PHOENIX – Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes today joined 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. The Attorney General’s Office is fighting for approximately $9.8 million dollars in BRIC disaster mitigation funding for Arizona. Over the past four years, FEMA has selected nearly 2,000 projects to receive roughly $4.5 billion in BRIC funding nationwide.
“The Trump Administration has demonstrated outright hostility toward helping states with disaster relief in attempts to slash FEMA. Support for our states and our ability to fight disasters, like those that we see during wildfire season, is incredibly important,” said Attorney General Mayes. “We are in wildfire season and we need all hands-on-deck. Not to mention, Arizonans were counting on millions of these dollars to prevent future flooding in places like Buckeye and Camp Verde.”
For the past 30 years, the BRIC program has provided communities across the nation with resources to proactively 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.
Arizona has been selected for BRIC grants for 25 projects, totaling $9.8 million dollars. Roughly $1.2 million of these funds were directed to the State for salaries and other management costs. The remaining BRIC funding would support critical disaster mitigation projects, including the following examples:
- A $4.6 million infrastructure project in the city of Buckeye, Arizona. The city regularly experiences floods that threaten the safety of its businesses and families. The BRIC funding would have been used to divert floodwater away from the historic downtown by connecting the drainage system to existing irrigation canals and constructing a retention basin to collect the floodwater.
- The town of Camp Verde, Arizona was similarly selected for a roughly $860,000 flood mitigation project to secure a major roadway against flooding. Emergency vehicles rely on this roadway to provide services to the area’s 5,000 residents. Flooding causes significant delay in the provision of services, as well as the residents’ access to the town.
Arizona does not have the budgetary resources or flexibility to make up for the lost funding without drawing funding away from other important initiatives.
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.
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 flood walls, safeguarding utility grids against wildfires, protecting wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, and fortifying bridges, roadways, and culverts.
Attorney General Mayes and the coalition argue that FEMA’s decision to abruptly terminate the BRIC program is in direct violation of Congress’s decision to fund it. The Executive Branch has no lawful authority to unilaterally refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress. They also assert that shutting down the BRIC program violates Separation of Powers and the Administrative Procedures Act, and violates the Appointments Clause because Cameron Hamilton, who acted as FEMA Administrator and gave the directive to terminate the BRIC program, was never appointed by the President or confirmed by the Senate and therefore was acting as Administrator unlawfully.
With this lawsuit, Attorney General Mayes and the coalition are seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the Trump Administration from spending BRIC funds on other purposes and 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 Attorney General Mayes in filing this lawsuit are attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and the governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
A copy of the lawsuit is available here.