Biden-Harris Administration expands agency efforts to ensure operations are increasingly resilient to climate change impacts

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce joined more than 20 federal agencies to release its updated Climate Adaptation Plan and expand the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to ensure federal operations are increasingly resilient to climate change impacts. The updated adaptation plans advance the Biden-Harris Administration’s National Climate Resilience Framework, which helps to align climate resilience investments across the public and private sector through common principles and opportunities for action to build a climate resilient nation.

Communities from coast to coast are experiencing the impacts of climate change firsthand through extreme heat causing difficult to contain wildfires and flooding. In light of these impacts, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking action to assess, manage, and reduce the risks that climate change poses to the nation. To address the climate change hazards and related impacts affecting the Department of Commerce’s employees, facilities, and lands and waters, the Department is establishing protocols to ensure a climate-ready workforce resilient facilities, lands and waters, climate-resilient supply chains, operational climate data and tools for decision-making, and climate resilience into external funding opportunities.

“The Commerce Department is prepared to leverage all of its bureaus, and our dedicated workforce, to ensure this administration and communities across the nation have the data, tools, and resources they need to mitigate the impacts of climate change while building a better, more resilient, America.” – Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo

At the beginning of his Administration, President Biden tasked federal agencies with leading whole-of-government efforts to address climate change through Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. Following the magnitude of challenges posed by the climate crisis underscored last year when the nation endured a record 28 individual billion-dollar extreme weather and climate disasters that caused more than $90 billion in aggregate damage, the Department of Commerce continues to be a leader and partner in adaptation and resilience.

The Department of Commerce released its initial Climate Adaptation Plan in 2021 and progress reports outlining advancements toward achieving their adaptation goals in 2022. In coordination with the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget, agencies updated their Climate Adaptation Plans for 2024 to 2027 to better integrate climate risk across their mission, operations, and asset management, including:

• Combining historical data and projections to assess exposure of assets to climate-related hazards including extreme heat and precipitation, sea level rise, flooding, and wildfire;
• Expanding the operational focus on managing climate risk to facilities and supply chains to include federal employees and federal lands and waters;
• Broadening the mission focus to describe mainstreaming adaptation into agency policies, programs, planning, budget formulation, and external funding;
• Linking climate adaptation actions with other Biden-Harris Administration priorities, including advancing environmental justice and the President’s Justice40 Initiative, strengthening engagement with Tribal Nations, supporting the America the Beautiful initiative, scaling up nature-based solutions, and addressing the causes of climate change through climate mitigation; and
• Adopting common progress indicators across agencies to assess the progress of agency climate adaptation efforts.

All plans from each of the 20+ agencies and more information are available at www.sustainability.gov/adaptation.

Please also see the White House Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Releases Agency Climate Adaptation Plans, Demonstrates Leadership in Building Climate Resilience.