NORTH CAROLINA — Rep. David Rouzer and Sen. Thom Tillis are seeking to restructure federal aid for catastrophic storms like Hurricane Helene, but critics argue their voting records on climate change and infrastructure are exacerbating storm costs and risks in North Carolina.
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The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee advanced Rep. David Rouzer’s (R-NC) “Natural Disaster Recovery Program Act” last month. The bill would replace the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant with a disaster recovery program managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The congressman argues the bill would alleviate disaster recovery funding delays, unnecessary complexity, and give states more discretion over disaster recovery spending. He emphasized the impact of delayed relief in North Carolina in a September committee meeting.
“There are going to be many more disasters,” Rouzer said. “Many more storms on their way. This allows them direct access to the money they need upfront to get these folks back in their homes and repair and mitigate for future disasters.”
A broad range of stakeholders have advocated disaster recovery reform in recent years. Public policy nonprofit the Brookings Institute described the nation’s disaster response system as “labyrinthian” and advocated elevating FEMA — an agency within the Department of Homeland Security — to an independent cabinet to better coordinate with other agencies.
FEMA has approved more than $71.7 million in disaster assistance to North Carolina and has more than 1,000 staff on the ground in the state. FEMA officials state the agency’s Disaster Relief Fund has sufficient resources to address immediate needs from Hurricanes Helene and Milton but needs additional funding for long-term recovery.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation received $100 million in federal emergency relief funds last week and general assembly unanimously approved $273 million for Hurricane Helene relief Wednesday.
FEMA set up a response page earlier this month to address false claims, including by former president Donald Trump, that the agency is without funds because “almost all” of FEMA’s resources have been allocated to illegal migrants.
In a newsletter last week, Rouzer stated congress will pass a multi-billion FEMA funding package to address Helene damage; current storm cost estimates range from around $35 billion to as high as $110 billion.
“FEMA programs weren’t designed for devastation of this magnitude,” Rouzer wrote. “In my opinion, this storm is going to prove to be more costly than any in recorded history.”
The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition sent a letter to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee opposing Rouzer’s bill last month. A coalition of 35 national groups argued the legislation fails to address shortcomings in federal disaster recovery programs, such as data-transparency, inadequate oversight, and ensuring recovery efforts reach low-income communities. The coalition also argued it would remove HUD’s housing expertise from the recovery process.
The coalition instead recommended a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), the “Reforming Disaster Recovery Act.” The bipartisan bill requires the expedited release of recovery funds through HUD and establishes an Office of Disaster Management and Resiliency to oversee disaster preparedness and responsibilities.
Rouzer criticized Democrat lawmakers for failing to support Republican disaster-recovery bills for Helene in a newsletter last month. The congressman has introduced other FEMA-related legislation in recent years, such as a bill to provide FEMA grant eligibility to homeowner associations, that has failed to make it out of committee.
“These bills go nowhere with a Democrat majority in the Senate and President Biden in the White House,” he said. “But the votes on these measures do show the contrast between the two political parties and serve the purpose of better educating the public.”
Alternatively, New Hanover County Democratic Party Chair Jill Hopman criticized Rouzer for neglecting the human impact of climate change on extreme weather events; Rouzer was a primary sponsor of a 2012 bill blocking the use of sea level rise data on coastal development policy.
“When experts warned of a pending crisis, Rouzer co-sponsored legislation based only on past data that ignored reality, reason, and future risks,” Hopman said. “This ‘common sense’ approach hasn’t protected families — it’s gambled with their livelihoods.”
Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) voted against the 2012 bill. She told Port City Daily lawmakers need to make climate change their first priority to tackle the driving cause of increasing storm intensity and frequency. Two dozen scientists affiliated with Imperial College London published a study Wednesday finding hurricanes as intense as Helene are around 2.5 times more likely in the region than they were in pre-industrial times.
Climate Change
Rouzer co-sponsored a bill in June to allow coastal property owners to receive National Flood Insurance Program funding if their property is condemned or deemed at risk of collapse from shoreline erosion. The bill — the Preventing Environmental Hazards Act — was co-introduced by Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC), whose district includes Rodanthe in Dare County. Three oceanfront properties in Rodanthe collapsed within the same week last month.
A panel of over a dozen scientists from North Carolina universities — including retired UNCW marine and coastal geologist professor — issued a report in 2010 warning of the danger sea level rise posed to Dare and other coastal counties. NC-20, a lobby group composed of realtors, developers, and coastal county managers, disputed the report and pushed a bill to ban use of its projections in coastal development regulations.
Local lawmakers Sen. Jackson, Sen. Bill Rabon, and Rep. Iler — a member of the House conference committee for HB 819 — voted in favor of the sea level rise data moratorium. Tillis, who served as a state representative from 2007-2015 and House Speaker from 2011-2015, abstained from the vote. The final version of the bill restricted the Coastal Resources Commission from defining sea level changes for regulation until 2016.
Rouzer — a state senator from 2009 to 2012 before being elected to the House in 2015 — was the senate conference chair for HB 819. A 2012 PBS documentary credited the lawmaker with writing the legislation.
“I don’t really listen to any one person and I can’t tick off a whole list of scientists that are pro-sea level rise and a whole list of scientists that aren’t,” he said in an interview with PBS. “I’m just coming at it from a common sense standpoint. The earth has been warming and cooling since day one. The effect on sea level change, what do we know about it?”
Internal documents show Exxon and other major oil companies predicted fossil fuel emissions would cause sea level rise, climate change, and intensified hurricanes since at least the 1980s. Attorney generals in ten states have filed climate deception lawsuits against Exxon and other fossil fuel companies for contradicting their private position with public relations campaigns to spread doubt about the human impact on climate change.
Port City Daily reached out to Rouzer’s office to ask if he has changed his stance on anthropogenic climate change or the use of climate science in development policy. The outlet asked if Rouzer believes companies should be able to conceal information about public hazards caused by their industries and if he supports any efforts to increase transparency and accountability for fossil fuel companies; a response was not received by press.
Exxon fired a senior lobbyist in 2021 after he was recorded admitting the company used “shadow groups” to “aggressively” fight climate science. A leaked 1998 plan crafted by fossil fuel executives laid out a strategy to create public “uncertainty” about climate science. The group recommended funding think tanks such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, which creates model legislation for state legislatures on behalf of donors including Exxon and Koch Industries. NC-20’s scientific advisor John Droz was a senior-fellow at an ALEC-affiliated think tank funded by fossil fuel donors.
Rouzer is an alumnus of ALEC and Sen. Thom Tillis was on its board of directors from 2012-2014; the group recognized him as legislator of the year in 2011. ALEC crafted at least a dozen model bills opposed to climate change regulation by the early 2000s, including several that the group reapproved during Tillis’ time on the board of directors.
ALEC model bills have mirrored a broad range of North Carolina legislation. For example, Tillis voted in favor of a 2014 law to make it a crime to disclose chemicals used in fracking. ALEC published its similar “The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act” model bill in 2011.
ALEC-affiliated lawmakers used a model bill in an attempt to repeal North Carolina’s renewable energy mandate in 2013. Tillis said he favored an “orderly exit” of the renewable mandate in 2014, according to the Charlotte Observer; he still touts the standards as an environmental achievement on his website.
According to campaign finance nonprofit Open Secrets, Tillis has received a career total of $787,627 from fossil fuel industry donors and Rouzer has received a total of $208,326. Rouzer purchased up to $30,000 in fossil fuel-focused investment funds in November 2023.
Storm resiliency
Rouzer and Tillis voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides billions in financial assistance to clean energy infrastructure projects. The law expands FEMA grant eligibility for low-carbon construction and energy-efficient building codes.
Gov. Roy Cooper sent out a press release in July warning North Carolina would lose millions in FEMA funding due to a 2023 law, H.B. 488, blocking building energy code updates until 2031. Former FEMA director Craig Fugate and former FEMA national flood insurance program director Roy Wright raised similar concerns that the bill would reduce North Carolina eligibility for a broad range of grant opportunities and diminish storm resiliency.
Tillis, Rabon, Jackson, Iler and Rep. Davis voted in favor of a 2013 bill, HB 120, that shifted most of the state’s building code updates from three-year to six-year cycles. This stalled the adoption of the International Code Council’s triannual model code updates used by most states, including a 2015 provision requiring new homes in flood zones to be built a foot above the anticipated height of significant floods.
The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety urged North Carolina to reinstate regular building code updates in a 2018 report; it said HB 120 caused NC to remain one or two cycles behind the latest national codes. The Insurance Institute criticized North Carolina’s building code reform moratoriums again in April 2024, describing H.B. 488 as “the most concerning negative action” among 18 hurricane-prone states since 2021.
The North Carolina Home Builders Association wrote HB 488 and was its primary sponsor. Meanwhile, the National Home Builders Association has pushed to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act’s $1 billion energy code grant program and extend FEMA grant eligibility to states with outdated building codes.
Rouzer voted in favor of three recent House bills backed by the lobby group — the Lower Energy Costs Act, the Promoting Resilient Buildings Act, and the Limit, Save, and Grow Act — that would roll back energy efficient building code incentives and eligibility requirements; Tillis voted in favor of a 2023 amendment to remove the requirements from HUD loan eligibility.
In March, Rouzer co-introduced permit reform legislation the National Home Builders Association helped draft. The congressman argued the bill would increase efficiency without undermining environmental regulations; groups including the Southern Environmental Law Center argued it would shield polluters from Clean Water Act liability.
Last week, Rouzer joined nine lawmakers in a letter to the White House requesting “as much leniency” as possible to interpret and waive federal regulations such as the Clean Water Act to expedite post-Helene reconstruction.
Clean Cape Fear co-founder Emily Donovan criticized the request and argued reconstruction should emphasize storm resiliency. She noted homeowners in Leland’s Stoney Creek neighborhood were sold homes in a floodplain; property owners suffered severe property damage after Hurricane Florence in 2018 before being flooded again last month during PTC8.