President Donald Trump's administration has ended a FEMA program heavily relied upon by Louisiana that paid to elevate homes, build levees and do other work to lessen damage from storms, calling it “wasteful and ineffective," our media partners at The Advocate report.
The end of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, called BRIC, effectively spikes 148 applications worth $721,281,559 in Louisiana, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's financial obligations database. Louisiana, California and New York collectively receive about half of the program's total budget, the newspaper reports.
The Advocate reports that FEMA has stopped accepting applications for 2024 and is canceling projects on the drawing board from 2020 to 2023. Approved grant funds that have not been distributed will be returned to the Disaster Relief Fund or the U.S. Treasury, according to FEMA.
Plus, the agency is looking for ways to claw back money already paid out. For Louisiana, that could translate to about $282 million, the newspaper reports.
To read the whole story with the details, click here.
Here's what a FEMA spokesperson had to say about the BRIC program:
“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program. It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters. Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, we are committed to ensuring that Americans in crisis can get the help and resources they need.”
Approximately $882 million of funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will be returned to the U.S. Treasury or reapportioned by Congress in the next fiscal year. The 2021 law made $1 billion available for BRIC over five years, $133 million to date has been provided for about 450 applications. FEMA estimates more than $3.6 billion will remain in the Disaster Relief Fund to assist with disaster response and recovery for communities and survivors.
Ending this program will help ensure that grant funding aligns with the President’s Executive Orders and Secretary Noem’s direction and best support states and local communities in disaster planning, response and recovery.
