The federal government should use unspent funds allocated to government agencies in the wake of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy to pay for a new national resiliency effort, according to a report issued Monday by the Washington-based BuildStrong Coalition.

The report — “Ending the Cycle of Destruction: The U.S. Should Invest More Before Disasters Through a National Mitigation Strategy” — calls for:

• Establishing a new resilient construction state and local building code grant program administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help qualified states defray cost of enforcing building codes;

• Increasing FEMA’s funding for pre-disaster mitigation activities by $100 million per year from fiscal years 2016 to 2020; and

• Passing legislation to create resilient construction incentives for states, builders and individual homeowners. This legislation includes: The Safe Building Code Incentive Act — H.R. 1748 — that would give states a powerful incentive to adopt and enforce stronger statewide building codes; and the Disaster Savings and Resilient Construction Act — H.R. 3397 — that would establish a clear and permanent tax credit for owners and/or contractors who use resilient construction techniques when building and renovating homes and commercial structures in federally declared disaster areas.

“As the cost of natural disasters continues to rise and taxpayers pay more of the costs for cleanup and recovery efforts, it is clear that we need to do something different to prepare for natural disasters,” former FEMA Director and BuildStrong Coalition Senior Advisor David Paulison said in a statement accompanying the report. “Our current approach to natural disasters enables an endless cycle of rebuild and repair, leaving homes, businesses and Americans’ livelihoods in harm’s way.”

“Cognizant of federal funding constraints, the report identifies a funding source for this new investment strategy,” said BuildStrong in the statement. “Nearly $30 billion of the $36.99 billion in non-FEMA funding designated to government programs in the Sandy Supplemental remains unspent in the coffers of various government agencies, and the report recommends investing just $1.265 billion of this unused funding to strengthen and protect our communities.”

BuildStrong is a coalition of insurers, insurance associations, business and consumer organizations and emergency management officials that support the enactment and enforcement of stronger building codes.