Attorney General Mayes Wins Significant Court Victory Preventing Trump from Unlawfully Cutting Billions in FEMA Disaster Preparedness Funding

PHOENIX - Attorney General Kris Mayes and a coalition of 20 states have won their lawsuit against the Trump Administration 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.  

"We're winning case after case as we protect Arizonans from harm and rising prices that the Trump administration continues to illegally pursue," said Attorney General Mayes. "Arizonans will notice this victory the next time a wildfire or flood hits -- thanks to the work of those in my office, our state will be prepared."

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 mitigation, the program protects lives, communities, and property — supporting state, tribal, and local governments to prevent the harms of disasters, rather than just recovering from them. 

Arizona had 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.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed a law mandating that FEMA must protect communities through four interrelated functions – 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 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.  

This 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 Separation of Powers, the Appropriations and Spending Clauses, and the Administrative Procedures Act. 
 
The decision prevents FEMA from terminating the BRIC program and requires the restoration of these critical funds to the communities relying on them.  

Joining Attorney General Mayes in filing this lawsuit, which was co-led by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

A copy of the summary judgement is available here.