Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning. My name is Zoe Baldwin and I’m the NJ Director for the Regional Plan Association, a 100-year-old nonprofit organization working toward better mobility, economic opportunity, and a more resilient metropolitan region.

It’s been 10 years since Hurricane Sandy and just one since Hurricane Ida. These terrible storms launched an important conversation about resilience and resulted in some measures being taken, but there is much more to be done.

Anniversaries are generally celebrations of longevity but this time, instead of remembrance, I hope we use these somber markers as a catalyst for substantial action to protect and enhance our communities and our way of life. While we cannot prevent named storms from barreling up the coast, we can make changes to help mitigate their damage.

Despite the many actions around resilience in our region, there has been very little consistency in approaches, meaning some communities are well ahead of the curve in preparing for a future with more flooding, while many others remain vulnerable.

One of the most important things NJ can do to safeguard our future is to establish a comprehensive set of policies and resources to improve flood-prone areas in ways that reduce risk and social vulnerability.

Luckily, we know how to start tackling this issue. You’ve heard from a fantastic panel of speakers today who’ve outlined a number of solutions at our disposal, and I’d like to add a few programmatic suggestions that I hope this body will consider advancing in the near future:

RPA is also on the Steering Committee of the Rutgers-led NJ Climate Change Alliance, and I’d first like to share two measures that were developed by our Long Term Planning Workgroup, which conducted a national analysis of best practices.

• First, we should codify Governor Murphy’s Executive Orders 89 and 100 to ensure that NJ continues the work of the Office of Climate Change Resiliency and its Interagency Council, which are coordinating and informing the state’s long-term resilience efforts.
• The second one is being heard in Senate Environment as we speak – S3110 would require certain flood disclosures from property sellers and landlords to ensure residents are fully aware of their risk before they find out the hard way that their new home is in a floodplain, requires flood insurance, or has experienced recent flood-related damage.

Beyond that, it is crucial that we recognize that federal dollars will never be enough. We need to create resources to facilitate proactive resilience projects by establishing dedicated funding and financing options for both public and private entities of a certain size.

• The federal STORM act has dedicated funding to capitalize state revolving funds for resilience very similar to the existing water infrastructure funding in the NJ Infrastructure Bank. We need to enable through legislation a resilience program within the I-Bank to take advantage of these much-needed funds and help our towns and counties fortify themselves as best they can.
• Additionally, we need to create within EDA a Financial Assistance program for small businesses. Up to this point, the majority of resilience and stormwater funding has been dedicated to public works projects. But water does not abide by deeds and much of the flood prone areas are privately owned.

We need to increase funding for programs like Blue Acres and the Shore Protection Fund, and supplement DEP’s planning assistance grant program, which is open to private entities and partially funded by CBT funds.

And as other speakers have noted, we need we need to prioritize projects that include nature-based solutions wherever possible.

As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In the coming weeks there will be much ado about this somber anniversary. But while articles and remembrances are nice, the only appropriate memorial for those who lost their lives and for those who lost everything is to take definitive action and pass measures like these that will make sure we’re prepared for next Sandy, and the Sandy after that.