Judge Orders FEMA to Revive BRIC Grants, Reopening $1 Billion for Disaster Mitigation

The floodwall plan for a low-lying neighborhood in coastal Maryland sat in a drawer for nearly a year, its blueprints curling at the edges as tides crept higher and storms pushed farther inland.

Engineers had counted on a federal grant from the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, or BRIC, to raise roads and strengthen defenses against sea level rise. Then, last April, the Federal Emergency Management Agency scrapped the program, calling it “wasteful and ineffective,” and told states that pending applications stretching back several years were effectively dead.

Now, BRIC is back — not because FEMA changed its mind, but because a federal judge ordered the agency, twice, to restore the money.

FEMA reopens BRIC with $1 billion available

FEMA on March 25 reopened applications for BRIC and said it is making about $1 billion available for new resilience and hazard-mitigation projects. The move comes less than three weeks after U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns in Boston directed the agency to take “concrete steps” to reverse its 2025 termination of the program and to resume grant announcements.

The reopening marks a significant victory for more than 20 states and the District of Columbia that sued FEMA over the shutdown, arguing it illegally froze billions of dollars in disaster-prevention funding at a time when storms, floods and wildfires are getting worse. It also raises questions about how quickly the agency will move the rest of the money a court has ordered restored — and whether future administrations can attempt similar cuts.

What BRIC funds — and why communities rely on it

BRIC is FEMA’s flagship pre-disaster mitigation program, created after Congress passed the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018. Instead of waiting for hurricanes, wildfires or floods to hit and then paying to rebuild, the program steers money into projects meant to reduce risk in advance — enlarging undersized culverts, elevating critical roads, cutting back wildfire fuels near homes, adding backup power to water plants and hardening electrical substations.

States, local governments, tribes and U.S. territories apply for the competitive grants, which can cover up to 75% of project costs, and up to 90% in some smaller or particularly vulnerable communities.

By mid-2025, FEMA had selected or awarded roughly $4.5 billion in BRIC grants over four funding cycles for nearly 2,000 projects nationwide, according to litigation filings and agency documents. Supporters in both parties have regularly cited research showing every dollar spent on mitigation can save multiple dollars in avoided disaster losses.

The 2025 shutdown and the lawsuit

That trajectory abruptly changed on April 4, 2025, when FEMA announced it was ending BRIC.

In a press release at the time, acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton called BRIC “a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program that has strayed from the agency’s core mission” and said it had been “hijacked by political agendas.” The agency canceled its fiscal 2024 funding opportunity and told states that unawarded applications from the 2020 through 2023 cycles would not move forward.

The agency also outlined plans to leave or return about $882 million in infrastructure-law dollars tied to BRIC and to shift roughly $4 billion in BRIC set-asides in FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund into other disaster accounts or back to the Treasury. That decision, according to states and local officials, threw an estimated $3.6 billion in planned or anticipated resilience projects into doubt.

Within months, a coalition led by Washington Attorney General Nick Brown filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts: State of Washington et al. v. Federal Emergency Management Agency et al.

“We brought this case because FEMA cannot simply walk away from Congress’s clear instructions to help communities prevent disasters before they strike,” Brown said when the lawsuit was filed. “The law does not allow the agency to abandon people living in floodplains and fire zones.”

The plaintiffs — eventually including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia and others — argued FEMA’s actions violated multiple statutes, including the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, the Stafford Act, provisions of the 2021 infrastructure law, and a 2024 appropriations law limiting reprogramming of grant funds. They also alleged the termination was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Court orders FEMA to restore the program

In August 2025, Stearns issued a preliminary injunction blocking FEMA from reallocating BRIC funds while the case proceeded.

On Dec. 11, 2025, he went further, ruling that the termination of BRIC was unlawful and entering a permanent injunction. In his opinion, Stearns wrote that BRIC was “FEMA’s largest pre-disaster mitigation program” and that ending it amounted to a “substantial reduction” of the agency’s mitigation responsibilities — something federal law does not permit without new congressional authorization.

“The executive branch may not unilaterally withhold or repurpose funds where Congress has clearly directed how they are to be spent,” Stearns wrote.

DHS and FEMA maintained in some public statements and court filings that BRIC had not been “terminated” but was under review. Stearns rejected that characterization as inconsistent with the record.

A slow restart — and lingering questions

Despite the ruling, months passed without FEMA issuing a new BRIC funding notice or clearly telling states that the program was back. In February, the states returned to court, asking Stearns to enforce his judgment and accusing the agency of slow-walking compliance.

In early March, Stearns granted the enforcement motion, directing the agency to “promptly take steps” to restore BRIC and to lay out how it would resume grant announcements within weeks.

On March 25, FEMA said it was opening a new BRIC competition with about $1 billion available.

“When done properly, mitigation saves lives and dramatically reduces the costs of future disasters,” Karen S. Evans, the senior official performing the duties of FEMA administrator, said in a statement.

The new round allows states, local governments, tribes and territories to apply for large infrastructure projects as well as planning, building-code improvements and other efforts. FEMA did not immediately say how it would handle projects that had been selected but not awarded under previous BRIC cycles when the program was halted — or when it would release the balance of the money the court ordered restored.

Communities say the pause increased risk

State officials and emergency managers welcomed the reopening but stressed that communities lost valuable time.

“Every year we delay these projects, the risk goes up,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement after the March enforcement order. “This funding will help protect homes, businesses and lives — but it never should have been cut off in the first place.”

Local officials say the yearlong hiatus hit smaller and poorer communities particularly hard, because they are least able to pay for major infrastructure upgrades on their own and most dependent on federal cost sharing. In some places, planning and engineering work was shelved; in others, construction costs rose while officials waited.

Broader implications beyond disaster policy

The legal fight over BRIC is being watched beyond emergency management. Legal scholars and state officials say the case could serve as a precedent limiting a president’s ability to effectively dismantle congressionally created programs by refusing to run them or obligate their funds.

For now, local leaders like those in that Maryland coastal town are racing to update applications and cost estimates before the next hurricane or nor’easter arrives. The floodwall they had hoped to build with federal help is a year behind schedule.

Whether BRIC’s return ushers in a period of more stable federal backing for disaster prevention — or proves to be a temporary reprieve dependent on court orders and state pressure — may help determine how prepared communities are when the next round of extreme weather comes.