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Tag Archives: Department of Homeland Security
FEMA Administrator Testifies That Hurricanes are Affected by Climate Change
By In case you missed it: On July 24, the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment held a hearing on “FEMA’s Natural Preparedness and Response Efforts During the Coronavirus Pandemic.” The sole witness was Mr. Peter Gaynor, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security. The following is a citation to the witness’s written statement, and a verbatim transcript of an exchange between a Member and the witness. (more…)
U.S. National Security Council’s Alice Hill on Addressing Climate Change Risks
On Friday, the New Security Beat posted a great blog and podcast featuring comments by Alice Hill, the senior director for resilience policy at the U.S. National Security Council (NSC), which were delivered at the launch event of the G7-commissioned report “A New Climate for Peace: Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks.” Alice Hill details the process by which the U.S. government, including the Department of Homeland Security, has integrated climate change risks into its plans and programs. She identifies key developments in policy, but also critical gaps in implementation – including gaps in expertise on how to limit the fragility risks of climate change in unstable nations.
A blog on the subject, as well as the full podcast, can be found here.
DHS to Congress: Climate Change a Threat Multiplier to Global Security
The US House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, held a hearing on July 8th to examine the Department of Homeland Security’s focus on climate change. While the hearing did include the usual political cleavages and posturing, it provided a useful opportunity to discuss the risk management approach of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including as it relates to climate change. Perhaps lost in the chatter was that the hearing marked an important step towards better assessing where we are both as a nation, and within various departments and agencies across the U.S. government. The hearing testimonies also touched on where the U.S. needs to be in order to avoid damage to critical infrastructure, loss of life, and stresses to national security. Indeed, there seemed to be broad agreement among all witnesses that climate change poses very real security risks to the U.S. homeland. (more…)
Weekly Wisdom: DHS On Preparing For Climate Risks and Building Resiliency
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, is leading efforts to build resilience to the risks of climate change in the United States. According to Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the department:
Increasingly, we’ve moved not only from a security focus to a resiliency focus.
This may be news to some who are used to seeing DHS reports on terrorism and other more traditional domestic security issues, but the department’s focus on preparing for climate risks is years in the making (see, for example, all climate-related Homeland Security documents here on our Climate Security Resource Hub). (more…)