Over the last 20 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has failed to enforce a law that would have made U.S. cities and towns more resilient to the impacts of climate change, according to a recent federal investigation by the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security.

The law, the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000, required that FEMA write regulations and create policies to encourage communities to prepare for natural disasters and rebuild their infrastructure after emergency events so it is more resilient, taking measures such as improving stormwater management or strengthening buildings against earthquakes. As part of this mandate, FEMA was supposed to restrict the amount of federal funds available to communities to repair repetitively damaged infrastructure from 75 percent to 25 percent of project cost. But instead, the new report shows the same bridges and roads were repaired over and over again using FEMA aid — and in one case, seven times — costing taxpayers almost $2 billion from 2009 to 2018.

“Mitigating these vulnerabilities is way cheaper than putting it off and rebuilding,” said Rob Moore, a climate policy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC.

Read the full article about the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 by Jena Brooker at Grist.