New York Magazine
As applications come in to access $16 billion in Department of Housing and Urban Development funding designed to protect vulnerable areas from “predictable damage from future events,” a pattern is forming among many conservative states. According to a report from the New York Times, southern states battered by natural disasters are putting in for the HUD money, but leaving out phrases related to climate change in order to stay on the Trump administration’s good side:
A 306-page draft proposal from Texas doesn’t use the terms “climate change” or “global warming,” nor does South Carolina’s proposal. Instead, Texas refers to “changing coastal conditions” and South Carolina talks about the “destabilizing effects and unpredictability” of being hit by three major storms in four years, while being barely missed by three other hurricanes….
The money is distributed according to a formula benefiting states most affected by disasters in 2015, 2016 and 2017. That formula favors Republican-leaning states along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, which were hit particularly hard during that period.
Texas is in line for more than $4 billion, the most of any state. The next largest sums go to Louisiana ($1.2 billion), Florida ($633 million), North Carolina ($168 million) and South Carolina ($158 million), all of which voted Republican in the 2016 presidential election.
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