Trump administration sued by 20 states for cutting disaster prevention grants
The lawsuit filed in Boston federal court claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) lacked the power to cancel the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program in April after it was approved and funded by Congress.
Fema, part of the US Department of Homeland Security, has come under scrutiny for its response to deadly floods in Texas earlier this month, which has put renewed focus on the administration's moves to shrink or abolish the agency.
'By unilaterally shutting down Fema's flagship pre-disaster mitigation program, Defendants have acted unlawfully and violated core separation of powers principles,' said the states, led by Washington and Massachusetts.
Fema and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Bric program, created in 2018 as an upgrade of existing grant programs, covers up to 75% of the costs of infrastructure projects, or 90% in rural areas, meant to protect communities from natural disasters. The funding has been used for evacuation shelters, flood walls and improvements to roads and bridges, among other projects.
Over the past four years Fema has approved roughly $4.5bn in grants for nearly 2,000 projects, much of which went to coastal states, according to Tuesday's lawsuit.
When Fema announced the termination of the program in April, the agency said it had been wasteful, ineffective and politicized.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in May urged Fema to reinstate the grants, saying they were particularly crucial for rural and tribal communities, and to work with Congress to make the program more efficient.
The states in their lawsuit say that Congress made mitigating future disasters a core function of Fema, and the US constitution and federal law bar the Trump administration from altering the agency's mission without working with lawmakers.
They also claim that Cameron Hamilton, who was the acting director of Fema when the program was terminated, and his successor, David Richardson, were not properly appointed and lacked the authority to cancel it.
The states said they would seek a preliminary injunction requiring the program to be reinstated while the case proceeds.
The lawsuit is the latest attempt by states to rebuke the Trump administration's approach to disaster funding. Many of the same states sued the administration in May over a policy tying grant funding for emergency preparedness to states' cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Massachusetts' attorney general, Andrea Campbell, in a statement said the recent flooding in Texas, which caused more than 130 deaths, has made clear how critical federal funding is to helping states prepare for natural disasters.
'By abruptly and unlawfully shutting down the Bric program, this administration is abandoning states and local communities that rely on federal funding to protect their residents and, in the event of disaster, save lives,' said Campbell, a Democrat.
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