Resilience Coordination and Strategy

Summary#

This bill adds a new national role and process to coordinate how the federal government prepares for and adapts to natural hazards and other environmental changes that affect national security. It creates a Chief Resilience Officer (a staffer at the National Security Council), requires a Partners Council on Resilience, sets up interagency working groups, and requires a National Resilience Strategy and updates. The goal is to make federal resilience efforts more coordinated, to support state and local partners (especially rural and underresourced communities), and to improve use of federal funding for resilience.

• Establishes a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) at the National Security Council to lead interagency coordination on resilience.
• Requires interagency working groups; agency heads must approve participation requests within 60 days and provide staff and support.
• Creates a Partners Council on Resilience with mostly non‑federal members to advise the CRO and produce a report to Congress every 3 years.
• Requires a National Resilience Strategy within 2 years, updates every 3 years, and an implementation plan showing what each agency will do.
• Directs a public comment period on draft strategy documents, a federally hosted adaptation and resilience clearinghouse (within 1 year), and GAO (Comptroller General) assessments of implementation.
• Includes a 10‑year sunset tied to the third GAO assessment or 10 years after enactment, whichever is earlier.

What it means for you#

• Federal agencies and employees

  • Agencies chosen to join working groups must approve participation and provide staff and resources as requested. This could change agency workload and planning.
  • Agency heads must show how they will carry out the national strategy and how they will coordinate with other agencies and non‑federal partners.

• State, local, tribal, territorial governments and Freely Associated States

  • The strategy and Council are meant to better support these governments with technical help, clearer funding rules, and recommendations for prioritizing the most vulnerable communities.
  • This could make it easier to find federal resilience resources and get technical assistance — but how much support arrives depends on future actions and funding.

• Nonprofits and private sector

  • The Council must include private and nonprofit representatives. The bill aims to simplify and harmonize application, permitting, and planning processes across federal agencies for non‑federal partners seeking resilience funding.
  • The clearinghouse should centralize information and tools that these groups can use.

• Communities, especially rural and underresourced

  • The bill focuses on helping these communities access funds and technical assistance and on prioritizing their needs in resilience planning.
  • The strategy may analyze options such as retreat or relocation for communities at rising risk.

• Military installations and national security planners

  • The CRO must address resilience of U.S. military installations at home and abroad and consider resilience when evaluating national security posture.

• Members of the public

  • Draft strategies and implementation plans must be published for a 60‑day public comment period before final submission to the President and Congress.

Expenses#

No publicly available information.

• This bill would likely create new administrative costs: a CRO position at the National Security Council, detailees (staff assigned from other agencies), support for interagency working groups, and a clearinghouse website or data system.
• Agencies will incur staff time and possibly program costs to prepare implementation plans, provide studies, and harmonize permitting and funding processes.
• The Comptroller General (GAO) must produce assessment reports; that work has some cost but the bill does not include an appropriation.
• The bill does not specify new appropriations or dedicated funding. Any additional spending would likely require future budget action by Congress.

Proponents' View#

• The bill appears intended to make federal resilience efforts more coordinated across agencies and better aligned with the best available science.
• Supporters may argue the bill will reduce duplication and inefficiency in federal resilience spending and improve the impact of federal investments.
• It could increase support and access to funding and technical assistance for state, local, tribal, territorial, nonprofit, and private partners, especially small, rural, or underresourced communities.
• The strategy and required implementation plans aim to make agencies accountable for concrete actions to increase resilience.
• A central clearinghouse could make resilience data and tools easier to find and use at the local level.

Opponents' View#

• One concern is cost and funding: the bill does not include an estimated budget or authorize specific appropriations, so agencies may need to reallocate resources or seek new funding.
• The added coordination and reporting tasks could increase administrative burden on federal agencies and on state or local partners answering information requests or applying for changed funding processes.
• The Council is exempted from the usual federal advisory committee law that governs public meetings and records; this raises potential transparency concerns about how Council advice is developed and shared.
• The bill leaves some implementation choices to the Chief Resilience Officer (for example, whether to develop consistent federal metrics), so effects could vary depending on how aggressively the CRO acts.
• Agency participation is required to be approved in writing within 60 days, but the bill does not create strong enforcement penalties for agencies that fail to fully participate, which could limit effectiveness.
• Prioritizing resilience-related spending could shift limited federal funds away from other programs; the bill asks for reviews of methodologies and discount rates but does not prescribe specific spending changes.