A CBS News investigation found two-thirds of counties losing funding from a pivotal FEMA program supported President Trump in the 2024 election.
The president's administration announced plans to claw back about $3.6 million that has already been awarded to local storm damage-mitigation projects. The move empties out Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) projects and sends that money back to the U.S. Treasury, but it stalls projects to elevate buildings in new flood zones in small communities like Pollocksville, North Carolina.
CBS News reports FEMA spokesperson described the projects as "non-mission critical programs" that were "wasteful and ineffective." Officials also found the flood mitigative nature of the projects to be too "climate change" oriented. But CBS News also reports the elimination of the BRIC program will especially deprive vulnerable communities across the Southeast, which are deep in Trump country.
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“In Florida, 18 of the 22 counties that stood to benefit from nearly $250 million in grants voted for Mr. Trump. Elsewhere in North Carolina, grants were canceled in areas ravaged by Hurricane Helene last year,” according to CBS.
The removal of 34 grants totaling $185 million in ruby-red Louisiana prompted Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to condemn the shutdown.
"We passed BRIC into law and provided funds for it," Cassidy said in an April speech on the Senate floor. "To do anything other than use that money to fund flood mitigation projects is to thwart the will of Congress."
Cassidy also joined more than 80 members of Congress in writing a bipartisan letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding the administration reinstate the program, arguing that not doing so "will only make it harder and more expensive for communities to recover from the next storm."
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Every dollar invested in disaster mitigation can save up to $18 in response and recovery expenditures after a storm hits, the letter claims.
Louisiana resident Wade Evans, who survived the historic damage of Hurricane Katrina and other storms said a local drainage project funded by the program "would have saved money in the long run that FEMA ultimately ends up covering."
"And then they pulled the rug out from under us," said Evans, who added. "... It's time to put the bomb away and pull out the scalpel. Don't blow a program up that's very good. This is a very good program."
Read the full CBS report at this link.