EPA Gulf of Mexico Program

In September of 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council a program grant to conduct workshops to identify vulnerabilities and resiliency needs throughout the Tampa Bay Region of Florida. This project will feed into a Regional Resiliency Action Plan that can be implemented by the local governments in the region.

The Gulf of Mexico Program (GMP) is a non-regulatory program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) founded to facilitate collaborative actions to protect, maintain, and restore the health and productivity of the Gulf of Mexico in ways consistent with the economic well-being of the Region.

Purpose

The goal of the newly forming Tampa Bay Regional Resiliency Coalition is to approach resiliency from a regional perspective, working together will make our communities stronger than working separately. The EPA Gulf of Mexico Grant funding will enable the TBRPC staff to hold workshops to identify vulnerabilities and resiliency needs throughout the region, which will feed into a Regional Resiliency Action plan that can be implemented by the local governments in the region.

During the first two years of the proposed project TBRPC is will analyze the economic impacts of sustained heat events, analyzing economic impacts of labor supply and productivity, electricity demand, energy expenditures, agricultural yields, impacts to tourism and recreation, population impacts from displacement, job loss and change in mortality.