Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul

Court Order Prevents Trump Administration from Illegally Shutting Down the FEMA BRIC Program

Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul and a coalition of 23 states and attorneys general won their lawsuit against the Trump Administration on Thursday over its unlawful attempt to shut down the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) bipartisan Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, designed to protect communities from natural disasters before they strike.  

For the past 30 years, the BRIC program has provided communities across the nation with resources to proactively fortify their infrastructure against natural disasters. The program focuses on mitigation and protects lives, communities and property by supporting state, tribal and local governments to prevent the harms of disasters before they occur. 

“This ruling illustrates, once again, that the separation of powers and the rule of law still matter in our democracy,” Raoul said. “Congress appropriated funding to the BRIC program because of the important role it plays in protecting property, reducing injuries and saving lives before natural disasters strike. I will continue work to protect this vital program as well as other public safety programs targeted by the Trump administration with unlawful and unwarranted cuts.”

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed a law mandating that FEMA must protect communities through four interrelated functions – disaster mitigation, preparation, response and recovery. The BRIC program is the core of FEMA’s mitigation efforts. BRIC projects are required to be cost-effective, and a recent study concluded that every $1 FEMA spends on mitigation saves an average of $6 in post-disaster costs.  

The BRIC program supports often difficult-to-fund projects, such as constructing evacuation shelters and flood walls, safeguarding utility grids against natural disasters, protecting wastewater and drinking water infrastructure and fortifying bridges, roadways and culverts.  

Over the past four years, FEMA has selected nearly 2,000 projects to receive roughly $4.5 billion in BRIC funding nationwide. In Illinois, BRIC money is used to fund numerous disaster mitigation projects, including two projects that aim to protect critical infrastructure and communities from flooding. FEMA approved a BRIC grant to relocate a vulnerable wastewater treatment plant out of a FEMA recognized floodway, a project that aims to safeguard drinking water, prevent raw sewage backup and prevent the contamination of waterways for DePue, Peoria, Hennepin and Pekin, Illinois. Another project was awarded BRIC funding to reduce the risk of flooding in the Des Plaines River Valley, a region whose residents are frequently forced to evacuate to escape severe flooding, which has caused over $35 million in damage to the community. BRIC funding will protect not only residents of Maine Township, Park Ridge and Des Plaines, Illinois, it will also safeguard critical access routes to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, which provides comprehensive and specialized health care, including a Level I Trauma Center, to tens of thousands of Illinois residents across 28 communities in Cook and Lake Counties, including Chicago.

The court decision affirms the coalition’s position that FEMA’s decision to abruptly terminate the BRIC program is in direct violation of Congress’s decision to fund it, and that the Executive Branch has no lawful authority to unilaterally refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress. The judge also concluded that FEMA’s actions violate the separation of powers, the Appropriations and Spending Clauses and the Administrative Procedures Act. 

The decision prevents FEMA from terminating the BRIC program.  

Joining Raoul in filing this lawsuit are attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the governor of Kentucky and the governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.