NORFOLK — During a committee meeting Friday at Norfolk State University, Virginia lawmakers heard from experts from a variety of sectors about how the volatility of federal cuts is having a profound impact on Hampton Roads.
The Emergency Committee on the Impacts of Federal Workforce and Funding Reductions convened for the fourth time, having heard presentations at the General Assembly Building in Richmond as well as in Alexandria and Wytheville. In Norfolk, speakers highlighted significant federal workforce populations and reliance on federal funding for climate resiliency and other initiatives.
Economic impact
Hampton Roads stands to be particularly affected by cuts to the federal workforce, presenters said. One out 12 jobs in the region is a federal civilian job, said Vinod Agarwal, professor of economics at Old Dominion University. Between January and April of this year, unemployment claims in Hampton Roads rose by 15%. Agarwal predicted an increase in the fall.
Presenters described the effects of tariffs, workforce reductions and grant cancellations in Virginia. Legislators heard repeatedly that the uncertainty of what’s to come is making life difficult for businesses. Part of that lies in energy credits for offshore wind appearing to be on the chopping block.
“It’s not so much the dollars that are being lost,” said Nancy Grden of the Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable. “It’s the cloud of ambiguity hanging over investment going forward, and that’s why it’s just as important to pay attention to as cuts in federal spending.”
Meanwhile, Stephen Edwards, CEO of the Port of Virginia, said the port has endured turbulent times and was prepared to do so again.
“The Port of Virginia was highest performing during the pandemic,” he said. “The Port of Virginia has weathered the Red Sea closure, we’ve weathered the Suez Canal closure, we handled all of the Baltimore business when Baltimore had its crisis last year. We’ve handled low water positions in the Panama Canal.”
Still, Edwards said it was not immediately clear how reciprocal tariffs on countries other than China scheduled to take effect in July would impact imports in Virginia.
The strictest tariffs will be levied against China, which accounts for 19% of all imports entering the Port of Virginia. Edwards said that puts Virginia in a better position than, for example, Long Island, where more than 60% of imports come from China.
“A significant amount of uncertainty continues,” he said.
Environmental impact
Already, Hampton Roads has seen $50 million in cuts to climate resiliency programs, according to a presentation from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience (ICAR) at Old Dominion University.
That included grants intended to support flood mitigation, environmental education and infrastructure improvements in the region. Portsmouth lost out on $24 million for improvements to the Lake Meade Dam, and Hampton and the nonprofit Wetlands Watch lost a planned $20 million from the Environmental Protection Agency for flood mitigation at Aberdeen Gardens.
Newport News, the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission and the Elizabeth River project all saw grants for environmental resiliency canceled as well.
“These are all deserving projects,” said Jay Ford, policy manager at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “There was a focus on certain buzzwords like ‘climate’ or ‘resilience,’ and I think people conflated these projects with being somehow unnecessary.”
Ford said the projects did essential infrastructure work to protect particularly vulnerable communities from the impacts of a changing climate. He said the commonwealth relies on federal dollars for large-scale infrastructure projects.
“We can’t fill all the holes left by the federal government,” he said.
Jessica Whitehead, policy manager at ICAR, urged lawmakers to maintain and increase regional efforts to mainstream climate resilience.
“It’s very, very easy to think about resilience as a future problem when we have so many other things that are immediate,” she said.” Resilience is something that you always wish you built, and you don’t think about building it until you realize you don’t have it.”
Experts also warned about potential cuts to emergency preparedness. The Virginia Department of Emergency Management is reliant on non-disaster federal grant funding for 65% of the agency’s core functions,
Kate Seltzer, 757-713-7881, [email protected]
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