Created in 2009 by a partnership of Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach County governments, the Southeast Florida Regional Compact is supposed to “discuss the climate change threats facing over six million residents in the region.” As REDBROWARD previously reported, sea level rise estimates devised by the Southeast Florida Regional Compact greatly influence projects in the City of Fort Lauderdale and across Broward. City of Fort Lauderdale Assistant Public Works Director Nancy Gassman admitted the Compact “put sea level rise in our DNA.” Now, records show Gassman worked on the plan the Southeast Florida Regional Compact is pushing on local politicians to put a myriad of progressive policies into our DNA.

In November 2022, the Southeast Regional Compact published its “Regional Climate Action Plan (RCAP) 3.0” The plan, devised by numerous government employees, bureaucrats and non-profit organizations, aims to be a “comprehensive, ambitious and timely playbook.” The Compact claims the RCAP “holds enormous promise to transform southeast Florida into a more resilient, equitable and thriving home for all.”

Instead of focusing on typical climate change topics such as agriculture and water, RCAP seeks “acceleration of local and regional climate action in southeast Florida toward a shared vision of low-carbon, healthy, prosperous, more equitable and more resilient region.”

What issues does the RCAP think will transform Broward and the region?

EQUITY

The Southeast Florida Regional Compact declares “Equity differs from equality, which treats everyone the same despite disparate outcomes.” In RCAP 3.0, the Southeast Florida Regional Compact claims “Climate change functions as a ‘threat multiplier’ which is “particularly burdensome for…individuals of low wealth or limited income and people of color due to structural and institutional forms of racism, such as housing discrimination and segregation.” The RCAP claims the “frontline communities” are “highly exposed to climate risks” while having fewer resources to cope with them. According to the RCAP these “frontline communities” include “older adults, the unhoused, immigrants, differently-abled people, youth, outdoor workers, non-English speakers and those with chronic heath conditions.” The RCAP states “individuals with multiple vulnerability factors—such as being a person of color, non-English speaker and low income—experience cascading climate impacts more acutely.”

The RCAP believes the frontline communities will directly benefit from a “just transition” to a low-carbon, resilient community.

The RCAP offers numerous recommendations on how to achieve this “just transition.” They include:

• Determine appropriate and locally relevant performance metrics and monitor for climate equity outcomes with input from members of diverse communities.
• Host trainings for existing community leaders…to access and understand local climate change information related to their communities.
• Create opportunities early in decision-making process for frontline community members to help shape the vision and the plan for infrastructure, adaptation and mitigation projects.
• Include frontline community members in comprehensive reviews of critical infrastructure such as wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, even in the absence of resident complaints.

PUBLIC POLICY ADVOCACY

The Southeast Florida Regional Compact RCAP discusses how its work is “hamstrung” by State policy. It states policy decisions in Tallahassee “work against critical and regionally shared resilience objectives.” The RCAP recommends local governments pursue State, Federal and “philanthropic” funding to support carbon pollution reduction and climate resilience work.

The RCAP urges governments to adopt its “regionally unified sea level rise projections.

The RCAP recommends local governments “design policy and infrastructure investment processes that ensure social and economic equity and environmental justice are incorporated from the beginning and through the end.”

REGIONAL ECONOMIC RESILIENCE

The RCAP recommendations under Regional Economic Resilience show their determination to politicize local stormwater and flooding policy. The RCAP recommends local governments “coordinate with municipal, county and regional agencies and governments to identify and prioritize critical infrastructure assets, systems and climate resilience needs in order to align planning and investments that address…flood risks.”

The RCAP recommends local leaders and bureaucrats use “future conditions scenarios” to guide how they address stormwater, wastewater and flood control.

The RCAP recommends local governments coordinate their efforts with the federal government via the U.S. Department Of Commerce Economic Development Administration. This recommendation includes a focus on the creation of “green jobs” under the umbrella of the “National Center For Climate Resilience In Southeast Florida.”

The RCAP wades into the affordable housing arena claiming a need to “improve understanding of the compounding role of climate change and sea level rise in the affordable housing crisis in the region.” The RCAP seeks to “identify opportunities for integrated solutions that center equity, prevent displacement and bolster economic development.”

Here, the Southeast Florida Regional Compact calls on local governments to “identify, pursue and establish funding strategies, including foreign and green investments, needed at the regional and local scale to ensure organized and timely investments that support the rapid transition to a low-carbon economy.”

The RCAP recommends Broward elected officials “Ensure funding strategies are all-inclusive and equally account for the needs of under-resourced communities to deliver an equitable distribution of infrastructure investments across the region.”

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES AND TRANSPORTATION

To help ensure sustainable communities, the RCAP recommends local elected officials “discourage new development or post-disaster redevelopment in climate-vulnerable areas.” The RCAP believes Broward governments can achieve this goal with “transfer of development rights and targeted buyouts.”

Under transportation, the RCAP wants our elected officials to promote Vision Zero. This plan “emphasizes the elimination of traffic-related fatalities and provides safe, equitable and healthy mobility for all.” The RCAP wants local governments to implement this plan with a “shift to non-motorized modes of transportation.”

Will the Southeast Florida Regional Compact implement these plans? They already have begun.

How do they implement their recommendations? Get our your notebooks, there’s more…