AG Brown leads 20 states suing Trump administration over shutting down programs to protect communities from natural disasters

Malden. 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed
by a wildfire on September 7, 2020.

SEATTLE — Attorney General Nick Brown today led a coalition of 20 states in suing the Trump administration over its decision 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 proactively fortify 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.

Enumclaw 2020

The impact of the BRIC program’s termination has been devastating, with communities across the country being forced to delay, scale back, or cancel hundreds of mitigation projects depending on this funding. 

Projects that have been in development for years, and in which communities have invested millions of dollars are now threatened. 

And now, Americans from coast to coast face a higher risk of harm from natural disasters.

“This illegal cut endangers the communities most vulnerable to natural disasters,” Brown said. “Communities and states face devastating consequences when the federal government doesn’t meet its obligations to the public, and I will hold the Trump administration accountable for abandoning their safety.”

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 six dollars in post-disaster costs.

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

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