Court blocks Trump effort to terminate FEMA BRIC funding

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and a coalition of 22 states and the District of Columbia have secured a court ruling blocking the Trump Administration’s attempt to terminate FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) disaster mitigation program and divert its funding.

• Court decision holds that FEMA’s abrupt termination of the BRIC mitigation program violated Congress’s appropriations, the Separation of Powers, the Appropriations and Spending Clauses, and the Administrative Procedure Act, and orders restoration of BRIC funds that support evacuation shelters, flood walls, wildfire grid protection, and water and transportation infrastructure.
• Over the past four years, FEMA selected nearly 2,000 projects for about $4.5 billion in BRIC funding nationwide, including 24 Michigan projects totaling more than $29 million in federal funding; the lawsuit was joined by attorneys general from 22 states and D.C. plus the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.