Dear Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member Graves:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports H.R. 3779, the Resilience Revolving Loan Fund Act of 2019.
Building resilience into infrastructure means increasing the capacity of these systems to absorb shocks and continue to function when they are disrupted. Current approaches at all levels of government focus on postdisaster response and recovery, rather than on predisaster mitigation, preparation, and resilience.
This bipartisan legislation would establish a resilience revolving loan fund, similar to the drinking water SRF that would offer low interest loans to communities to better prepare them for a wide range of possible disasters, including droughts.
Resilience and mitigation spending pays back to the taxpayer more than $6.00 for every $1.00 invested. Proactively getting ahead of the next disaster is a commonsense approach to ensuring long-term, sustainable infrastructure that our member companies, state and local chambers, and trade associations can depend on.
We urge swift consideration and passage of this important legislation.
Sincerely,
Neil L. Bradley
