On July 16, 2025, Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell co-led a coalition of 19 state attorneys general plus Pennsylvania, represented by the governor, in suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), its acting administrator, and others within the Trump administration for their unlawful termination of a disaster mitigation program. The program, entitled Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), has been funded by Congress, which directed FEMA to prioritize pre-disaster mitigation efforts. Over the past four years, BRIC has distributed more than $4 billion to nearly 2,000 mitigation projects across the states.

Congress established the disaster mitigation program in 2000 to provide funding through FEMA to state and local governments to implement programs to reduce damage to life and property by natural disasters. Any state that received a disaster declaration in the previous seven years is eligible to receive grants under the program, which also has a set-aside for small, poor, rural communities. Estimates suggest that the infrastructure improvements funded by these grants have helped avoid $150 billion in damage, or nearly $3.65 in disaster relief for every dollar invested. Projects that were proposed for the next round of funding include protection against flooding such as floodwalls, levees, pump stations, and stormwater management systems; earthquake fortifications; tornado shelters; soil remediation to prevent landslides; land management to reduce wildfire damage; and shoreline erosion and flood protections. States and localities have been forced to delay or cancel hundreds of mitigation projects.

Congress did not grant discretion to FEMA to determine how much funding to provide under the BRIC program; instead, it directed that at a minimum $200 million “shall be made available,” and in 2024 Congress allocated $750 million for the program. FEMA and the Trump administration have no discretion to cut or eliminate this funding or to reduce the authority of the agency. FEMA’s actions violated the Constitution’s separation of powers, were contrary to law, and exceeded the scope of FEMA’s statutory mandate. The fact that these actions were undertaken by an appointed acting administrator also violated the constitutional appointment clause.

The plaintiff states asked the court to rule that the agency’s actions were unlawful, block the termination of the program, and require the agency to evaluate applications and select recipients. States requested that the court prevent the agency from reallocating and repurposing BRIC funding and delay the expiration date of appropriated funds for the period that the agency is not administering the program.

This illegal cut endangers the communities most vulnerable to natural disasters. 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. Attorney General Nick Brown