployment system So the full logistics need change not just the end where I think the ship leaves the pier But everything it takes to get that material to that ship at that pier that may be beyond our local defense communities It may be elsewhere in in the system of systems In Hampton Roads an intergovernment of pilot project as I talked about in 2016 talked again about key requirements for this whole of government approach And I want to tell you what they are very briefly the first were setting standards The state has started to do that as a part of executive order 24 and the Hampton Roads region has started to do that The second is that you need the support of a consortium of universities so that you have the best possible science and engineering available at data available at your fingertips The third key criteria was that you need to open access and distribution of data so that you actually understand what's happening to your region And you can see what your trends are The fourth is that we have to understand and identify dependencies and critical and critical dependency Dependencies and interdependencies are critical infrastructure systems and the fifth is we have to work towards create creative and collaborative funding outcomes and strategies combining efforts at the federal state and local level as Discussed Virginia thinks that bold action is necessary on this front and in November of 18 Governor Northam signed out as I mentioned executive order 24 increasing Virginia's resilience to C level rise and natural hazards This will produce among other things setting standards for the state's state-owned built infrastructure and Creating a coastal resilience master plan, which will look across and beyond jurisdictional boundaries But we can't do it alone, and we cannot make our federal facilities islands the full range of community assets from utilities to housing to health care and Across hydrological ecological and sociological systems is located off base As defense communities were inextricably linked to our federal partners and these enormous concerns require creative joint solutions a little bit about existing programs the Army Corps coastal storm risk management studies sometimes referred to as three by three by three studies and Continuing as authorities programs along with FEMA's pre-disaster hazard mitigation programs offer opportunities to take advantage of federal funding support with non federal match to reduce impacts of extreme weather and ongoing climate-related impact, but they're limited in size number and scope They do not include federal property in the study efforts And they are not able to keep pace with the scale of the threat that lies before us because it's not just Hampton roads It's Charleston. It's Mayport. It's Kings Bay. It's San Francisco. It's Alaska. It's Washington, DC Says the Greater Washington Council of Governments. We are all going to be impacted by this at the same time We don't have the luxury of picking and choosing first. We're going to do this then we're going to do that in many circumstances Programs like the Office of Economic Adjustment Threat Land Use Studies, which you'll hear more about from Mike again Ben McFarland and their compatible use focus do give communities in DOD another shared understanding of regional impacts and opportunity to then prioritize key mitigation project while funded by DOD However, this is executed by the community So it doesn't necessarily give us much help to the Department of Defense Facilities Nevertheless, we need more of this work and to ensure the continued vitality of our federal facilities and their shared dependencies DOD as I've mentioned needs a detailed assessment of the threat to its facilities Perhaps we start with those mentioned in the 2018 NDAA report and then that can then be combined with these expanded tools We saw in a 2019 NDAA, which will give us more options and more opportunities Some of those I'll mention briefly included expanding authorities for the readiness and environmental protection integration program REPE, Defense Access Roads program and the newly created but not yet implemented Defense Community Infrastructure Program These would all give us another range of choices, but the challenges are always in the bottom line REPE is funded by General Fund Operating Funds and main installers which the services can and have contributed to in the past Defense Access Roads competes for critical milk on funding So it's up against other military construction needs and the Defense Community Infrastructure Project had no money appropriated against it at all Pending decisions about how and by whom the program would be administered Further FEMA's Disaster Recovery Reform Act in 2018 October also offers expanded opportunities for National Public Infrastructure Pre-disaster mitigation and the specific details of that program remain pending So to take advantage of the full ability to implement across all of these tools DOD needs a holistic planning process In November of 2018 by chance the Center for Climate and Security issued a brief related to the 2018 NDAA report Which recommended the creation of a military installation resilience plan They would look across the full range of biological hydrological environmental and sociological system impacts Look at those dependencies and depend in interdependencies across the whole system of systems that impact federal facilities the surrounding communities And then farther afield full watershed reviews Access to air points of departure and see points of departure thinking of Wilmington, North Carolina If implemented this would be of great value to the federal facilities and the defense communities The National Building Council has been quoted many times And I'll do it here too that a dollar spent in pre-disaster mitigation saved six dollars in post disaster restoration costs Our money would be well invested and well spent So in closing I would like to reiterate three points first. We're at risk from an existential threat Virginia understands we must do our part to prepare our communities in concert with our federal and defense partners But it has to be a whole of government community and society approach and it has to be a forward-looking projected effort Second it's absolutely essential that we are again looking to the future not history to determine what we're going to do Look outside the fence line Determine threats mitigation needs and then partner with our federal state and local agencies to find solutions You know the future will be different from the past and risk assessment planning and design implementation Based on historical data is just wasting time and it's limiting our options for the future This will result in higher cost over time as the solution options that we have Window and the window of time to execute them begins to narrow We'll be chasing our tail. We don't have time for that finally You must take action on a coordinated legislative and appropriated support for pre-disaster readiness for our most threatened defense communities We should create legislation necessary to create this military installation and resilience planning process So federal off organizations have a clear direction authority Capacity and capability to act in a way that is collaborative and consistent with the urgent situations that defense communities Particularly coastal dense fence communities in Virginia at least now face As Virginia acts to make our coasts more resilient to this form of encroachment we look forward to working with our defense communities and our federal and State and Department of Defense partners to continue to develop and streamline processes For actionable solutions with a clear path to execution to address our climate changed future Thank you very much. Thank you very much Admiral Phillips Submarine indeed as as Admiral Phillips indicated we have an important colleague of hers who Has been working again on the ground since 2008 in the Hampton Roads area And that is it been McFarland who is a senior regional planner for the Hampton Roads planning district commission It's 2008 then has been involved on Several projects several major projects including a plan for the Northwest River watershed in Chesapeake, Virginia And the Hampton Roads regional green infrastructure plan He as part of his work conducts regular research and analysis related to water quality issues a terribly important issue in that area comprehensive and general land use planning and Climate change all of which are intricately intertwined one of the things in looking at these important issues is how critical the Communities are that surround our military facilities that support them if people who work or people who are providing supplies to those facilities Anybody engaged if they cannot get to that military base? Even if it is somehow protected then we have lost the ability to achieve mission readiness and to Protect our defense capability so the communities that are involved are extraordinarily important and have to be part of all of the planning because their lives Everything in terms of their economy is impacted by the situation that you just heard Admiral Phillips described so it So I must say it is with great admiration That I introduced Ben who is having to deal with this work with all of these communities And I think that there are about 17 communities that are involved in all of this That is a lot of coordination a lot of pulling people together trying to get everybody on the same page to Understand things to work for solutions. It is an enormous job, and we should be glad that Ben is there doing it It's a lot of meetings I'll tell you that Good afternoon everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today I want to thank e si and the Center for Climate Security and the event sponsors for Inviting me here to be on this panel So I'm the only one with slides. I'm a planner urban planner and a bureaucrat so I kind of need to have slides to do these kind of talks But I have tried to avoid having too much text So a lot of pictures little text and hopefully we'll all be able to get through together I want to talk a little bit today about about our region Hampton Roads about what our agency the HR PDC does and Then some of the lessons that we've learned in talking with and working with the military and the Navy in particular About some of the challenges that we have in working with them trying to collaborate with them between cities In military installations and also some of the opportunities that we've identified for how we might move forward Collaborately to improve the resilience not only of our individual communities and the installations But also the region of Hampton Roads as a whole so for those of you who are familiar with the Hampton Roads So where are the southeastern corner of Virginia? We do have 17 member jurisdictions in our commission Ten independent cities six counties one incorporated town about 1.7 million people not quite as big as northern Virginia But we are the second largest region in the Commonwealth Lot of work that's going on For our commission. We're actually a state enabled but locally created a regional planning agency Don't our sister agency up here in or in this area would be the northern Virginia regional Commission if you've done any work with them we as Across the state they're about 20 21 of our agencies and our role is to serve two things one Our commission which is comprised of elected officials and appointed officials They come together once a month roughly to discuss issues of greater than local importance So that's a forum for them to get together for those high elected officials To come together and talk about the issues that are important to the region Below that level we have quite a bit of coordination that goes on at the staff level between all the different cities regional entities utility providers Stormwater managers at very different levels various levels of governance to get together on a regular basis and build a network of practice across different different Departments different needs different topics so that when there is a need for regional coordination for our localities to act together That that network is there in place to help facilitate that moving forward So when and some we you know we act as a liaison between Our localities and state agencies and federal agencies We provide a lot of services in terms of data and research and analysis to our localities. We do coordinate quite a bit I think we just have we're gonna have three or four of our monthly standing meetings next week coming up So so we do have a lot of meetings But we don't we don't pass laws we don't mandate anything So everything we do is by the grace of the localities that have come together to create us Well, I will say though on this topic of resiliency though that It has been a key focus area for our commission for over 10 years now There's been wide recognition for a considerable amount of time in Hampton roads that sea level rise regardless of the cause is something that our Region is concerned about and needs to start doing something about so we haven't had the luxury of waiting for the state or for the federal Government to come to our to our aid and to our rescue on this that we've been working on this independently for quite some time So and mentioned some of the military installations that are located in coastal, Virginia I'm not going to go through that list here But I what I will say is that Hampton roads we are both blessed and Unfortunate to have the one of the greatest concentrations of military assets not only in the country, but probably in the world One of the challenges that we have in working with the military in Hampton roads is that many of these installations are actually located adjacent to and right in the middle of established urban communities which creates quite a bit of complication and also Conflict potential conflict between the needs of the military and the needs and the wants of the community that hosts those installations so Some of those challenges that we've identified over the years and working with these different military installation We have folks from the Navy the Coast Guard the Air Force the Army I don't think we have a separate Marine Corps installation, but we have an expeditionary base so close enough Is that we sort of kind of gone through and try to summarize some of these These challenges that we've faced in some so one I want to say from an understanding perspective is that our installations They don't really necessarily understand the governance mechanisms behind That guide and dictate what local governments can do both politically and practically and legally And also on the flip side the communities don't always understand What those installations what their missions actually are and how those installation missions might change over time? from a data perspective what we found is that Rarely actually quite rare sometimes that localities and the installations actually share Data on what kind of projects they have on the ground what infrastructure they have and for a place like Hampton roads Which is very urban where you have things moving from one side of defense to the other when you don't share that information that data It becomes quite challenging to do effective long-term planning From a priorities perspective We think what we've noticed is that our communities installations they happen to value different things And I you know sometimes those things are actually mutually exclusive and it really requires Folks to get together and talk about and see if they can identify Solutions that work for everyone and if they can't to devise some way to to resolve those conflicts And then from a funding perspective what we found is that in general I think this comes as no surprise to anyone in the Room there's not enough money going around to actually do the things that need to be done and On top of that even if there is enough money in the aggregate sometimes It's very difficult to actually coordinate a line different funding streams to achieve overall beneficial outcomes so we think about some of the friction points that are there between that it would that Kind of keep localities from working effectively with with installations One point I do want to say is that you know, I think it's obvious that local governments They're not working for the military. That's their job is to work forward to represent the residents and the citizens of those communities What makes that even more difficult though sometimes is that? Even if they would like to help the military out the military doesn't always do a very good job I'm actually articulating what it is they would like for a local government to do and there are certain restrictions on what they're allowed to do in terms of ethics requirements and whatnot but The conversations don't always take place that actually show or indicate to a community What would be beneficial for the military installations are there? So I have you have a few examples of some of these conflicts and these challenges that have popped up over the last several years one of these is an area so this is actually from joint expeditionary base Little Creek in the city of Virginia Beach that's Harbor that's off the Chesapeake Bay That leads both directly to this military installation But also to several industries that are located there on the water and also Several neighborhoods that have waterfront access and enjoy boating in and out of the bay there There was a proposal recently from the Navy to actually require boaters to radio in and request permission and announce their presence when they're coming in exiting and entering the harbor and There was quite a lot of public pushback against this like why would you why would you want to do this? So the one is that the Navy just kind of like proposed this out of nowhere in some cases and then also You know the the citizenry the people that lived there would have to actually deal with this situation Had no idea where it was coming from They didn't know that this was a conflict to begin with and I think I'm from the Navy perspective They did not quite understand all of the the ramifications of how this might actually impact the local community So for example one specific example of that is that you know There are size requirements or minimum size requirements for having this kind of radio that they'd be able to use I believe it was 65 feet or if you're less than 65 feet in length You don't necessarily have to have the radio that they would be required to actually do this So there would be boaters out there that aren't actually had don't have the equipment even do what the Navy's trying to ask them to do They did back away from this proposal But I do think this is an example right here of how communication and education between the installation and between the local community about what's going on at the base and what are the important You know things that need to be known about that installation mission and how it might conflict with local priorities those conversations It needs those conversations need to take place Another example on the data side here This is actually from a project that we're currently working on right now that I'll get into in a moment But what I want to point out here is that we have some This is an example of how water infrastructure and water management crosses the fence line going from Virginia Beach into Expeditionary-based Little Creek and out of the base and then back into Virginia Beach The challenge here that I want to mention is that For many years the city has been Virginia Beach has been working on a study to actually update its storm water management plans They've been doing a master drainage studies and sea level rise planning analysis work Very extensive undertaking in the millions of dollars to come up with very detailed plans for how they're going to improve their infrastructure to deal with flooding But it comes to dealing with this area though. They need to know how water is moving around on the Navy installation and For several years for about three years the Navy refused to provide any data to the city on how that water was moving around What sort of infrastructure was being used on the base to move that around so the city was not able to actually Incorporate that information into its planning work They did happily get that information What's March now so back in January just got the data But still three years of stonewalling and conflict between the city and the Navy about whether or not they can get data of getting kind of mixed messages from that from the installation that I think what shows is that this this Data this is really critical to effective local planning And I think sometimes that the military doesn't necessarily understand exactly how important in an area urbanized area like this Where the name the installation and the city are literally right next to each other? How important that is to have that data available for both sides to do effective planning? There's another example Actually just further to the west for another situation on an amphibious drive where there's some flooding that's taking place Cutting off access between the two halves of the base And in that situation there's a misunderstanding right now about what's causing that flooding and it hasn't been addressed And I did the city thinks it's one thing the Navy thinks the other thing And there's been a lot of pushback from both sides about whether or not they can actually come to an agreement on it From our perspective, I think you know what we would recommend and what we're trying to encourage them to do is to actually Think about like doing some sort of study to really identify what those causes are so that everyone's on the same page because right now They're not and that's producing a conflict Yes, when that when that flooding happens it cuts cuts it in half So this and this is this example here that I have of Norfolk International Airport is an example of where the priorities and the missions of the Navy in Hampton Roads and the desires and priorities and the wants of a local community are having direct conflicts so here and also that there's some misunderstanding that has result that has really Exaggerated the situation so Norfolk International Airport has one main runway right now They'd like to have another one runway that runway would be to the east so you can kind of see what the path of runway here This is the Norfolk. This is not really okay So Norfolk, that's the green blob on the right side There is the runway protection zones and noise zones around Norfolk International Airport The longer access is the main runway. They'd like to have a parallel runway put into place there to increase the capacity of the airport Unfortunately right now the the airport is in a delicate position where it's already conflicting with the use of Little Creek with the ships that come and enter the harbor and with some of the Things that are stored at that installation right now in terms of ordinance a parallel runway would significantly increase those negative impacts to the base The unfortunate thing about this from our perspective is that neither the installation of the city have really talked about this issue For quite some time until very recently And part of that issue is that since 9 11 Little Creek is actually a greatly increased the size Not only of it's just general personnel size, but in terms of the emissions that are going on there Little Creek in Fort Story it's it's sister installation over on the corner of Virginia Beach are some of the Premier homes for the special operations forces for the Navy some pretty unique training facilities that are Mostly unavailable as we're on the east coast and so in terms of importance to the Navy these facilities are absolutely critical The Navy really didn't communicate this to the cities for quite some time And it's only really in the last couple of years when we've been having more extended conversations that That these issues have come up and that we've started to have these You know trying to think about ways that we might be able to resolve the situation So that's for the bad stuff On the on the good side when we do we do see a number of opportunities here I can't emphasize enough the importance of coordination. I know we joke about having so many meetings And as a planner and you know, it's working as a regional entity We go to a lot of meetings. We host a lot of meetings, but having that coordination is absolutely critical to improving relationships to Getting to the right answer more of the time if not all of the time on a planning side Working together we can start try to identify some of these conflicts ahead of time so that they don't become problems And then from a funding perspective there are opportunities out there right now and and mentioned a couple That are available where we might be able to pool resources and result and come up with some better outcomes One of the other projects that we've been working on it now And I think you I was gonna get there just to be a while to get there We have been working on a joint land use study with the Navy with all the installations in Norfolk and Virginia Beach We'll ask two and a half years or so and through this we've been able to develop some criteria that we're using to evaluate The benefits for military use or military operations operations of readiness of local infrastructure projects with looked at these different categories We scored them with our our technical committee of local staff and Navy representatives to see which of these these kind of capital improvement program projects might actually be Have a tangible benefit to the Navy installations and we're using that to develop a kind of prioritized list When it comes to looking for potential funding opportunities of saying this project is not only important to Norfolk or Virginia Beach But it's also important to the Navy We also think this is a model that could be used by other communities around the country So with through this study what we've identified and I mentioned the the accessing the base issue We've looked at specifically on the resilience resiliency perspective how roadways and Hampton roads that are important to the military, which is a study that we've already done several years ago Would be affected by flooding and we've also looked at how Access to community assets might also be affected by flooding These are both important not only for directly accessing the installation and maintaining operational readiness But also for maintaining and improving quality of life of Navy of sailors and servicemen and women and their dependents Lot of the conversation with the Department of Defense over the last several years has been has emphasized the importance of quality of life to future DoD allocation of assets of commands of resources and from our perspective when we think about sea level rise and recurrent flooding that That's a major impact of quality of life not only of the city of our citizens In our our civilians citizens in Hampton roads But also of our our Navy residents that are there sometimes temporarily and sometimes they choose to stay after they retire Or they separate from the service, but being able to understand tangibly how Sea level rise and flooding are negatively impacting the quality of life of those individuals is a really big part of figuring out Exactly what kind of projects should be undertaken if we're thinking about How a project that the city might undertake would actually benefit the Navy? So in a couple of opportunities other opportunities beyond the joint land use study that we've been working on One is in flood risk management Norfolk has just recently completed or they're just about to complete and finalize a coastal former management study with the Corps of Engineers Right now unfortunately, there's a lack of authority to work together with military installations There's very limited ability to actually go on base and say that a specific construction project here on the base would actually benefit not only the civilian community, but also the So there's that's difficult right now to coordinate military construction and civil works funding streams and from our perspective We think that needs to be corrected and then also from another example where an opportunity exists and this is kind of more of a I guess them Construction project type of thing but from a shoreline management perspective You see from this diagram you can kind of tell there's some yellow lines on there That are showing where our sandy beaches are in Hampton roads Norfolk Little Creek Virginia Beach and Fort Story all share basically an unbroken sandy shoreline on the Chesapeake Bay and unfortunately right now because of the the vagaries of funding and civil works authorizations and mil-con authorizations it's been very difficult to actually look at doing a strategic and comprehensive shoreline management approach That would provide beach nourishment and replenishment For all of those at the same time which would actually result in an overall better project That was also there will also be more cost effective So there are a lot of other things going on in Hampton roads I mean, I'm happy to answer questions after we're all done here today, but I will end on a few points one is that Communication is not always easy, but it is absolutely critical to moving forward to go to working together as partners and just One note here is that public notice is not sufficient when it comes to communication You know we've heard from our cities and from the military that they put something out there for the public this That's good enough. It's absolutely not Having those personal relationships knowing who to call at what level you need to call someone is absolutely critical to being able to Understand what are there and to work together in the future? Sometimes there are conflicts and sometimes they can't always be resolved but at least if you actually have discussions that you can maintain those relationships and Then there are real opportunities and I mentioned a few of those the defense access roads program defense community infrastructure program And then also the core civil works program as well where we might be able to work together to actually develop projects and plans that would Benefit both our communities and our installations in Hampton roads So thank you all for your time and looking for the discussion later on well, and hopefully a Lot of other communities around the country will be able to look at some of the work that that you are doing in terms of So everybody doesn't have to reinvent the wheel as far as putting some of these things together So our final speaker on this panel somebody who has been looking at these issues on sort of across the board on Sort of looking across in terms of thinking about all of DoD's facilities What is this? What does this mean? What does this mean with regard to security overall? And so we are very very pleased to have John Konger with us today Who is John is the director for the Center for Climate and Security where he oversees all of the centers programs and chairs? the centers climate and security advisory group He's been with the center for a number of years, but he also was the principal deputy undersecretary of defense or the comptroller at DoD for for several years and that That and his subsequent work have given him a very very special I To looking at the kinds of costs that are involved the different entities that are involved in how these entities Need to be in touch with each other. What are all of the places that you need to kind of? touch which we've heard from Ben and from also Admiral Phillips that how many people really are involved in terms of trying To figure out how best to address some of the problems that we are seeing in real time today Good afternoon everybody. How we doing? So I know that it's Friday afternoon and I know that you know first for those of you who are staffers your next step is gonna be You know the early happy hour where you slip out of the office and everybody sort of takes a little bit of a break Yes, so I'm gonna do my best to send you out on a good note by telling you some horror stories and And and give you at least something to chat about I've got Three main points to leave you with three I've learned that when anybody gives a speech if you say more than three things really when it all boils down to it You're not gonna remember anything I said anyway So I'm gonna I'm gonna leave you with three basic things that I want you to take away from here But I'm not gonna tell you I'm all up front You're gonna have to wait for that So and I'm gonna add one little star because Susan brought up the NSC panel and I'm not gonna leave the podium without talking about that, but I'll save that to the end So first the first thing you got to know is that our bases are under threat We are do you does anybody know the last base that was evacuated because of a climate emergency? Bet you don't it was point Mugu in California because the wildfires were coming now Wildfires is just one of those things that we Don't always think of when we're thinking about climate change impacts wildfire season has gone from a season to all year long Why because we have drought issues. We have climate changes in the end is are all wildfires caused by climate change No, but it creates the conditions That we're seeing today Are our climate change is responsible for every hurricane? No, we've had hurricanes for a long time, but you can see changes happening increased intensity You know go down to Tyndall or Camp Lejeune and you ask them if they care about climate change For those of you who aren't tracking Tyndall Air Force Base was pretty much leveled by a hurricane Michael just a few months ago her So Tyndall and Lejeune together you're looking at close to ten billion dollars worth of repairs that gets your attention up here You know it's not real money until you're talking about billions billion here billion there, and then you're talking about real money That's the quote anyway the point is our bases are under threat You've got sea level rise and flooding storm surge issues at at bases like Norfolk and in the Hampton Roads area Which you've just heard about They are very very concerned what what why are they very very concerned is because the roads flood if you're if your Airfield is flooded. You can't fly planes out It has operational issues They've had to raise the piers not because the piers were going to be underwater but because the electronics under the piers was getting Affected by the saltwater so they had to lift up these structures in order to be able to service the ships There are a whole host of problems and in Hampton Roads and Norfolk or at the front lines of this problem in part because of the fact that The ground is sinking like and and mentioned In part because we have so much military concentration in that one location But you're focused there and you're and you look at it and that's what is going to happen in other locations Over time so be concerned So our bases are under threat We should all be worried about this to a degree You know you look at a place like Diego Garcia an important strategic location in the Indian Ocean It's at three feet above sea level at some point In the in the decades to come That may be an issue and may impair operations one would think there's a there's a The Reagan test site at quadriland Island in the quadrilateral in the in the Marshall Islands DoD came out with a study last year that says that because of Wave action over the island because of sea level rise That the saltwater is getting into the aquifer and with been by as early as 2030 That island is not going to be able to support human habitation. They won't be drinking water What are you gonna do you just spent a billion dollars on a radar there? What are you gonna do? so What you're gonna do is you're probably need to build a diesel plant plant or just ship in water all the time because you Just spent a billion dollars on a radar, but okay, so as we look at This problem Understand that there are infrastructure issues now I'm not going to talk about all the other things that we can talk about with regard to climate security because we're here to Talk about communities. We're here to talk about infrastructure. So the second thing I want you to know So first thing bases under threat remember that second climate doesn't care about the fence line So that means if your base is under threat, so is your defense community and Oh just for a reminder, that's where all your voters live So as we contemplate The fact that your bases are under threat and we as we contemplate the fact that the climate doesn't care about fence line That means that you need the same sort of resilience measures outside the fence line that you need inside the fence line we just heard about a lot of those as You as you look at this big picture The kinds of resilience programs the climate resilience programs that DOD is thinking about today Are the kinds of things that you're gonna have to start thinking about in your civilian infrastructure if you do an infrastructure bill Think about climate infrastructure and think think about climate resilience Because you're gonna need a lot of investment in coastal communities in places where you know if you've got what Fragile utilities that are going through wildfire at-risk regions. You're gonna have to think about how to restructure those There's a lot of investment that's gonna have to be made in in Alaska in Alaska In Alaska there the Air Force recently requested Funding in the FY 19 bill because permafrost was thawing under Eilson Air Force Base and the F 35 One of the F 35 facilities there had the foundation crack and was no longer safe for people to be to be inside And they had to request money to replace the building and the FY 19 bill so things are happening today This is not some future thing. This is happening today So I'm going back to my reminders one bases are under threat to climate doesn't care about fence line three What is important? So I used to own all the infrastructure at DOD like roughly a trillion dollars worth of infrastructure And I was the landlord. Okay. I had to pay attention to this on a daily basis What is critical to remember? Because because those bases Depend on those communities next to them. They're not islands The local communities are indispensable to those bases They can't the base counts on the local community for often for electricity for water for wastewater For stormwater relief what let's talk about wastewater for a second I know it's Friday afternoon waste what what happens when you have a big storm and the toilet stop flushing on the base because down You know down lower You have a way of commercial civilian wastewater facility that is no longer operational This starts to cause a really serious problem on the base even if the base thinks it's resilient So water wastewater stormwater electricity housing all of your civilian employees live off base What happens when they can't get to the base so transportation there we go Communications what happens when your cell cell towers all lose power? civilian Military family housing two-thirds of its off base How focused is that military officer going to be on it on his or her job when their family doesn't have food doesn't have power This has an impact This is important those communities are indispensable to the successful operation of those bases Now Ben was talking about the needs for everybody to talk together I can tell you right now that they the base and the community do talk together But in the event of emergency do they know who to call they might But there's no structure in place to make sure that you do we set up a couple pilots and Was was a significant part of one of the one of the one in Norfolk Ben might have been involved in it, too Each of the military services did a pilot where the community and the base were supposed to talk together and try and figure out How to coordinate on things the Air Force did one at Mountain Home and the Army did theirs with a bunch of natural National Guard bases up in Michigan and the whole point was to create a Framework for people to be able to talk to each other. Who do I call? What do I call about? What are my and what are my dependencies outside the base? It's on a shelf somewhere, you know that study got done and they haven't set up the framework that I had intended But that's okay. These things happen But the the point though is that that those lines of communication that kind of framework that kind of in these guys Are busy right everybody's busy, but you got to know what to do when something happens And you got to know who to call that's critical But if you can take away one thing from my conversation today The bases are under threat climate doesn't care about the fence line It's that if the base is resilient and the community is not the base is still screwed Because they depend on that community for electricity for water for wastewater for housing for transportation for communications Resilient communities matter they matter to the base they matter to the national defense So let's talk about the national defense for a second and let's talk about the What's been in the news? I'll I hadn't planned to talk about this today, but you know, I'm I am always reluctant to to miss an opportunity To give a few candid comments So so apparently There was an effort inside the National Security Council by a particular staffer to to rethink the Defense Department's a judgment on The threat of climate change They wanted to set up a commission a presidential committee to take an adversarial in quotes view of defense reports of intelligence reports and Their conclusion that climate change is a threat to national security They wanted to impose their judgment Over folks like you know secretary Mattis or general Dunford or any of the you know 10 or 20 or 30 other senior leaders Who have said it made public statements on this or any of the military officers who have been working on various You know planning documents and trying to figure out what to do to make their bases more resilient. Nope They were gonna say don't worry about it. It's not a problem All of the all of these things you've heard about climate change. It's all fake So because of their personal agenda, they wanted to impose a blind spot and create a vulnerability Because it was impairing their ability to make their case that the military stood up and said it was a risk I'm getting a little animated. It's Friday afternoon The bottom line here is Why would you want the military to be less ready? Why would you want them to be less resilient? That doesn't make any sense The military is a contingency based Organization they prepare for wars. They hope they will never have to fight. I hope That there isn't some hurricane that hits a base this fall. I'm willing to bet there will be one Shouldn't they be ready Shouldn't they be resilient shouldn't the communities next to those bases be ready or resilient They should be You know the guy who was trying to run that panel isn't a climatologist He wanted to to get in there and edit the science because he had an opinion but but All of the climatologists say this stuff is happening It doesn't take a scientist to see the sea levels rising to the Arctic ice is melting to see there's more drought To see the glaciers are melting To see the stress that places around the world on different countries and to see the instability that happens You know, I'm less likely to take his word on that and I mean look Not gonna just because you're a scientist doesn't mean you're an expert on everything I'm not gonna take their medical advice either I'm not gonna believe them if they tell me that cigarettes are good for me It's anyway, sorry, I'm off topic. I apologize for you know going on a rant I'm sure y'all are tired of listening me talk. So anyway, I'm gonna go back to my main main points So three things I want you to remember one our bases are under threat to climate doesn't care about the fence line and three If the base is resilient, but the community is not the base is still screwed and we need to do something about that Anyway, that's all I had for today. Thank you very much for questions and and obviously in terms of what John was talking about it's so important because we're dealing with real people Real security questions are real things that are happening on the ground today Okay, let's start here Richard Hoy Bethesda. I live near the joint naval facility Bethesda Walter Reed Thank you for your comments congressman. I live in the community close by There are If the community is not ready then the base is not ready is is a very important point and to follow the money to address the issue our our federal funding of Localities through Transportation funding and infrastructure funding goes goes to the states rather than to the metropolitan planning organizations like Hampton roads or like the Washington area council of governments so this interferes with the ability to plan and Prepare for infrastructure community-wide that would address the issues of that Region that houses the military bases So I'd like to comments from anyone on the panel as to the issue of how we can direct funding to incentivize Resilience in the communities to focus that conversation based upon decision-making that is shared between the base and the and the local community Rather than go through a state agency far away and politically I Don't work on transportation But I do work next door to them and so one of the things that that our organization Our sister agency the hand for his transportation planning organization has been doing Is they've been trying to figure out exactly how to do incorporate resiliency issues into their long-range transportation plan? So that's one of the the documents that they're required to produce by federal highway every four years It's a it's a challenging issue. It's a you know because because that's Document that in some ways it really does direct how money how federal highway funding will be spent in the region and when you think about whether or not we penalize a project because it might be vulnerable or whether we Give them bonus points because it might be vulnerable and we need to protect that asset That's a question with no easy answer and there we don't have a consensus on exactly how to go about that just yet but they hope to have Something with that figured out over the next year or so. I believe the next one It's supposed to be done. What is next year? Maybe I think so in the next couple of years They're going to be done with the next round of that planning process But I do think there is there's an opportunity in the the underlying regulations and the Authorization the statute the Congress passes for metropolitan Planning organizations and the things that they're required to do by law and the funding that they get to do those tasks To incorporate resiliency if that's something that the Congress thinks it's important. It just hasn't Made its way into the requirements just yet There's an opportunity So perhaps it's also something that should be looked at in infrastructure bills before the Congress this year, right? And and I wanted to ask you since you are now In terms of the in terms of the governor's office Do you want to talk about the whole funding how you're trying to well, it's a similar Challenge mean we're just kind of one level up and by chance of my seat My office is actually in the middle of the Secretary of Transportation's spaces I think they think I'm a spy. So if they're watching I'm not a spy But it does help to sit there because I can hear what they're talking about all the time And they're talking about this they're talking about resilience. They realize that they need to be This is an issue for them particularly particularly interested in rainfall challenges and culvert sizing and and and I've been doing work on it To prepare for what's coming And also to start to think about how they want to deal with rise in waters because these these are major major infrastructure and as those of you who you know run up and down I-64 Virginia Or paid any attention to the General Assembly this year. What was what were the big conversation items? I-81 funding to fix and fix is a huge scope for I-81. What's it going to be? Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel new tube and infrastructure I-64 There are special funding districts set up to fund pieces of the highway construction HRTPO is one that looks at the Hampton Roads region, but Certainly there's an understanding that this is a problem And this is an impact or to these major construction projects that are expected the last you know the next century so we're not It's no small matter, and it's no small amount of money And but the challenge is when you start to look at the the cost depending on how you set your standard That that scares people away But the answer is and don't hide it and run away the answer is let's figure out what it's going to cost to make ourselves We're saying let's set those standards Let's plan to those standards and understand what the costs are and figure out how we're going to Meet that challenge and then make sure you don't have any choice that the Comptroller at DOD is totally aware of what needs to be Done in terms of that kind of coordination John you wanted to add oh No, I would say that the Comptroller Will explain that DOD's budget is too small, and they probably need more Because it always does because there's not enough money to do everything when I was in charge of installations I could tell you that you know with the DOD installations are roughly have a roughly 100 billion dollar backlog in maintenance $100 billion of backlog in maintenance they are having some serious problems And so when somebody says can you fund this other stuff? They're probably going to be a little bit gun shy They will be but the money has to be found. I mean if you guys end up doing an infrastructure bill I think this would be a good topic and I'd like to make one more point since I now live in a statewide world and coastal protection statewide It's not just the major industrial areas or the highly populated areas that are a problem We have huge problems with road infrastructure in rural communities on the eastern shore in the Middle Peninsula First incidents of sunny-day flooding closing schools in Matthews County was in 2018 Won't be the last We have towns on the eastern shore that are connected by one road that's practically at sea levels access comes to mind if anybody's ever been there and So that's a small town at the on the inner Bay side of the eastern shore is actually almost opposite Wallops Island if you're kind of familiar with that infrastructure It has its own fire department out there thankfully so it can take care of itself in that context But what do we do with these communities? How do we make decisions because when we start to prioritize in Virginia Virginia has really interesting smart-scale project prioritization process The road to Saxis doesn't come out at the top of the list But we still have a responsibility to people so how are we going to start to make decisions over time over? Which how are we going to deal with rural roads and and how are we going to deal with rural roads long-term? Because in many of these rural communities People need to know what their choices are and and we're still working through and in some cases Just starting to work through how we're going to figure out what those choices are and how we're going to prioritize for them So they know how to prepare themselves and and what the what what the future holds for them as they prepare Their community for what's coming well and listening to you all time. It's not our friend a question right here Paul's a pain from senator King's office for Maine To switch gears a little bit first. Thank you all for coming here We're Admiral Phillips To switch gears for a minute from the adaptation side to the mitigation side are the bases in So in the context of resilience And we know we've been talking about encroachment as as resilience So we're resilience in dealing with encroachment and climate impacts as being encroachment in the context of resilience Quite a bit of work has been done within the Department of Defense to give bases more independence Particularly in options for power generation as one significant issue. So in Hampton Roads, we have they've had a number of opportunities Large solar farm has gone in and a public-private partnership with Oceania Naval Station and they asked Oceania Naval Station Norfolk has rebuilt its power plant made it co-generation Some of it is fossil fuel. Absolutely, but it can burn to other kinds of fossil fuel now. It doesn't have to rely on one thing That's in progress. They are also a test platform for an innovative energy monitoring and consumption process so that they know where they have Extreme energy use and they have the option to to reduce energy by turning off lights and that kind of thing remotely This is all still in progress, but but they are a test-based platform for that and Recently the Department of Defense has changed some of its requirements in the context of building construction after 9 11 Every building that was built had to be built to the highest force protection standard including force protection grade windows and When naval facilities and engineering command would look at upgrading a building to improve its energy efficiency One of the reasons they could never meet the cost-benefit analysis was they had to put in these Super force protection high-grade windows. Well DOD has recently relaxed that standard for facilities that are inside the fence line and Not of a critical infrastructure or national security need So that they don't have to put in these expensive extremely expensive windows and so that will give us more opportunities over time to Be do more energy efficient upgrades to buildings so we can know if I got a great example because they're buildings They have that are quite elderly the base has been there. What was our hundred? Recently I can't remember the exact. I want to say last year, but it might have been two years ago so number of buildings have been there, you know almost that long and And they could use an upgrade so there's a great concern because it saves money and and by the same token there's a great concern in saving fuel and And being better consumers of fuel because it buys battle space if I don't burn as much gas and my destroyer I can stay on station longer if I don't have to have a fuel convoy running fuel around in Iraq or Afghanistan or any other place We may find ourselves in the world then I have less people at risk and I have more opportunities to stay on station and execute my mission So there's a great interest in energy conservation and consumption. We are consumers of fossil fuel in the military. Yes, we are ships and airplanes and Not all ships most ships and airplanes run on on fossil fuel but there's always an interest in saving money and building resilience and buying battle space and Energy is a great way that the military can do and has and will continue to do that John probably knows more about that. Yeah time. So I'll add a couple of thoughts There are a lot of projects on military bases where a developer will come in say I'll pay for everything up front If you just give me some land on your base And if I if you agree to buy the power back will give you a rate that's lower than you're currently paying So you pay nothing up front and you pay less ongoing, it's usually a pretty good deal And so when you have a situation like that it's hard to argue with the business case now The DOD has moved towards more focus on resilience than business case And so things are going to be more expensive if they require the developer to say alright Well, if the power goes out on the grid, I need the power to come straight into the base, which is you know more expensive So as resilience increases in priority, and it's not a terrible priority The business cases are generally harder to make is it's harder to make the case that this is free basically But there's a bunch of different things that they do within DOD to push that ball forward Bottom line though is is that they you know as Anne pointed out DOD does have a lot of emissions. They do use a lot of energy. It's a big organization. You know a lot of this is volume But there's a bunch of things that they can do I think that it's fair to say in the last couple years There's less top pressure to Achieve to pursue these projects But it doesn't mean they're not doing them. It just means that there's less pressure to do them And so if they have the right opportunity, they're still going to take it Okay Hi, I'm Sarah Jensen with the energy department. I'm very glad to hear the energy efficiency Measures are going forward in the non-critical buildings, but I'm here. I wanted to ask you about Municipal and regional coordination Issues and I wanted to know if What the if there's any leverage to be had from the Coastal Zone Management Act and Virginia's Coastal Management Plan And whether that could be a source of Structure for regular communications between bases and local community I think I can take that one so The Virginia Coastal Management Program has actually been a critical source of funding for resilience planning in Virginia for a long time you know I think I mentioned in my remarks that the state and the federal government hadn't really done a lot of work when we First started looking at these issues the funding for that work came from the Coastal Program I it's so in Virginia. It's housed at DEQ It's it's sometimes kind of ignored because they don't there's no state funding that goes to it Like I think it's one of the few states that doesn't contribute any additional state funding beyond the the NOAA Contribution and as a result there's a little bit more independence From the Virginia program to actually produce pursue some things that that may fly under the radar a little bit and resiliency is one of those as you know in terms of The enforcement side and the Coastal Management Act and the consistency determination process. I think that's probably what you're referring to You know, Virginia does not have any enforceable policies related to resiliency right now I think there is some interest on the part of the planning district commissions that are in the coastal zone that participate in that process to Rethink some of our water quality and other regulations that guide land use decisions on the in coastal areas to have more of a resilience focus And if that were to the case if we were to adopt, you know, a revised Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act or some other sort of state law that is also an enforceable policy into the program That that would be a way for you know, additional coordination with the military through that process Unfortunately, I think that process it is very rich been centric so when the DOD or any other federal entity does an action in the coastal zone the Review of those projects. There's an opportunity for localities to participate but it's really coordinated through the state agencies in Richmond and so the a lot of look in my My experience localities don't always take the opportunity to have to really participate in that process and Coordinate with the military. So I don't know if that would be the best model moving forward I do think that the the joint land use studies that we've been working on with our agency and also Elsewhere in the region with some of the individual cities that that is a good We're hoping to use that as a model to set up more regular coordination between all of the installations and all of the host communities that have That are hosting what whatever installation it might be so that it wouldn't be just a typical Implementation committee that you might if you're familiar with the joint land use study process Oftentimes there's an implementation committee that's set up after one of those studies is completed We think that there will be more issues down the road than the ones that we're just addressing right now And so having a more robust organization will actually be a better strategy overall for our region I don't know if that would apply to the rest of the state But when there are those opportunities to kind of look between what we're doing with the military and then also what we're doing with the Coastal policy the CZM P in Virginia that Will take advantage of it. I'm so I sit on the coastal policy team of Virginia So I participate in those processes. I have for a number of years now and so I do see those linkages It's just that so far the opportunity hasn't really presented itself to actually More directly connect the two Great Thank you. Um, we have time for one less question. Okay back over here All right. Thank you all for coming. Chris Burke with Congress and Bill Keating's office so We started with a little bit of a mention of the panel at the White House that may or may not be Underway yet, but there were four committee chairs that responded with a letter And it kind of points to one of the things that would be helpful I think for folks to address here, you know in in Rayburn That if if four committee chairs are looking at it It also can mean that that four committee chairs think somebody else are gonna do something about it And you know if everyone's responsible, then maybe it falls through the cracks and somebody thinks somebody else is gonna pick up the issue You know the Langevin amendment to the NDA a few years ago said prioritize the top 10 facilities And maybe maybe there's a prioritization or a place where we can start to get the most traction Which kind of you know, it could be armed services. It could be You know all sorts of different places the different committees house or Senate side that can start to get traction on this that You know say this is where we can start. This is the the place that's both The most severe situation or the place that we can do something about it most most kind of directly and and intelligibly To move forward that like if there's like a thousand things we got to do it might be that we do none of them I'll go All right, so Thank you for your question I think that it's fair to say that Things have already been happening on climate and security on the hill for the last couple years The armed services committees have been doing quite a bit the Langevin amendment Langevin amendment was was important That top 10 list that was due didn't actually get delivered, but that's okay I mean they have the report. I don't know if it's okay, but the report had some interesting things in there And we'll see if they send the the list that was required after all that you know since it was in bill language and everything but even last year there were a whole host of Different authorities of different requirements Strategies being required by the defense authorization bill. So so so stuff has happened already What I think the opportunity here is You know when you think about the breadth of the ability to pay attention to this If you have an infrastructure bill climate resilience can easily be a part of that and that covers inside or outside the base in that In last year's defense authorization bill they included a new program called the defense community infrastructure program that is all about Using DoD money to shore up key resilience problems outside the base So having that funded would be a good thing But the fact of the matter is is that climates climate security Stretches well outside of this realm the foreign affairs committee should and couldn't should be talking about this there You look at India and Pakistan Where they have severe water stress and That internal to the each of their countries the the stress between the urban and rural areas Is significant in what was the tool that India used one of the tools that India used in the current Escalation of tensions they shut off the water Because it is Because they're in drought because there are there are water scarcity issues So this is certainly something that the foreign affairs committees couldn't should be looking at But so so because you have lots of committees lots of committees can do different pieces of this problem You're gonna look at the resilience of bases sure that's armed services and appropriations, right? But if you're gonna look at you know instability around the world That's the foreign affairs committee if you're gonna look at Resilience in other civilian communities or even these civilian communities you could have Transportation infrastructure to look at energy and commerce people can take on they don't all have to take on the whole problem They can take on their piece of it But just saying I think one of the things that's really interesting about infrastructure And I know that you know I've heard From many many people that that's a priority for the Congress But if you think about the committees of jurisdiction they actually just about all have a piece of Infrastructure to deal with and John's point. I think it's so well taken that we really need to understand You know what falls within all of these different committees that everybody does end up with with Responsibilities and we will do that one last question right back there Hi there Oliver Curtis with flame ember were a California based predictive analytics company that works on wildfire mitigation I just a lot of the points been raised today I thought we're really interesting specifically the the dynamics between communities and bases But also that there's some of these risks have very different exposure profiles and opportunities for intervention I was my question is really specifically because wildfire is so spatially diverse relative to thousands and thousands of events per year and That mitigation can have an immediate impact on these other types of hazards So I was wondering if they if you guys view wildfire differently from other types of events And or if there's any provisions in place that can kind of help with the immediacy of certain types of issues versus others other hazards All right, so I'll take a whack of that not to monopolize the microphone or anything But I do love a microphone The I think I think when we do do looks at the wildfire problem. I think it I think I have to put it this way Every base has a different problem And so that is why we've sort of exhausted the the value of enterprise looks and enterprise solutions And now they really need to be as and pointed out Looking at base specific planning from now on and and so in California, they're gonna be looking at wildfire risk and In Norfolk, they're gonna be looking at sea level rise and that's okay They don't all have to have like a cookie cutter approach to this. They should all be looking at their own problems Thank you. And I want to thank our wonderful panel. I hope you've all learned a lot this afternoon I also want to thank you all for coming and just to remind you that next week on Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock We're holding a briefing on a related topic green infrastructure a blueprint for climate resilient communities And then on Tuesday also at 2 o'clock. We'll be holding another briefing on electrification Options for consumers in the environment where where we will be looking specifically at electrification where it makes sense from an environmental and affordability and access point of view, so I hope that you will join us and I Please join me in thanking our wonderful panel