Latest news with #BRIC
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Congresswoman calls on federal government amid cuts and start of 2025 hurricane season
PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – One congresswoman said the federal government has taken a chainsaw to federal agencies that help you before, during, and after a hurricane. 'Right now, I cannot report that the federal government is there in every way that they were there last hurricane season, unfortunately,' said Rep. Kathy Castor (FL-14). Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Castor said the federal government has taken a chainsaw to federal agencies that forecast, track, and respond to hurricanes. In addition, she does not have the confidence that FEMA will be there like they were following Debbie, Helene, and Milton. Castor called it new territory. 'I've never seen it this bad before, and I've lived here for 40 years,' said Nancy Biddle, St. Pete Beach homeowner. NHC watching area off Florida coast for potential tropical development Inspectors have determined Biddle will need to make major changes to storm-proof her St. Pete Beach property against future hurricanes. She applied for the Elevate Florida program in February. She is waiting to hear if help is on the way or if funding cuts could leave her high and dry.'The back and forth whether FEMA should exist at all, does not lend itself having full confidence that they are going to be the partner on the ground that we saw in the aftermath of Helene and Milton,' Castor said. The congresswoman is looking to local leaders to build confidence that the help people need will be there is hurricane season, but she said it's not enough as Floridians, like Biddle, are still waiting for assistance.'This, unfortunately, is reflected in the monies that they are withholding from local communities like St. Pete, Pinellas, Tampa, and Hillsborough as well,' Castor state is relying on $400 million in federal funds to pay for Elevate Florida, which stopped accepting new applications on April 11, citing funding limitations. That same day, the Federal Emergency Management Agency eliminated $300 million in funding for another program meant to help make communities across Florida less vulnerable to storms. It was called the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, or BRIC. In a statement, a FEMA spokesperson wrote: 'The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.''FEMA can be more efficient, but calls to eliminate it and then to take a chainsaw 2,000 experts who understand how to respond to disasters across the country… this is new territory,' said is running out for Biddle.'If this, as the government program has ended, we're kind of right back where we started,' said Biddle. As of last month, the Florida Division of Emergency Management said Elevate Florida had not yet been funded. FEMA has not yet responded to our requests about Castor's comments. 8 On Your Side also reached out for comment to Rep. Gus Bilirakis' (R-FL) office about the federal cuts. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
FEMA cuts costing central Florida millions in grant money to aid storm survival
The official start of hurricane season is days away, and central Florida counties are set to lose millions of dollars that could have been used for the most vulnerable people. One example is how the Office of Emergency Management in Seminole County requested funds to help people who depend on medical machines survive any storms. But the federal Emergency Management Agency canceled the program the center requested the grant money from. Now if the federal government doesn't cover it, it will fall on the counties or state - and taxpayers - to cover the costs those grant dollars typically would. Seminole County's Office of Emergency Management director, Alan Harris, described those affected as 'our most vulnerable populations.' Seminole County asked FEMA for $300,000 to add a generator to a shelter for those with special needs and those who depend on medical machines that need electricity. Marion County asked for $3.7 million while Sumter County asked for $3 million to improve electrical infrastructure to avoid outages during storms. But now that money won't be coming from FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. It was canceled in April, as Republicans focus on handling the nation's deficit 'We're going to do everything we can,' said U.S. Sen Rick Scott. 'Now let's realize where our federal government is right now, OK? We are running two trillion-dollar deficits. How many of you want your interest rates to come down? We all do. How many of you want inflation to come down? It will not happen if we don't balance the budget.' U.S. Rep. Cory Mills says he will look for other ways to fund Seminole County's generator. These cuts are happening as FEMA's acting chief says h wants to place responsibility of hurricane recovery on states and local governments, including financial responsibility. 'It's about getting responsiveness. It is about getting funding there quicker,' Mills said. Sumter County's EMA director, David Casto, said the BRIC program could not be the only cuts. There are other grants that fund equipment and supplies that are still uncertain. The state and some local governments are reportedly prepared to dip into their reserves as FEMA tightens its belt even more this hurricane season. Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
The Hill
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Florida Democrat: FEMA ‘is going to fail this summer'
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) warned on Wednesday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is ill prepared for hurricane season and 'is going to fail this summer.' In remarks at a House Rules Committee hearing Wednesday, Moskowitz said the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) steep budget cuts and grant pauses have made FEMA inefficient and risk sending hurricane-prone states into bankruptcy if they don't get approval for federal aid when the next storm hits. 'Remember that DOGE? Remember the E at the end of DOGE? The word efficiency?' Moskowitz asked in his remarks. 'Nothing at FEMA has been made more efficient.' 'In fact, I would tell you that the secretary of Homeland Security has turned FEMA into the Newark airport, OK? It is going to fail this summer,' Moskowitz continued, referring to the staffing and logistical issues at the international airport in New Jersey. 'And so look, there's no doubt that FEMA needed reform, but what they've done at Homeland is they've taken something that needed help and they broke it further,' Moskowitz said. He noted that some of the most at-risk states are areas represented by Republican leadership — such as Louisiana, where Speaker Mike Johnson (R) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R) are from. 'Louisiana goes bankrupt without FEMA, when there's a hurricane that comes in from the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America, comes right into Louisiana, they're bankrupt,' Moskowitz said, noting the same is true for Alabama and Mississippi, especially when tornadoes strike. 'Those states go bankrupt without FEMA. And yet, I don't see my Republican colleagues calling out the administration on how we're going to save FEMA and reform it,' he added. In recent months, the White House has taken numerous steps to strip funds from FEMA, which has long been a target for some Republicans. FEMA ended its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, intended to help communities prepare for natural disasters, labeling the program 'wasteful and ineffective.' The agency canceled applications from 2020 and 2023 and reabsorbed unclaimed funds. FEMA has also frozen nearly $10 billion in disaster aid for nonprofits pending review. Moskowitz, who served as Florida's director of Emergency Management before joining Congress, noted funding freezes have led to delays in payments to vendors and states, disrupting disaster-prevention efforts. Moskowitz accused Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem of failing to warn the president of the impact of some of the cuts that the department is making. 'There's dramatic improvement that needs to be done at FEMA. But I'm deeply concerned at what's happened at Homeland, and I don't think the president is aware of the current condition that the secretary has put him [in] and the men and women that work there and the states that are going to go to FEMA and rely on them to help them in their time of need,' Moskowitz said. 'And those resources are going to come slower.' He pointed to his background in emergency management. 'Let me remind you, I did this for a living, for a Republican governor. I worked for Ron DeSantis for two and a half years, took my political hat off, so I'm not giving you partisan coverage. I'm giving you the current state of affairs in an agency that has been absolutely destroyed.' The Hill has reached out to Homeland Security and FEMA for comment.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
California FEMA earthquake retrofit grants canceled, imperiling critical work, Schiff says
The Trump administration has canceled $33 million worth of federal funds meant to help pay for earthquake retrofits in California — sparking "grave concern" and a call to reconsider from one of the state's highest elected officials. In a letter dated Wednesday, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) urged U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to reinstate the funds, which would've been used to strengthen between 750 and 1,500 apartment buildings. "In California, earthquakes are not a question of if, but when," Schiff wrote in his letter, addressed to both Noem and David Richardson, a senior official performing the duties of the FEMA administrator. "This move must be reversed before tragedy strikes next." The grants — originally green-lit through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is part of Noem's department — were meant to help retrofit the kind of vulnerable apartment buildings that crushed people to death when they collapsed during California's last major urban earthquakes. These types of apartment buildings are ubiquitous across California's major cities. They have flimsy supports on the ground story that prop up carports, garages or storefronts and can snap when shaken from side to side in an earthquake. FEMA issued a statement on April 4 announcing the cancellation of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, known as BRIC, that would have funded the California earthquake retrofits. "The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters. Under Secretary Noem's leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need," the agency's statement said. Officials and scientists have known for decades of the earthquake danger posed by soft-story apartment buildings. Read more: Despite active quake year, some California suburbs refuse to fix vulnerable buildings Autopsy reports indicate that a number of those killed in these apartment collapses during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the 1994 Northridge earthquake died from suffocation. The weight of debris made it impossible for them to breathe. Accounts from the collapse of the three-story, 163-unit Northridge Meadows apartment building in 1994 describe some victims in ground-floor units slowly dying in their beds, not able to breathe as the weight of the upper two stories pressed upon them. Sixteen people, ranging from age 14 to 80, died in the Northridge Meadows collapse. In all, that magnitude 6.7 earthquake seriously damaged or destroyed about 200 soft-story buildings across the Los Angeles area. In San Francisco's Marina District, seven apartment buildings collapsed during the magnitude 6.9 earthquake in 1989. Three people died in a four-story apartment building in which the top two stories collapsed onto the second floor, according to coroner's documents. A couple, age 48 and 40, died. A 3½-month-old also died when a stairway collapsed as his mother tried to flee the building with him. A U.S. Geological Survey report published in 1998 said that "soft-story" apartments were "surprisingly vulnerable to becoming uninhabitable" in both the 1989 and 1994 earthquakes. Of the 16,000 housing units rendered uninhabitable in the Loma Prieta earthquake, 7,000 were soft-story. The same was true of 11,000 out of the 48,000 units made uninhabitable in the Northridge quake. The California Residential Mitigation Program was counting on federal FEMA grants to fund retrofit work on soft-story apartments. In late 2024, program officials said they hoped to offer grants to apartment owners in cities that already have mandatory retrofit laws for these buildings. The initial focus was planned to be on areas with socially vulnerable populations. "By eliminating this critical source of federal funding, we are leaving those who can least afford it at the greatest risk of displacement, which could cost lives," Schiff wrote in his letter. Southern California cities that have passed mandatory soft-story retrofit ordinances include Los Angeles, Torrance, Pasadena, Burbank, Santa Monica, Culver City, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. In Northern California, they include San José, San Francisco, Oakland, Fremont, Berkeley, Albany and Mill Valley. A common retrofit technique for soft-story buildings is to install steel frames on the ground story. Read more: When it comes to earthquakes, Republicans and Democrats agree on L.A. retrofitting, poll finds BRIC grant funds that haven't yet been distributed to states, tribes, territories or local communities would be returned to the U.S. Treasury or FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund, according to the agency. The statement said about $882 million will be returned or reapportioned by Congress in the next fiscal year. "FEMA estimates more than $3.6 billion will remain in the Disaster Relief Fund to assist with disaster response and recovery for communities and survivors," the statement said. BRIC was originally created in 2018 — during President Trump's first term — through the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, which supported the program. The goal, that organization says, was "to ensure a stable funding source to support" projects that seek to reduce the risk from future natural disasters. BRIC replaced a similar FEMA program, called the Pre-Disaster Mitigation program. "BRIC supported projects such as flood control systems, wildfire prevention, stormwater management upgrades, and strengthened building codes. The program typically covered up to 75% of project costs and awarded more than $5 billion in grants," according to the civil engineers society. Read more: As climate hazards worsen, Trump moves to weaken FEMA and shift disaster response onto states BRIC received a boost during the Biden administration following passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized an additional $1 billion in funding over five years, the civil engineers society said. The Biden administration in 2021 hailed the expansion of BRIC's funding as a way for states and other local governments "to proactively reduce their vulnerability to natural hazard events before they occur." The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services has identified up to $870 million in BRIC projects statewide that will lose federal funding. In Southern California, potential losses include: $46.3 million for San Bernardino County's Inland Empire recycled water and aquifer storage project $36.4 million for San Bernardino County's Flood Control District Mission Channel project $16 million for stabilization work for the landslide in Rancho Palos Verdes $15 million for San Bernardino County's Cable Creek Basin flood mitigation project $9.8 million for a shoreline adaptation project in Orange County Read more: Rancho Palos Verdes is home to a Trump golf course. But his cuts are imperiling the city's landslide response Other major projects statewide that stand to lose money include $29.7 million for climate change resiliency in Yuba County, $32 million for wildfire retrofitting in Nevada County, $35 million for wildfire mitigation in Napa County, $37 million for wildfire resiliency in Sonoma County, $37.9 million for wildfire resiliency in Mendocino County. Also in jeopardy is up to $50 million in funding apiece for a Port of San Francisco coastal resilience project, a flood protection project for the Menlo Park area, a flood adaptation project in Oakland and Alameda, a Sutter Bypass levee project in the Central Valley, for water supply resiliency for the city of Riverbank in Stanislaus County, and for infrastructure resiliency for the city of Pacifica in San Mateo County. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
California FEMA earthquake retrofit grants canceled, imperiling critical work, Schiff says
The Trump administration has canceled $33 million worth of federal funds meant to help pay for earthquake retrofits in California — sparking 'grave concern' and a call to reconsider from one of the state's highest elected officials. In a letter dated Wednesday, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) urged U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to reinstate the funds, which would've been used to strengthen between 750 and 1,500 apartment buildings. 'In California, earthquakes are not a question of if, but when,' Schiff wrote in his letter, addressed to both Noem and David Richardson, a senior official performing the duties of the FEMA administrator. 'This move must be reversed before tragedy strikes next.' The grants — originally green-lit through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is part of Noem's department — were meant to help retrofit the kind of vulnerable apartment buildings that crushed people to death when they collapsed during California's last major urban earthquakes. These types of apartment buildings are ubiquitous across California's major cities. They have flimsy supports on the ground story that prop up carports, garages or storefronts and can snap when shaken from side to side in an earthquake. FEMA issued a statement on April 4 announcing the cancellation of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, known as BRIC, that would have funded the California earthquake retrofits. 'The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters. Under Secretary Noem's leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need,' the agency's statement said. Officials and scientists have known for decades of the earthquake danger posed by soft-story apartment buildings. Autopsy reports indicate that a number of those killed in these apartment collapses during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the 1994 Northridge earthquake died from suffocation. The weight of debris made it impossible for them to breathe. Accounts from the collapse of the three-story, 163-unit Northridge Meadows apartment building in 1994 describe some victims in ground-floor units slowly dying in their beds, not able to breathe as the weight of the upper two stories pressed upon them. Sixteen people, ranging from age 14 to 80, died in the Northridge Meadows collapse. In all, that magnitude 6.7 earthquake seriously damaged or destroyed about 200 soft-story buildings across the Los Angeles area. In San Francisco's Marina District, seven apartment buildings collapsed during the magnitude 6.9 earthquake in 1989. Three people died in a four-story apartment building in which the top two stories collapsed onto the second floor, according to coroner's documents. A couple, age 48 and 40, died. A 3½-month-old also died when a stairway collapsed as his mother tried to flee the building with him. A U.S. Geological Survey report published in 1998 said that 'soft-story' apartments were 'surprisingly vulnerable to becoming uninhabitable' in both the 1989 and 1994 earthquakes. Of the 16,000 housing units rendered uninhabitable in the Loma Prieta earthquake, 7,000 were soft-story. The same was true of 11,000 out of the 48,000 units made uninhabitable in the Northridge quake. The California Residential Mitigation Program was counting on federal FEMA grants to fund retrofit work on soft-story apartments. In late 2024, program officials said they hoped to offer grants to apartment owners in cities that already have mandatory retrofit laws for these buildings. The initial focus was planned to be on areas with socially vulnerable populations. 'By eliminating this critical source of federal funding, we are leaving those who can least afford it at the greatest risk of displacement, which could cost lives,' Schiff wrote in his letter. Southern California cities that have passed mandatory soft-story retrofit ordinances include Los Angeles, Torrance, Pasadena, Burbank, Santa Monica, Culver City, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. In Northern California, they include San José, San Francisco, Oakland, Fremont, Berkeley, Albany and Mill Valley. A common retrofit technique for soft-story buildings is to install steel frames on the ground story. BRIC grant funds that haven't yet been distributed to states, tribes, territories or local communities would be returned to the U.S. Treasury or FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund, according to the agency. The statement said about $882 million will be returned or reapportioned by Congress in the next fiscal year. 'FEMA estimates more than $3.6 billion will remain in the Disaster Relief Fund to assist with disaster response and recovery for communities and survivors,' the statement said. BRIC was originally created in 2018 — during President Trump's first term — through the Disaster Recovery Reform Act, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, which supported the program. The goal, that organization says, was 'to ensure a stable funding source to support' projects that seek to reduce the risk from future natural disasters. BRIC replaced a similar FEMA program, called the Pre-Disaster Mitigation program. 'BRIC supported projects such as flood control systems, wildfire prevention, stormwater management upgrades, and strengthened building codes. The program typically covered up to 75% of project costs and awarded more than $5 billion in grants,' according to the civil engineers society. BRIC received a boost during the Biden administration following passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized an additional $1 billion in funding over five years, the civil engineers society said. The Biden administration in 2021 hailed the expansion of BRIC's funding as a way for states and other local governments 'to proactively reduce their vulnerability to natural hazard events before they occur.' The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services has identified up to $870 million in BRIC projects statewide that will lose federal funding. In Southern California, potential losses include: Other major projects statewide that stand to lose money include $29.7 million for climate change resiliency in Yuba County, $32 million for wildfire retrofitting in Nevada County, $35 million for wildfire mitigation in Napa County, $37 million for wildfire resiliency in Sonoma County, $37.9 million for wildfire resiliency in Mendocino County. Also in jeopardy is up to $50 million in funding apiece for a Port of San Francisco coastal resilience project, a flood protection project for the Menlo Park area, a flood adaptation project in Oakland and Alameda, a Sutter Bypass levee project in the Central Valley, for water supply resiliency for the city of Riverbank in Stanislaus County, and for infrastructure resiliency for the city of Pacifica in San Mateo County.
