A Federal Judge Forced FEMA to Reopen $1 Billion in Disaster Resilience Grants. Here Is What Changed.

For the better part of a year, nearly 2,000 disaster mitigation projects sat frozen. Bridge reinforcements in coastal Massachusetts. Flood barriers protecting the tunnel connecting Logan Airport to downtown Boston. Wildfire hardening in Colorado's Front Range. Stormwater infrastructure in the Carolinas designed to prevent the next Hurricane Helene from destroying the same roads twice. All of them had been selected, vetted, and approved under FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program — and all of them were cancelled with a single administrative decision in April 2025.

On Wednesday, FEMA finally reopened the BRIC program, making $1 billion available for new applications. But the reopening did not come because the agency changed its mind. It came because a federal judge in Massachusetts ordered it to comply with the law, after 22 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration for killing a program that Congress explicitly funded.

The story of the BRIC freeze — and its court-ordered thaw — reveals how disaster preparedness funding has become a political flashpoint, and what state and local governments need to know as they prepare applications under rules that look substantially different from what existed before.

$4.5 Billion Frozen, One Memo at a Time

The BRIC program, created by the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 with bipartisan support, channels a percentage of federal disaster relief spending into pre-disaster mitigation. The logic is straightforward: every dollar spent hardening infrastructure before a hurricane, wildfire, or flood prevents roughly six dollars in post-disaster recovery costs, according to FEMA's own benefit-cost analyses. Since its launch, BRIC had become the largest dedicated pre-disaster mitigation program in federal history, distributing billions to projects that ranged from seismic retrofits in Oregon to levee improvements in Louisiana.

In April 2025, then-acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton cancelled the program, calling it "wasteful and ineffective." The decision froze approximately $4.5 billion in committed and pending funds nationwide. Projects that states had spent years designing, engineering, and shepherding through FEMA's rigorous benefit-cost review process were suddenly dead. No new notice of funding opportunity was issued for fiscal years 2024 or 2025.

The cancellation drew bipartisan criticism. Republican lawmakers from disaster-prone states pointed out that their communities had been counting on BRIC funds for projects already in the pipeline. Construction contracts were voided. Engineering firms that had been retained by municipalities were told to stand down. In North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene had devastated western mountain communities just months earlier, roughly $200 million in approved storm mitigation projects went unfunded.

22 States, One Courtroom

On July 16, 2025, a coalition of state attorneys general — led by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky — filed suit in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.

Their argument was straightforward: Congress appropriated the money. The Stafford Act mandates FEMA distribute it. An acting administrator cannot unilaterally cancel a congressionally mandated program by issuing an internal memo.

On December 11, 2025, Judge Richard G. Stearns agreed. He declared FEMA's termination of BRIC unlawful and ordered the agency to "promptly take all steps necessary to reverse the termination." The ruling was unambiguous. FEMA appealed nothing.

But FEMA also did not comply. By February 2026, two months after the ruling, no funds had been released. No notice of funding opportunity had been published. No status updates had been sent to the states whose projects were in limbo. On February 17, the coalition filed a motion asking Judge Stearns to enforce his own order.

On March 6, the court granted the enforcement motion. The order was specific: FEMA had 14 days to identify all selected, phased, and pending BRIC projects and communicate their status to the states. Within 21 days, FEMA had to issue a new notice of funding opportunity covering fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The agency was also required to file ongoing status reports with the court.

On March 25 — day 19 — FEMA opened applications.

What Changed in the New Rules

The resumed program is not the same BRIC that existed before. FEMA imposed several modifications that align with the Trump administration's broader push to transfer disaster management responsibilities to state and local governments.

Planning grants eliminated. Previously, BRIC provided grants for hazard mitigation planning — the process by which communities assess their vulnerability to natural disasters, identify priority projects, and develop the engineering specifications FEMA requires for construction grants. This funding has been removed. Communities that lack current hazard mitigation plans will need to fund the planning process themselves before they can apply for construction money.

Direct technical assistance discontinued. FEMA previously offered non-financial direct technical assistance — essentially, federal staff helping smaller communities navigate the complex BRIC application process. This support has been cut. The implication falls hardest on rural communities and small municipalities that lack dedicated emergency management offices or engineering staff.

120-day application window. States have 120 days from the March 25 opening to submit applications, covering both FY2024 and FY2025 funding cycles. This is a compressed timeline for a program that previously ran annual competitions with longer windows.

$1 billion available — but context matters. The $1 billion covers two fiscal years of funding that should have been distributed in 2024 and 2025. In the program's final full year before cancellation, FEMA awarded $1.05 billion in a single cycle. The two-year combined figure represents a real reduction in annual spending power.

The Strategic Calculation for Applicants

For state and local governments deciding whether to pursue BRIC funding in this cycle, the math has shifted. The elimination of planning grants means that communities without a current FEMA-approved hazard mitigation plan face a prerequisite that now costs money they previously did not have to spend. Many smaller jurisdictions let their plans lapse during the yearlong freeze, assuming the program was dead.

The loss of direct technical assistance creates a knowledge gap. BRIC applications are notoriously complex, requiring detailed benefit-cost analyses, environmental and historic preservation reviews, and engineering documentation that meets federal standards. Larger cities and states with professional grant-writing offices will manage. Rural counties and tribal governments — often the communities most vulnerable to natural disasters — may struggle.

For organizations that already had projects in the pipeline before the 2025 cancellation, the situation is more favorable. Judge Stearns's order requires FEMA to communicate the status of previously selected projects, which means approved projects may be able to resume rather than restart. If your project was in FEMA's system before April 2025, contact your state hazard mitigation officer immediately to determine its current disposition.

A Broader Pattern

The BRIC fight fits within a larger pattern of federal grant programs being cancelled, challenged in court, and restored under modified terms. The pattern creates planning uncertainty for the organizations that depend on federal funding — precisely the kind of uncertainty that undermines the multi-year infrastructure projects BRIC was designed to support.

The 22-state lawsuit succeeded because the legal case was strong: Congress mandated the spending, and an administrative official cannot override congressional appropriations by memo. But the court victory did not restore the original program. It restored funding with new restrictions that change who can realistically access it.

For communities in disaster-prone regions, the takeaway is that BRIC money is available again — but the window is tight, the rules have changed, and the political landscape means future cycles are not guaranteed. The smart approach is to treat this 120-day window as if it might be the last competitive cycle for some time. Prioritize projects with completed engineering designs and current benefit-cost analyses. If your hazard mitigation plan has lapsed, begin updating it now regardless of whether you can complete a BRIC application in this cycle — a current plan is a prerequisite for nearly every federal mitigation program, not just BRIC.

The court can order FEMA to open applications. It cannot order the agency to make the process easy. For communities navigating the new BRIC landscape, tools like Granted can help identify which mitigation programs match your project scope and get your application materials organized before the 120-day clock runs out.