Title 16 › Chapter CHAPTER 55— - COASTAL BARRIER RESOURCES › § 3505
A federal official, after talking with the Secretary, may spend federal money or give financial help inside the System for certain needs. These include uses that must touch coastal water for energy exploration, extraction, or transport; building or keeping up existing federal navigation channels and related structures (and handling dredged material); maintaining, replacing, rebuilding, or repairing (but not expanding) public roads, structures, or facilities that are key parts of a larger network (except United States Route 1 in the Florida Keys may be expanded); military activities needed for national security; building and running Coast Guard facilities; and a range of other projects that fit the System’s purposes. Those other projects cover fish and wildlife work and habitat buys, navigation aids, projects under certain federal laws including the Coastal Zone Management Act, scientific research, emergency life‑saving actions limited to what is necessary, nonstructural shoreline stabilization, and aquaculture that produces shellfish or algae or does not need feeds and follows the Secretary’s recommended practices. Federal coastal storm risk projects may use sand from a System unit if that unit was used at least once between December 31, 2008 and December 31, 2023 in response to an emergency before December 31, 2023. An “existing” channel or structure means it was authorized before the area became part of the System. The repair-only rule for public roads does not apply to a highway in a System unit in Michigan that was there on November 16, 1990. Spending for services or facilities outside unit T–11 that support activity inside T–11 is allowed, but no new federal flood insurance or HUD financing may be given for new construction or major improvements outside T–11 that support activities that do not fit the System’s purposes. New federal spending limits do not apply inside Otherwise Protected Areas, except for certain flood insurance limits; flood insurance may still be given for structures used in a way that matches the area’s protection purpose. For additions to the System made on or after November 25, 2024, the spending limits start one year after the addition, but they do not apply to an insurable structure that exists within the addition before that one‑year period ends.
Full Legal Text
Conservation — Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
16 U.S.C. § 3505
Title 16 — Conservation
Last Updated
Apr 6, 2026
Release point: 119-73