A Judge Is Again Ordering FEMA to Restore a Key Disaster-Prevention Program

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been flouting a court order to restore a key disaster-prevention program, U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns said on Friday.

In early December, Stearns ordered FEMA to restore a natural-disaster resilience program that the agency, then under the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, tried to eliminate seven months prior.

But despite pressure from states across the country that are growing increasingly desperate to access federal funds for disaster-prevention projects, FEMA has not done so. No state has seen any funding from the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, programs since FEMA tried to cancel the program in April, calling it “wasteful.”

Despite the fact that Congress created the program and mandated that the agency hold annual competitive funding rounds, FEMA has not done so since Trump took office.

On Friday, Stearns filed an “order to enforce” his own December ruling in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. In the order, Stearns made clear that he believes FEMA has failed to comply with his ruling in part due to staffing shortages.

Stearns acknowledged that it would be more difficult for FEMA to make changes now that Noem has been removed from her post by President Donald Trump. But despite the transition, the judge is not allowing FEMA any leeway in following his orders, and he said that it should still be possible for FEMA to begin restoring the program even in the interim period.

He has given FEMA just two weeks to address existing problems with the frozen BRIC grants, and three weeks to issue a long-overdue funding opportunity for the 2024 fiscal year.

The administration argued in a filing earlier this week that it was “reviewing” the program and no longer intended to terminate it.