In January, President Obama signed Executive Order (EO) 13690, which established new Federal Flood Risk Management Standards (FFRMS). The EO required all federal agencies to employ new methodology for defining the floodplain, and to adopt new requirements to avoid development in or affecting the floodplain. This week, the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) issued a statement regarding the applicability of EO 13690 and the Federal Flood Risk Management Standards (FFRMS).
The Corps has determined that the EO and FFRMS does not apply to section 404 permitting. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is in the process of finalizing its guidance on the EO and FFRMS and will be making its recommendations to the Water Policy Council in September, with plans to publish the final guidance by October. FEMA plans to scale back significantly from the proposed guidance and limit the impact of the EO and FFRMS to only the expenditure of federal funds on new and substantially improved projects.