Recommendation: Congress should consider establishing a pilot program with leadership from a defined federal organizational arrangement to identify and provide assistance to climate migration projects for communities that express affirmative interest in relocation as a resilience strategy. Such a pilot program could be designed for success by considering the key factors we identified in this report. (Matter for Consideration 1)

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of August 19, 2020, no action had been taken to establish a pilot program to identify and provide assistance to climate migration projects.

Recommendation: Congress should consider establishing a federal organizational arrangement to periodically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment. Such an arrangement could be designed for success by considering the six key steps for prioritizing climate resilience investments and the opportunities to increase the climate resilience impact of federal funding options identified in our report. (Matter for Consideration 1)

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of July 2020, no action had been taken to establish a federal organizational arrangement to periodically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment.

Recommendation: The Administrator of FEMA should develop and provide clear written information in the form of policy, guidance, or regulations, as appropriate, to COR3 and PREPA that clarifies how FEMA will implement new authorities for the electricity grid recovery in Puerto Rico, including guidance on industry standards and defining resilience. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: Since GAO's October 2019 report, FEMA updated its guidance and has provided information to local entities on project eligibility and the industry standards it would accept for restoring the grid. In addition, in January 2020, FEMA provided training to FEMA regional officials and local entities on how to implement this guidance. Despite these efforts, uncertainty remains regarding the extent to which local entities in Puerto Rico have sufficient information to implement projects to promote grid resilience. This is in part due to challenges such as the need for written guidance on how project development will proceed after the fixed-cost estimate is finalized. GAO will continue to monitor FEMA progress towards implementation of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Secretary of HUD should establish time frames and a plan for publication of the grant process and requirements for CDBG-DR funding available for improvements to Puerto Rico's electricity grid. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Status: Open

Comments: As of August 2020, HUD had not published a federal notice outlining the grant process and requirements for CDBG-DR funding available for improvements to Puerto Rico's electricity grid, nor has it established time frames and a plan for issuing this notice. We continue to believe that the action we recommended is needed and will monitor HUD's efforts as part of our regular recommendation follow-up and additional work examining federal support to improve grid resilience in Puerto Rico. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: The Administrator of FEMA, in coordination with DOE, HUD, and other federal and local entities, should establish a mechanism, or take steps to improve existing mechanisms, for coordination among the multiple local and federal entities involved in grid recovery that facilitates decision-making and information sharing among local and federal agencies. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Federal Emergency Management Agency
Status: Open

Comments: FEMA and DOE have enhanced coordination efforts between their respective agencies and with local entities involved in long-term grid recovery in Puerto Rico via the Technical Coordination Team but until the team's fiscal working group demonstrates how it will help coordinate different potential funding sources, the extent to which these efforts will enhance progress toward grid recovery is uncertain. FEMA can demonstrate this, in part, by providing documentation of efforts to coordinate funding for long-term recovery projects. GAO will continue to monitor agency efforts to support grid recovery in Puerto Rico.

Recommendation: The Commandant of the Coast Guard should ensure that the Deputy Commandant for Mission Support implements risk management processes that more fully align with the five key steps outlined in DHS's Critical Infrastructure Risk Management Framework to better guide agency shore infrastructure investment decisions. This should include (1) setting goals and objectives, (2) identifying critical infrastructure, (3) assessing and analyzing risks and costs, (4) implementing risk management activities, and (5) measuring the effectiveness of actions taken. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Homeland Security: United States Coast Guard
Status: Open

Comments: The Coast Guard concurred with the spirit of GAO's recommendation to formalize its shore infrastructure risk management processes. As noted in their formal comment, the Coast Guard was mandated by the DHS Under Secretary for Management to follow risk management guidance outlined in the DHS Resilience Framework in March 2018. The Coast Guard reported that progress towards implementing GAO's recommendation is expected to be concurrent with the development and implementation of the Component Resilience Plan in accordance with the DHS Resilience Framework. According to the Coast Guard, the DHS-mandated Component Resilience Plan assigns a mission criticality level and resilience factor to each shore facility based on a criticality assessment, inter-dependencies between mission essential assets and functions, and risk. It will then align its current resilience factor formulation to that defined through the process in the DHS Resilience Framework. Risks identified through the Framework will be managed through a strategic combination of risk acceptance, mitigation, engineering, and operational controls. The Coast Guard stated that it intends to complete these multiple efforts by the end of 2021. In a March 2020 update, the Coast Guard stated that its Office of Civil Engineering was developing the Work Plan, newly named the 2020 Civil Engineering Program Work Plan: Initiatives and Tactics and said it would include goals and objectives for identifying and addressing infrastructure resilience gaps and resource needs in alignment with the Coast Guard's Component Resilience Plan. The Coast Guard expected to publish this Civil Engineering Work Plan by July 31, 2020, after which it said it would begin implementing and measuring the effectiveness of the actions identified in the Work Plan. In June 2020, the Coast Guard reported that it now anticipates finalizing the Civil Engineering Work Plan by September 30, 2020.

Recommendation: The Chairman of FCC should develop a plan to monitor the outputs and outcomes of the Wireless Network Resiliency Cooperative Framework and document the results of its monitoring to evaluate its effectiveness and identify whether changes are needed. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Federal Communications Commission
Status: Open

Comments: FCC concurred with this recommendation and is taking steps to implement it. In June 2020, FCC officials told us their efforts to monitor the effectiveness of the Wireless Network Resiliency Cooperative Framework are ongoing and integrated into the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau's overall work to improve wireless resiliency. The officials agreed to provide documentation on FCC's overall strategy to monitor the framework's effectiveness, and when they do so, we will update the status of this recommendation.