Federal Judge Blocks FEMA From Ending Disaster Preparedness Program

By Bay Journal, Maryland Matters

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By Jeremy Cox
The Chesapeake Bay Journal

The Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot unilaterally terminate a program that provides billions of dollars in disaster-preparation aid to communities nationwide, including nearly $1 billion in the Chesapeake Bay region, a federal judge has ruled.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration moved to claw back the funding from the Building Resilient Infrastructure (BRIC) program, calling the program “wasteful and ineffective.”

Among the grants impacted in the Bay region were $36 million to fight rising water in Crisfield; $32 million to restore wetlands along the Patapsco River’s Middle Branch near Baltimore; $2.7 million to acquire 21 flood-prone properties in Scranton, Pennsylvania; and $20 million toward finishing a floodwall in the District of Columbia around the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant

In a 19-page ruling handed down Dec. 11, Judge Richard Stearns of Massachusetts, a Clinton appointee, called the funding cancellation “unlawful,” citing earlier legislation that required each state receive minimum amounts of federal mitigation funding each year.
Flooding inundates Ninth Street in Crisfield after a storm in January 2024. (Photo by Dave Harp/Chesapeake Bay Journal)
“This is a case about unlawful executive encroachment on the prerogative of Congress to appropriate funds for a specific and compelling purpose, and no more than that,” Stearns wrote.

The lawsuit was filed in July by a coalition of 20 states. In the Chesapeake region, the group included the attorneys general from Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland and New York as well as the governor of Pennsylvania.

The case centers on FEMA’s BRIC program, which was launched during Trump’s first administration to help communities prevent an array of disasters, ranging from wildfires to floods.

“The States do not ask the court to compel the agency to award any specific grants, nor do they ask the court to enjoin the agency from replacing the BRIC program in the future with a different mitigation program. Nor do they seek to prevent the Secretary of Homeland Security, as the overseeing executive of FEMA, from recommending to Congress that the BRIC program be abolished,” Stearns wrote. “The States’ requested relief is to enjoin the cancellation of the BRIC program as it is currently constituted by an act of Congress.”

The funding remains up in the air, though. Stearns’ ruling blocks the administration from redistributing the promised money. But it doesn’t release any of the previously withheld grants, nor does it stop FEMA from replacing BRIC with a different mitigation program.

An unnamed FEMA spokesperson said in a statement that BRIC has not been terminated and criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the funding.

“The Biden administration abandoned true mitigation and used BRIC as a green new deal slush fund,” the spokesperson said. “It’s unfortunate that an activist judge either didn’t understand that or didn’t care.”

The ruling was welcomed by Maryland Attorney General, one of the parties to the suit.

“Every Marylander who has watched floodwaters destroy their home or seen their community torn apart by a natural disaster understands why the Trump administration’s unlawful cuts to the BRIC program were so reckless,” Brown said in a prepared statement. “Our lawsuit protected this important funding that will safeguard people and property from future disasters.”