Vermont Business Magazine Attorney General Charity Clark today joined a coalition of 20 states in suing the Trump Administration over its decision to illegally shut down the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) bipartisan Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, designed to protect communities from natural disasters before they strike.
Since 2020, the BRIC program has provided communities across the nation with resources to proactively strengthen their infrastructure against natural disasters. By focusing on preparation, the program has protected property, saved money that would have otherwise been spent on post-disaster costs, reduced injuries, and saved lives.
“For the past three summers, severe floods have devastated Vermont communities by destroying homes, damaging businesses, and washing out rural roads and bridges. We can expect these disasters to continue – and we must prepare by building more resilient infrastructure to protect our communities,” said Attorney General Clark. “Ending FEMA’s BRIC program, after Congress funded it, is not only short-sighted – it’s also illegal. I’m suing to safeguard this program and its funding for the communities who are counting on it.”
Responding to the catastrophic losses resulting from Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, Congress passed a law stating FEMA must protect communities through four interrelated functions—mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery. The BRIC program is the core of FEMA’s pre-disaster mitigation efforts. A recent study concluded that every dollar FEMA spends on mitigation saves an average of six dollars in post-disaster costs.
The BRIC program supports often difficult-to-fund projects, such as constructing evacuation shelters and flood walls, safeguarding utility grids against wildfires, protecting wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, and fortifying bridges, roadways, and culverts.
The impact of the BRIC program’s termination has been devastating, with communities across the country being forced to delay, scale back, or cancel hundreds of mitigation projects depending on this funding. Projects that have been in development for years, and in which communities have invested millions of dollars are now threatened. And now, Americans from coast to coast face a higher risk of harm from natural disasters.
Over the past four years, FEMA has selected nearly 2,000 projects to receive roughly $4.5 billion in BRIC funding nationwide. In Vermont, BRIC funding is primarily used to plan and design infrastructure projects to reduce risks of natural disasters, including floods. For example, a Lower Whetstone Brook Project Scoping Study in Brattleboro, totaling $127,760 of federal funds, has now been cancelled. This project would have assessed floodplain restoration opportunities in a stretch of river to significantly reduce flood levels during high-flow storm events in a heavily populated downtown area.
Attorney General Clark and the coalition argue that FEMA’s decision to abruptly terminate the BRIC program is in direct violation of Congress’s decision to fund it. The Executive Branch has no lawful authority to unilaterally refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress. They also assert that shutting down the BRIC program violates and the Constitution and the Administrative Procedures Act. Furthermore, Cameron Hamilton, who acted as FEMA Administrator and gave the directive to terminate the BRIC program, was never appointed by the President or confirmed by the Senate and was therefore acting as Administrator unlawfully.
With this lawsuit, Attorney General Clark and the coalition are seeking to prevent the Trump Administration from spending BRIC funds on other purposes, to reverse the termination of the BRIC program, and to require the restoration of these critical funds to the communities relying on them.
Joining Attorney General Clark in filing this lawsuit are attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, and the governor of Pennsylvania. A copy of the lawsuit is available here.
Today’s lawsuit is the twenty-third case overall that Attorney General Clark has brought against the Trump Administration since President Trump took office in January. For more information on actions taken by the Attorney General on behalf of Vermonters, visit our website at ago.vermont.gov/ago-actions.
Source: 7.16.2025. MONTPELIER, Vt. – Attorney General
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