Workers make repairs on Route 4 in Killington, Vermont, on Aug. 30, 2011, after it was washed out by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Irene. Toby Talbot / AP

An examination of FEMA programs by the New England Center of Investigative Reporting and Al Jazeera America has found that key agency programs fail to account for the observed and predicted changes of rising seas, more severe weather and other risks brought on by global warming:

• FEMA’s Public Assistance Program incentivizes communities to replace damaged culverts, bridges and other infrastructure with similar structures.

• Contradictory federal policies on climate mitigation allow hundreds of millions of federal aid dollars to go unused on the Louisiana coast a decade after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the area.

• Very little FEMA funding is available to protect communities before disasters hit, even if a place is particularly vulnerable. This can have tragic consequence, as in the case of a Colorado town that was left in danger of flooding after a major wildfire but could get no help to upgrade its drainage system. It received millions of dollars from FEMA only after devastating floods destroyed the drainage system and severely damaged homes and businesses.

These shortcomings have yet to be fixed despite efforts by the Obama administration to adapt the agency’s programs to climate change over the past couple years. “We’ve been charged to evaluate how climate change considerations can be incorporated,” says Michael Grimm, director of the risk reduction division of the federal insurance and mitigation administration at FEMA. “It is certainly something FEMA has recognized and is working on.”

A January executive order, yet to be implemented, called for a new standard to enable federally funded projects to withstand greater flooding predicted with climate change and “ensure that projects funded with taxpayer dollars last as long as intended.”

In an earlier action in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, FEMA announced a new policy that allows communities to consider sea level rise when rebuilding with federal dollars after disasters. But experts caution that true reform will require Congress to rewrite the Stafford Act, the basis for FEMA’s rules, which purposely prevents FEMA from upgrading infrastructure. Despite the agency’s recognition of the problem and its efforts to help communities use its funds for climate preparedness, Nicholas Pinter, a geology professor at Southern Illinois University, believes that “it is the statutes, which Congress has given them, which limit what [FEMA] can do.”

Meanwhile, says Jessica Grannis, a lawyer with the Climate Center at Georgetown University Law School, “The problem is that we’re going to be putting people and property back in harm’s way, and the money could potentially be wasted.”