Overview

• U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns granted a preliminary injunction preventing FEMA from redirecting more than $4 billion allocated to the BRIC program.
• On July 16, 2025, 20 Democratic-led states sued, arguing that FEMA’s attempt to cancel and redirect BRIC funding overstepped Congress’s appropriation authority.
• At a July hearing, government lawyer Nicole O’Connor told the court that FEMA should have discretion to use BRIC funds for both disaster recovery and mitigation.
• The states warn that the threat of losing BRIC funding has put resilience projects in California, New York and Washington at risk of cancellation or delay.
• FEMA argues that prohibiting fund reallocation could hamper its capacity to respond to major disasters.