A federal judge ruled Thursday that FEMA’s cancellation of a key infrastructure repair program for North Carolina and other hurricane-hit states was “unlawful,” ordering the federal government to “reverse” the decision.
FEMA announced it was cancelling the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, or BRIC, earlier this year. A coalition of 20 states, including North Carolina, sued in response, arguing that the shutdown violated a congressional vote to fund the program and distribute aid.
In his ruling, Judge Richard G. Stearns of Massachusetts agreed with the states’ argument that FEMA lacked the authority to cancel the program. And he said the government’s plan to redirect money for BRIC to other places was also illegal.
“The BRIC program is designed to protect against natural disasters and save lives,” he wrote. “It need not be [said] that the imminence of disasters is not deterred by bureaucratic obstruction.
“Some projects have expired while the BRIC program has remained terminated,” Stearns added. “While others have lost access to secondary sources of funding or had stakeholders drop out in the face of uncertainty. These harms threaten the very existence of states’ projects and cannot be compensated with damages.”
It is not clear from the ruling whether those projects could see money going forward. Stearns stopped short of ordering FEMA to release the funds, adding that states had not requested for certain projects to be funded, and that the federal government was not barred from replacing BRIC with a different program.
Still, Jackson said, it’s a victory.
“Keeping water systems working and keeping homes out of floodwater isn’t politics – it’s basic safety,” Jackson said in a news release Thursday. “This ruling puts the money back where it was promised so these communities can be ready for the next storm.”
FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
BRIC was funding about 2,000 total projects in the U.S. over the past four years, according to states’ lawsuit, totaling $4.5 billion. That includes around $121 million owed to North Carolina projects.
Jackson has visited one of those projects — a pumping station in Hillsborough that flooded during Tropical Storm Chantal.
“This is as clear an example as possible of why these funds were well-allocated and deserved to go where they were pledged to go,” Jackson told reporters in July.
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