{"id":343656,"date":"2025-12-12T04:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T04:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/343656\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T04:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T04:23:11","slug":"trump-administration-must-reinstate-fema-disaster-funds-judge-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/343656\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration must reinstate FEMA disaster funds, judge says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore billions of dollars in canceled FEMA disaster mitigation funding, siding with 22 states and the District of Columbia that sued over the canceled grants<\/a> this summer.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s administration said in April it was \u201cending\u201d the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which helped communities with predisaster projects to harden infrastructure and improve resilience against the increasing threats of climate change. <\/p>\n

The administration called the program \u201cwasteful and ineffective\u201d and said it would halt $3.6 billion in funding awarded but not yet paid<\/a> and would not award $882 million in grants for the following fiscal year. <\/p>\n

The program\u2019s disruption upended projects across hundreds of communities in both Republican- and Democratic-led states, thwarting plans to improve stormwater drainage, harden electrical lines and even help relocate households living in areas most vulnerable to disasters.<\/p>\n

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The Associated Press Thursday that DHS \u201chas not terminated BRIC,\u201d but did not elaborate on the program\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Biden Administration abandoned true mitigation and used BRIC as a green new deal slush fund,\u201d the spokesperson said, referring to a Democratic plan<\/a> to combat climate change. \u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that an activist judge either didn\u2019t understand that or didn\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The order comes at a time of profound uncertainty over FEMA\u2019s future<\/a> and on the same day that a long-awaited meeting of the FEMA Review Council to present a report recommending reforms to the agency was abruptly canceled by the White House<\/a> because it had not been fully briefed on the latest version of the report, according to a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

Congress funded BRIC during the first Trump administration through the 2018 Disaster Recovery Reform Act, and FEMA launched the program in 2020. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act made an additional $1 billion available for BRIC over five years, though only about $133 million had been delivered to communities by April, according to FEMA.<\/p>\n

The program was criticized by some for being difficult to access for rural and less wealthy communities due to a complicated application process and cost-sharing requirements. But even Republican lawmakers like Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana opposed the cancellations and called for BRIC\u2019s reinstatement. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt protects families and saves taxpayer dollars in the long-run,\u201d Cassidy said on the Senate floor a week after the funding cancellation. \u201cThat\u2019s efficient in my book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Richard G. Stearns found that FEMA\u2019s actions were unlawful since Congress appropriated the money specifically for the grants and that there was an \u201cinherent public interest in ensuring that the government follows the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BRIC program is designed to protect against natural disasters and save lives,\u201d Stearns wrote in the court order. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration has slashed disaster preparedness dollars across multiple FEMA programs this year as part of its campaign to transfer more responsibility for disasters to states<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Since February, Trump has not approved any requests for hazard mitigation funding, a typical add-on that helps states, tribes and territories complete resilience projects after major disasters.<\/p>\n

Emergency preparedness grants that states and local governments rely on to staff emergency management agencies and buy equipment are currently frozen<\/a> after 12 states sued the Trump administration<\/a> over unprecedented grant stipulations related to the administration\u2019s immigration agenda.<\/p>\n

Multiple studies have shown that preemptive investments in disaster readiness can yield significant savings. A 2024 study<\/a> funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found every $1 invested in disaster preparation saved $13 in economic impact, damage and cleanup costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore billions of dollars in canceled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2797,1687,1685,4976,3505,12,11500,793,152186,2001,3,111,45936,795,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,800],"class_list":["post-343656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-bill-cassidy","tag-climate","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-disaster-planning-and-response","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-federal-emergency-management-agency","tag-general-news","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-massachusetts","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-richard-g-stearns","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}