Attorney General Kwame Raoul secured a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts temporarily barring the Trump administration from misspending funds budgeted to protect communities from natural disasters before they strike. For the past 30 years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) bipartisan Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program has provided communities
across the nation with resources to fortify their infrastructure against natural disasters. In July, Raoul and a coalition of attorneys general sued the Trump administration after it attempted to illegally shut down the program. The injunction blocks the administration from spending BRIC
funding on expenses other than the BRIC program while the case plays out in court. “We must do all we can to prepare for disasters and keep our communities safe,” Raoul said. “By focusing on preparation, the BRIC program protects property, reduces injuries and saves lives. I will continue work to protect this important program.”
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 $6 in post-disaster costs. The 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.
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 for the village of DePue to relocate a vulnerable wastewater treatment plant out of a FEMA recognized floodway, a project that aims to reduce the risk of harm to DePue and neighboring Peoria, Hennepin and Pekin, Illinois. Relocation of the wastewater treatment plant would safeguard drinking water, prevent raw sewage backup and prevent the contamination of waterways that serve these communities.
Another Illinois project that was awarded BRIC funding aims to reduce the risk of flooding in the Des Plaines River Valley, a region that has experienced severe flooding on multiple occasions, including a 1986 event that caused $35 million in damage to the community and forced 15,000
evacuations. BRIC funding for this project will protect not only residents of Maine Township, Park Ridge and Des Plaines, Illinois, it will also safeguard critical access routes to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, which provides comprehensive and specialized health care, including a Level I Trauma Center, to tens of thousands of Illinois residents across 28 communities in Cook and Lake Counties, including Chicago.
Joining Raoul in filing the lawsuit were attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.