Abstract
Available evidence shows increasing risks for effectively all coastal areas of the United States due to the impacts and effects of observed and predicted climate change. One question that arises is how is national policy responding, if at all, to this increasing riskiness of coastal areas? This paper looks at current federal disaster assistance in the United States under the jurisprudential legal framework of fault attribution. Under a fault attribution framework, increasing coastal hazard risks should equate to increasing transfer of risk to the private individuals from public assistance. As coastal hazards and risks become more normalized through the processes of climate change, they should be incorporated into the decision-making processes of private individuals and markets. Using data from the US government on federal disaster assistance appropriations from 1968 thru 2022, a base analysis can be done to determine if responsibility for coastal hazard damages is shifting from national public relief to private markets. The results indicate this is not happening, as federal disaster assistance appropriations have increased substantially in the past two decades. The results indicate that while coastal areas in the United States are becoming more dangerous because of climate change, public policy has yet to begin shifting responsibility for that danger from public assistance to private individuals. This suggests individuals may be relying on federal disaster assistance in their coastal risk assessment, implying a lot of coastal economic activity is dependent on federal subsidies such as national disaster assistance. Recommendations include updating public policies to better reflect a dynamic fault attribution; as increased hazards become more normal, federal disaster relief must also allow increased coastal damages to be borne by private individuals and markets. This will minimize the chances of overreliance on federal disaster assistance when making coastal investment decisions, thereby minimizing the risk of asset bubbles and misappropriation of both public funds and private capital.