A group of 20 Democratic attorneys general filed a new lawsuit against the Trump administration Wednesday morning, aiming to restore a canceled grant program that helped states protect against potential disaster damage.
The lawsuit says the administration in April illegally ended a multibillion-dollar Federal Emergency Management Agency program that was established under a 2018 law signed by President Donald Trump.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, also asks the court to declare that FEMA’s current leader “is acting as FEMA administrator unlawfully.”
David Richardson has been acting administrator since Trump appointed him in May, a position that avoids Senate confirmation and a statutory requirement that a FEMA administrator have experience in emergency management. Richardson is a former Marine officer and expert in weapons of mass destruction who has not worked in emergency management.
After the administration canceled FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, it reclaimed $4.5 billion in grants that had been approved for states but not spent. Without the BRIC money, states and communities have halted or scaled back dozens of projects aimed at protecting against flood damage, wildfires and other weather-related events.
“The impact of the shutdown has been devastating,” the lawsuit says.
The complaint says the administration lacks the authority to end the BRIC program and seeks a preliminary ruling that would restore the canceled funding.
“President Trump and his lackeys have once again jeopardized public safety with their indiscriminate slashing of pre-disaster mitigation funding,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said in a statement. “We’re taking them to court — not because we want to, but because we have to.”
The Democratic attorneys general have filed other lawsuits challenging Trump’s actions to cut off other FEMA funding and to require states to help with immigration enforcement in order to get FEMA funds.
In addition to Bonta, the plaintiffs are the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
The Department of Justice declined to comment.
