TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Nearly $300 million in federal aid intended to protect Florida communities from flooding, hurricanes, and other natural disasters has been frozen since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Now the state will never receive the funds, putting dozens of projects in jeopardy, ranging from a plan to improve roads in St. Augustine to a $150 million effort to strengthen canals in South Florida.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Cameron Hamilton terminated the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, program last week, describing it as a “wasteful, politicized grant program.”
BRIC represents a small but significant portion of all FEMA funds received by Florida. The program’s cancellation comes as the Trump administration has stated that it may eliminate FEMA altogether and instead give funds directly to states to deal with disaster response as they see fit.
Hamilton canceled all BRIC grants from 2020 to 2023, so any approved but unused funds cannot be spent and must be returned to the federal government.
Florida will lose $293 million of the $312 million that Congress approved for hurricane relief and flood mitigation efforts. It had spent only $19 million, or 6%, of its BRIC grants.
“It is outrageous and dangerous to rescind congressionally appropriated funding intended for flood mitigation and municipal storm preparedness-especially in a state as vulnerable to climate disasters as Florida,” said Sadaf Knight, CEO of the nonpartisan Florida Policy Institute.
Florida has been hit with stronger storms more frequently than in the past, is facing rising sea levels, and needs to repair aging storm water management systems, she said.
“Stripping away these critical resources puts lives, property, and public safety at unnecessary risk,” Knight told the crowd. “Florida’s members of Congress owe the public a commitment to restoring and protecting this vital funding.”
The BRIC program, which began during Trump’s first term in office in 2020, has provided $5 billion to states and local communities. However, FEMA officials claim that during the Biden administration, the program became “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.”
When President Trump took office in January, he froze all FEMA funds, including BRIC grants. Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia have sued the Trump administration over the freeze.
They claimed it unfairly targeted blue states whose policies differed from his own views on immigration, climate change, DEI, and other “woke” ideologies.
Florida did not join the lawsuit, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has expressed his support for Trump’s efforts to reorganize FEMA.
“Cut the FEMA bureaucracy out completely, and that money will go further than it currently does, with larger amounts going through FEMA’s bureaucracy,” DeSantis said at a press conference in February.
After Hurricanes Helene and Milton hit Florida last year, the state received more than $1 billion in FEMA aid. FEMA has stepped in 21 times in the last 14 years, providing Florida with $8.5 billion in disaster relief assistance.
The governor’s office and the state emergency management division did not respond to requests for comment on the canceled BRIC grants.
The states that sued were initially successful when U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to lift its FEMA freeze, describing it as a “covert” effort to punish states whose immigration policies differed from the White House. However, several days later, he granted Trump a reprieve after a Supreme Court decision in another case appeared to vindicate his actions.
FEMA has now canceled Florida’s BRIC grants, which were supposed to be used to elevate flood-prone roads in Jacksonville, build a hurricane community safe room for first responders in Key West, and work on canals in north Miami-Dade and south Broward counties.
The South Florida Water Management District, which is in charge of maintaining water quality, controlling water supply, ecosystem restoration, and flood control in a 16-county area stretching from Orlando to the Keys, will be most affected by BRIC’s termination.
The district received only $6 million of the $150 million grant before the program was canceled. The funds were intended to help construct three structures on canals and basins in North Miami-Dade and Broward counties to improve flood mitigation.
Drew Bartlett, the district’s executive director, stated at a Thursday governing board meeting that design work “for a couple of the pump stations” is currently underway and will continue. “We are still doing that while we evaluate the ultimate impacts to those projects.”
The Florida Division of Emergency Management must return $36.9 million in BRIC funds designated for management costs and technical assistance.
Jacksonville will lose $24.9 million in funding intended to improve roads and a water reclamation facility.
Key West is losing $11.25 million for its planned community safe room, and Pasco County will lose $5.56 million for 18 road improvement projects, among other cuts to communities across the state.
