Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul

Motion Asks Court to Require FEMA to Restore Critical Disaster Resilience Program and Make Billions in Funding Available

Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a coalition of 23 states, filed a motion asking the District Court of Massachusetts to enforce its December order that prohibited the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from terminating the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program (BRIC) and directed the agency to promptly take all steps necessary to reverse the termination.  

For the past 30 years, the BRIC program has provided communities across the nation with resources to proactively fortify their infrastructure against natural disasters. By focusing on mitigation and community resilience, the program has saved lives, reduced injuries, protected property and saved money that would have otherwise been spent on post-disaster costs. BRIC projects are required to be cost-effective, and a recent study concluded that every $1 FEMA spends on mitigation saves an average of $6 in post-disaster costs.  

“Congress appropriated funding to the BRIC program because of the important role it plays in protecting property, reducing injuries and saving lives before natural disasters strike,” Raoul said. “Our coalition filed a lawsuit because the Trump administration’s attempt to end the program was unlawful, and the court agreed. The separation of powers and the rule of law still matter in our democracy. This administration must abide by the court’s order and restore this vital program to prepare for disasters and protect our communities.”

In July 2025, Raoul and the coalition filed a lawsuit to prevent FEMA from terminating its BRIC program – an action which had already delayed, scaled back and cancelled hundreds of mitigation projects dependent on this funding across the country. In December 2025, the attorneys general won their case. The court declared the termination of this congressionally mandated program unlawful and ordered FEMA to promptly take all steps necessary to reverse the termination. Over two months have passed and the federal government has offered no indication that they have complied with the court order.

FEMA’s regional offices lack information about whether and when it will resume the BRIC program, and some have indicated that FEMA is taking a “wait and see” approach—contrary to the clear terms of the court’s order. During this time, the federal government has not identified any concrete steps that it has taken to reverse the BRIC termination. 

Raoul and the coalition are asking the court to enforce the order by requiring the federal government to make pre-disaster mitigation funds available as required by statute, communicate the status and next steps for current BRIC projects to the states, communicate the reversal of the BRIC termination to all relevant stakeholders and file status reports with the court outlining any actions taken or planned to comply with the order.  

The BRIC program supports often difficult-to-fund projects, such as constructing evacuation shelters and flood walls, safeguarding utility grids against natural disasters, protecting wastewater and drinking water infrastructure and fortifying bridges, roadways and culverts.  Over the past four years, FEMA has selected nearly 2,000 projects to receive roughly $4.5 billion in BRIC funding nationwide. 

In Illinois, BRIC money is used to fund numerous disaster mitigation projects, including two projects that aim to protect critical infrastructure and communities from flooding. FEMA approved a BRIC grant to relocate a vulnerable wastewater treatment plant out of a FEMA recognized floodway, a project that aims to safeguard drinking water, prevent raw sewage backup and prevent the contamination of waterways for DePue, Peoria, Hennepin and Pekin, Illinois. Another project was awarded BRIC funding to reduce the risk of flooding in the Des Plaines River Valley, where residents are frequently forced to evacuate to escape severe flooding, which has caused over $35 million in damage to the community.       

Joining Raoul in filing this motion are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and Washington, along with the governor of Pennsylvania and the governor of Kentucky.