Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul

Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 20 states, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its attempt to illegally 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 fortify their infrastructure against natural disasters. By focusing on preparation, the program has protected property, saved money that would have otherwise been spent on post-disaster costs, reduced injuries and saved lives.  

“We can look to the many recent natural disasters, such as the devastating California wildfires in January and the tragic flooding that occurred in Texas earlier this month, and witness the heartbreaking destruction and loss of life these events can cause,” Raoul said. “We must do all we can to prepare for disasters and protect our communities. That’s why I’m standing with my fellow attorneys general to protect this important program.”

Responding to the catastrophic losses resulting from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, Congress passed a law stating FEMA must protect communities through four interrelated functions: mitigation, preparation, response and recovery. The BRIC program is the core of FEMA’s pre-disaster mitigation efforts. A recent study concluded that every dollar 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 wildfires, protecting wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, and fortifying bridges, roadways and culverts.   

The impact of the BRIC program’s termination has been devastating, with communities across the country forced to delay, scale back or cancel hundreds of mitigation projects that depend on this funding. Projects that have been in development for years, and into which communities have invested millions of dollars, are threatened. And now, Americans from coast to coast face a higher risk of harm from natural disasters.    

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 for the village of DePue to relocate a vulnerable wastewater treatment plant out of a FEMA recognized floodway, a project that aims to reduce the risk of harm to DePue and neighboring Peoria, Hennepin and Pekin, Illinois. Relocation of the wastewater treatment plant would safeguard drinking water, prevent raw sewage backup and prevent the contamination of waterways that serve these communities.

Another Illinois project that was awarded BRIC funding aims to reduce the risk of flooding in the Des Plaines River Valley, a region that has experienced severe flooding on multiple occasions, including a 1986 event that caused $35 million in damage to the community and forced 15,000 evacuations. BRIC funding for this project 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.

Raoul and the coalition argue that FEMA’s decision to abruptly terminate the BRIC program is in direct violation of Congress’ decision to fund it. FEMA has no lawful authority to unilaterally refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress. Illinois and its coalition partners also assert that shutting down the BRIC program violates the separation of powers and the Administrative Procedure Act. 

With this lawsuit, Raoul and the coalition are seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent FEMA from spending BRIC funds on other purposes, in addition to a permanent injunction to reverse the termination of the BRIC program and require the restoration of these critical funds to the communities relying on them.   

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