From Roll Call:

R.J. Lehmann, a senior fellow at the center-right R Street Institute, said the embrace of the term dates back to hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, but a series of devastating storms in 2017 “certainly helped put it back on the agenda.”

He said while Republicans have been wary of the term “climate change” because they view it as politicized, “you can easily make the case” for resilience language “on pure fiscally sensible budget grounds.”

His group believes in climate change. They also, Lehmann said, believe “we spend a lot of taxpayer money on rebuilding federal infrastructure.”

“Just acknowledging weather and disaster risk — irrespective of climate change — is something every fiscal conservative should support,” he said, adding that the idea of resilient infrastructure “should unite people who might ideologically be far apart on lots of other issues.”

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