New 'CLEAR Act' Funds State Resiliency Offices: $100M Annually to Fight Extreme Weather Risks

The Championing Local Efforts to Advance Resilience Act of 2025, or the CLEAR Act, is setting up a new federal grant program that aims to get state, territory, and tribal governments ahead of the curve on disaster planning. It authorizes $100 million annually from 2025 through 2030 for these governments to establish and run dedicated resiliency offices. The core idea is simple: stop reacting to disasters and start planning for them across every major sector.

The Resiliency Office Mandate

This isn't just about stockpiling sandbags. The grants, overseen by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in consultation with FEMA and others, require recipients to create a comprehensive resiliency office. This office must develop a "resiliency framework" at least every five years that identifies risks—from extreme weather to economic shocks—across five key areas: environment, economy/workforce, infrastructure, health/social services, and housing (SEC. 2).

If your state gets this funding, that office will be tasked with providing technical assistance to local governments, integrating resilience criteria into existing state grant programs, and generally making sure that every part of the state government is thinking about how to adapt. For a small business owner, this could mean that future infrastructure projects near their shop are designed to handle 100-year floods, or that local planning includes better workforce training to handle post-disaster recovery jobs.

Prioritizing Need and Paying Fair Wages

When HUD decides who gets the money, they’re instructed to prioritize applications that demonstrate the “greatest need for assistance” and those that specifically identify vulnerabilities in “disadvantaged communities” (SEC. 2). This means the states and territories struggling the most with climate change impacts or economic instability should be first in line, and they must show how the funding will directly benefit the most vulnerable neighborhoods.

Another critical detail is the prevailing wage rule. Any subgrants funded through this program—meaning money the state office passes down to local entities for specific projects—must adhere to Department of Labor prevailing wage rules (SEC. 2). While this is good news for workers, ensuring that public funds support fair compensation, it’s worth noting that it might complicate things for smaller local governments or non-profits that lack the administrative staff to handle the extra compliance and reporting that comes with federal prevailing wage requirements.

The Tribal Focus and the Definition Gap

Ten percent of the authorized $100 million each year is specifically reserved for competitive grants to Indian tribes, recognizing their unique sovereignty and often heightened vulnerability to environmental changes (SEC. 2). This dedicated funding stream should significantly boost tribal efforts to protect their lands and communities.

However, there’s one key piece of the puzzle that the bill leaves blank: the definition of a “Disadvantaged community.” The bill delegates the power to define this crucial term entirely to the Secretary of HUD via future regulation (SEC. 2). This leaves a medium amount of vagueness in the system. The specific criteria HUD sets will determine which communities get prioritized, which means that definition is something everyone—from city planners to community organizers—will need to watch closely once the regulations are drafted. The success of the CLEAR Act in truly helping the most vulnerable depends heavily on how HUD draws that line.