$1.4 Billion in FEMA Disaster Mitigation Grants Just Came Back from the Dead

A billion dollars in disaster resilience funding sat frozen for a full year while wildfires burned, floods surged, and communities waited. Now it is back — and the clock is already ticking.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, better known as BRIC, reopened for applications on March 25, 2026, after a federal court forced the agency's hand. Combined with $250 million in Flood Mitigation Assistance awards announced April 22 and another $137 million in Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding announced April 24, the total pool of active FEMA mitigation money now exceeds $1.4 billion. For state and local governments, tribal nations, and the consultants and nonprofits that support them, this is the largest window of mitigation funding opportunity in years — and it comes with new rules, tighter deadlines, and a fundamentally different competitive landscape than the last BRIC cycle.

How BRIC Died and Came Back

BRIC was created during Trump's first term. The Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, authorized FEMA to set aside up to 6 percent of post-disaster spending for pre-disaster mitigation. The logic was straightforward: every dollar spent on resilience before a disaster saves six to thirteen dollars in recovery costs afterward. FEMA launched the first BRIC competition with $500 million in 2020, and the program grew to distribute $4.5 billion across multiple fiscal years.

Then, in April 2025, the Trump administration abruptly canceled it.

The cancellation left hundreds of approved projects in limbo — water infrastructure upgrades, flood walls, wildfire defensible space programs, seismic retrofits — and triggered an immediate legal response. Twenty states, led by North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, sued to restore the program. In December 2025, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns ruled that FEMA had unlawfully terminated BRIC and ordered reinstatement. When the agency dragged its feet, the judge issued a March 2026 enforcement order with specific compliance deadlines.

FEMA posted a new Notice of Funding Opportunity on March 25, combining FY 2024 and FY 2025 allocations into a single competition. The application deadline is July 23, 2026, at 3:00 PM Eastern — barely four months of runway for what is normally a 12-month application development cycle.

What $1 Billion in BRIC Funding Looks Like

The combined FY 2024–2025 BRIC competition distributes $1 billion across three funding streams:

• $757 million in national competitive grants — the main event, where state-submitted projects compete head-to-head
• $81 million in Building Code Plus-Up awards for jurisdictions that adopt and enforce modern building codes
• $162 million in set-aside allocations for state, territorial, and tribal governments

Individual projects are capped at $20 million in federal share, and no single applicant can receive more than 15 percent of the total pool ($150 million). The cost-share requirement remains 75/25 federal-to-local, with enhanced matches available for economically disadvantaged communities and insular areas.

But the restarted program is not the same BRIC that existed before. Several significant changes reshape who can compete effectively.

The New Rules Change the Game

Shovel-ready projects score dramatically higher. FEMA's revised scoring criteria heavily favor projects at 90 percent design completion or above. Projects at 30 percent design — the new minimum threshold for eligibility — will struggle to compete against applications with engineering plans, permits, and environmental reviews already in hand. This is a deliberate shift: FEMA wants to fund projects that can break ground quickly, not proposals that need years of additional development.

Planning-only activities are out. Previous BRIC cycles funded standalone hazard mitigation planning, general training, and exploratory scoping work. Those categories are no longer eligible. Every application must propose a concrete infrastructure or resilience project.

Infrastructure focus is explicit. The revised NOFO emphasizes projects that "directly improve infrastructure resilience" — transportation networks, water and sewer systems, utilities, communications infrastructure, and critical facilities. Community-level programs without a clear infrastructure component face a steeper climb.

Benefit-cost analysis is make-or-break. Every project must demonstrate a benefit-cost ratio of 1.0 or higher using FEMA's BCA toolkit. Projects that quantify avoided losses from specific hazards — using historical disaster data, climate projections, and infrastructure replacement costs — consistently outscore those with generic resilience narratives.

$387 Million in Flood and Hazard Mitigation Is Already Flowing

While BRIC applications are still being assembled, two other FEMA mitigation programs have already announced awards.

On April 22, FEMA released $250 million through the Flood Mitigation Assistance program and Swift Current, funding more than 100 projects across 20 states. These awards target repetitive flood loss properties insured under the National Flood Insurance Program — homes, businesses, and public facilities that flood repeatedly and drive up insurance costs for everyone.

Specific awards include nearly $24 million to Ohio for flood control along the Blanchard River in Findlay, including shoreline hardening and 900 acres of wetland restoration. Louisiana received more than $20 million for drainage infrastructure upgrades in neighborhoods prone to heavy-rain flooding. Washington and Oregon split nearly $21 million for long-term flood mitigation work.

Two days later, on April 24, FEMA announced $137 million through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and its Post Fire variant, funding more than 50 projects in 20 states and territories. HMGP funding is triggered by presidential disaster declarations and covers acquisitions, elevations, retrofits, and safe room construction. Hawaii received $4.6 million for disaster preparedness. New England states collectively received $8.6 million. Pennsylvania was awarded $837,780 for specific mitigation projects.

These programs operate on different timelines and eligibility rules than BRIC, but they share a common principle: the federal government is willing to pay 75 to 100 percent of project costs for communities that can demonstrate clear risk reduction.

Why This Moment Is Different

Americans spent an estimated $1 trillion on disaster recovery and insurance in 2024 alone — roughly 3 percent of GDP. FEMA's own data shows that pre-disaster mitigation investments return $6 to $13 for every dollar spent. Yet the assessed national need for disaster resilience investment is approximately $100 billion annually, against which BRIC's $1 billion is a rounding error.

That gap makes every available dollar intensely competitive. The communities that win will be the ones that walked into this cycle with projects already designed, environmental reviews already completed, and benefit-cost analyses already run. The communities that lose will disproportionately be smaller, under-resourced jurisdictions that lack the technical capacity to assemble a competitive application in four months — the same communities that are often most vulnerable to the disasters these grants are meant to prevent.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace recently framed BRIC as a national security program, arguing that disaster resilience protects economic stability and population safety at a scale that qualifies as critical infrastructure defense. That framing matters politically, because it reframes mitigation spending from a Democratic policy priority into a bipartisan security imperative.

How to Compete

If your jurisdiction is considering a BRIC application, the compressed timeline demands immediate action:

Contact your State Hazard Mitigation Office now. States set their own pre-application deadlines before the July 23 federal deadline. Some states may have internal deadlines as early as May or June. Your SHMO is also your gateway to understanding which projects your state plans to prioritize in its submission package.

Lead with design maturity. If your project is not at least at 30 percent design, it is not eligible. If it is not at 90 percent, it is not competitive. Redirect resources toward advancing engineering and environmental review for your strongest candidate project rather than spreading effort across multiple early-stage concepts.

Invest in benefit-cost analysis. FEMA's BCA toolkit is publicly available but notoriously difficult to use well. The difference between a ratio of 0.95 and 1.05 is the difference between automatic disqualification and a funded project. If you lack in-house BCA expertise, this is where consultant dollars are most efficiently spent.

For FMA and HMGP, work through your local floodplain administrator. Individual property owners cannot apply directly. Contact your community's floodplain official or emergency management office to learn whether your jurisdiction is pursuing FMA or HMGP funding and how to get your property or facility included.

The legal battle that restored BRIC is over. The policy question of whether pre-disaster mitigation funding should exist at this scale is settled, at least for now. The only question left is whether the communities that need this money most can assemble competitive applications before the deadline arrives — and tools like Granted can help you identify matching opportunities and build your case before July 23.