The Senate passed a Sandy relief package 62-36 on January 28, providing $50.7 billion in aid relief to the states hit by Hurricane Sandy, after the House passed its version on January 15. The bill provides $17 billion in disaster relief and $33.7 billion to rebuild infrastructure.

Hurricane Sandy was a horrific storm, inundating much of the East Coast, destroying homes, businesses, infrastructure, and leaving millions without power. Aid is badly needed to rebuild.

However, the Sandy relief bill does little to plan for the next storm. Climate change is dramatically altering the world’s climate, making severe storms more powerful. New Jersey and New York will get hit with more hurricanes in the future; some of them will likely pack a stronger punch than Hurricane Sandy.

Therefore, we must adapt to the threats of climate change, which include rising sea levels, coastal flooding, and stronger storms and storm surges.

While the Sandy relief bill provides needed financial assistance to the New York area to rebuild, it fails to incorporate strong adaptation measures that will limit the scope of damage in the future. The bill merely rebuilds coastal assets as they were before. Rob Young of Yale’s Environment 360 blog has a great summary of the downsides of the legislation.

The result will be ever increasing disaster relief packages, with the federal government paying higher bills to rebuild again and again.

For example, the federal flood insurance program run by FEMA effectively subsidizes development in disaster-prone areas. The program, which began in 1968, offers federal flood insurance to homeowners who are unable to get affordable insurance on the private market. However, there is a reason private insurers will not cover homeowners in risky areas – in order for insurance companies to cover the costs of disasters, premiums would have to be extraordinarily high. That price signal would discourage risky development. However, with the federal flood insurance program, coastal development continues and the American taxpayers end up picking up the tab when disaster inevitably strikes.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer summed up the risk, as reported by The New York Times, “We are now just throwing money to support something that is going to end up creating more victims and costing more money in the future.”

Instead, the U.S. needs to consider a range of adaptation measures and disaster preparedness. Among them include finding ways to adequately reflect the risk of building in flood-prone areas; pull back development in especially risky areas; and invest in coastal protections to improve resiliency, including natural habitats where possible. Evidence suggests that for every $1 invested in disaster preparedness, an estimated $15 can be saved in avoided cleanup costs.

A deeper look at how climate change will affect the insurance industry is also needed.

However, reform is politically difficult, because many coastal communities do not want to move from their homes, and they also significantly contribute to economic development, including tax revenues for municipalities and states.

The bill now goes to the President’s desk where he will quickly sign it, sending much needed aid to the New York area to help it rebuild. However, little has been done to adequately plan for the next disaster.

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