FEMA resumes disaster mitigation program following judge's order
FEMA will make $1 billion available for the BRIC program, which helps local governments harden against natural hazards like fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday opened applications for a major resilience grant program that the agency canceled last year, less than three weeks after a federal judge ordered FEMA to make the funding available.
"When done correctly, mitigation activities save lives and reduce the cost of future disasters," Karen S. Evans, FEMA's acting leader, said in a statement announcing the resumption.
The Trump administration has slashed disaster preparedness dollars across multiple FEMA programs. It's been one year since President Trump approved any state or tribe's request for hazard mitigation funding, a typical add on to major disaster declarations.
Still, a FEMA document outlining the grant opportunity signals the administration might now be embracing aspects of mitigation to safeguard against disasters, stating that "BRIC aims to shift the focus of federal investments away from reactive post-disaster spending towards proactive infrastructure-focused hazard mitigation."
The funding announcement comes after FEMA under a previous acting leader, Cameron Hamilton, canceled the BRIC program in April 2025, calling it "wasteful and ineffective." That decision drew blowback from Republican and Democratic lawmakers as roughly $3.6 billion was halted for what amounted to several years' worth of projects to protect infrastructure, communities and homes across the U.S.