The Docket | Cascading Effects

The Frozen Project

The Shoreline That Was Promised

By Maya Jiménez— May 20, 2026

Feature image for article: The Shoreline That Was Promised

Alameda, California spent years engineering a $55.5 million shoreline adaptation plan and assembling a 30-partner coalition to apply for FEMA's BRIC program. The funding was canceled by memo, restored by court order, and reopened with a $20 million cap that structurally excludes the project it was meant to fund. Applications are due July 23. Bay Farm Island flooded in January, exactly where the city's maps predicted. The resilience officer who designed the integrated plan is now breaking it into fragments small enough to fit through whatever funding windows remain open. Construction, if it happens, won't start until 2030. The next storm season begins this fall.

The Frozen Project

The Shoreline That Was Promised

By Maya Jiménez— May 20, 2026

Alameda, California spent years engineering a $55.5 million shoreline adaptation plan and assembling a 30-partner coalition to apply for FEMA's BRIC program. The funding was canceled by memo, restored by court order, and reopened with a $20 million cap that structurally excludes the project it was meant to fund. Applications are due July 23. Bay Farm Island flooded in January, exactly where the city's maps predicted. The resilience officer who designed the integrated plan is now breaking it into fragments small enough to fit through whatever funding windows remain open. Construction, if it happens, won't start until 2030. The next storm season begins this fall.

The Legal Fight

Courts Ordered FEMA to Restore $4.5 Billion in Pre-Disaster Mitigation Funds. The Money Still Hasn't Arrived.

Twenty-three states sued FEMA over its cancellation of the BRIC program and won three times. A preliminary injunction in August 2025. A final ruling in December declaring the termination unlawful. An enforcement order in March 2026 after the agency simply ignored the first two. FEMA conceded on March 21.

The operational reality hasn't changed. Of roughly $4.6 billion in competitively selected BRIC projects from FY2020 through 2023, only about $1 billion was ever formally obligated. Obligated didn't mean disbursed. A DHS policy requiring the Secretary's personal sign-off on any expenditure over $100,000 created a bottleneck that froze even legally committed funds. Then the DHS shutdown, running mid-February through late April, froze them again. The court restored the statutory mandate. It has no mechanism to move the money.

The Legal Fight

Courts Ordered FEMA to Restore $4.5 Billion in Pre-Disaster Mitigation Funds. The Money Still Hasn't Arrived.

Twenty-three states sued FEMA over its cancellation of the BRIC program and won three times. A preliminary injunction in August 2025. A final ruling in December declaring the termination unlawful. An enforcement order in March 2026 after the agency simply ignored the first two. FEMA conceded on March 21.

The operational reality hasn't changed. Of roughly $4.6 billion in competitively selected BRIC projects from FY2020 through 2023, only about $1 billion was ever formally obligated. Obligated didn't mean disbursed. A DHS policy requiring the Secretary's personal sign-off on any expenditure over $100,000 created a bottleneck that froze even legally committed funds. Then the DHS shutdown, running mid-February through late April, froze them again. The court restored the statutory mandate. It has no mechanism to move the money.

Partisan disparity:

Republican-governor states saw 89% of disaster funding requests approved versus 23% for Democratic-governor states, the sharpest split since FEMA's founding.

Treasury return:

$882 million in bipartisan Infrastructure Act funds earmarked for BRIC were slated to be sent back to Treasury unspent.

Capacity gutted:

The relaunched BRIC eliminates planning grants and phased projects, severing the pipeline smaller communities used to build applications.

Fund drain:

The Disaster Relief Fund's pre-disaster mitigation balance fell from $4.86 billion to $784 million in four months through redirection.

Zero approvals:

No new hazard mitigation funding has been obligated under any FEMA program since March 2025.

What's Been Cut

Since January 2025, the federal government has frozen, defunded, or dismantled virtually every program designed to help Americans prepare for climate disasters and recover from them. Not one program at a time. All of them, more or less at once.

The Congressional Research Service confirmed in January 2026 that no new funding has been approved for any FEMA hazard mitigation program since March 2025. The entire pre-disaster mitigation infrastructure went dark simultaneously.

Below are six specific programs and funding streams affected. The figures are drawn from CRS, GAO, and agency records. They describe the removal of a safety net that communities were actively relying on, many mid-recovery from disasters already underway.

What's Been Cut

Since January 2025, the federal government has frozen, defunded, or dismantled virtually every program designed to help Americans prepare for climate disasters and recover from them. Not one program at a time. All of them, more or less at once.

The Congressional Research Service confirmed in January 2026 that no new funding has been approved for any FEMA hazard mitigation program since March 2025. The entire pre-disaster mitigation infrastructure went dark simultaneously.

Below are six specific programs and funding streams affected. The figures are drawn from CRS, GAO, and agency records. They describe the removal of a safety net that communities were actively relying on, many mid-recovery from disasters already underway.

Mitigation Grants

Five Billion in Pre-Disaster Grants, Gone

BRIC distributed roughly $5 billion in pre-disaster mitigation grants starting in 2020. FEMA killed the program in April 2025, leaving $750 million in planned funding unallocated. Nearly 2,000 applicants requesting $13 billion had already been rejected before cancellation. A court ordered restoration in December 2025. FEMA has not complied.

Flood Mitigation

Flood Mitigation Funding Pulled After Six Weeks

FEMA posted a $600 million Flood Mitigation Assistance notice on January 6, 2025, then retracted it February 14. No new FMA funding has been awarded since. The program targets repetitive-loss properties insured through the National Flood Insurance Program, the homes that flood again and again.

Post-Disaster Grants

Post-Disaster Mitigation Grants Frozen Since March 2025

HMGP, historically the largest federal hazard mitigation funding stream, has approved no grants for any new disaster declaration since March 2025. Communities recovering from Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the 2025 Texas floods cannot access post-disaster mitigation money.

Farm Conservation

Farmer Adaptation Programs Cut, Staff Walking Out

Congress cut Conservation Technical Assistance by nearly $100 million in FY2026 while removing payment caps that kept large operations from consuming disproportionate shares. Nearly one in four NRCS field staff departed in 2025. The agency that helps farmers adapt to drought and erosion is at record-low staffing.

Agency Capacity

FEMA Shrinks as State Aid Requests Pile Up

FEMA lost roughly 9.5% of its workforce by October 2025, with further cuts pushing total losses past 20% by early 2026. At least 12 state disaster aid requests have been denied since January 2025. Approvals have tracked along apparent partisan lines.

Climate Data

Federal Disaster Cost Tracking Ended After Forty-Five Years

NOAA ended its Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database in May 2025, eliminating the only standardized public record of national disaster costs since 1980. Staffing cuts have curtailed daily weather balloon launches and left some forecast offices unstaffed overnight.

Further Reading

FEMA Moves to End One of Its Biggest Disaster Adaptation ProgramsGrist obtained the internal cancellation memo and got FEMA employees on the record disputing the administration's rationale — the closest thing to a primary source document for und...

Federal Cuts Increase Bay Area's RisksSPUR does the granular accounting that national coverage skips: what $3 billion clawed back actually looks like when it lands on a single metro area, including a frozen seismic ret...

Quick links

Trump Administration Actions Weakening Disaster Preparation and Response

Existing Municipal Financing Tools Are Not Enough

Despite Court Order, a Critical FEMA Program Remains Frozen

Who Fills the Gap

The federal programs that paid for pre-disaster mitigation are gone. States are not waiting around to mourn them.

Legislatures across the country are passing insurance transparency bills, enacting climate superfund laws, floating bonds, filing lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Every one of these mechanisms addresses something real. None of them replaces what disappeared.

Annual disaster costs have topped $30 billion for five consecutive years. The tools now available to prevent that damage are slower, smaller, legally contested, or simply incapable of operating at the scale the problem demands. What follows are the five mechanisms communities are reaching for, and why each one falls short of closing the gap.

Who Fills the Gap

The federal programs that paid for pre-disaster mitigation are gone. States are not waiting around to mourn them.

Legislatures across the country are passing insurance transparency bills, enacting climate superfund laws, floating bonds, filing lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Every one of these mechanisms addresses something real. None of them replaces what disappeared.

Annual disaster costs have topped $30 billion for five consecutive years. The tools now available to prevent that damage are slower, smaller, legally contested, or simply incapable of operating at the scale the problem demands. What follows are the five mechanisms communities are reaching for, and why each one falls short of closing the gap.

Insurance Reform

Eighteen States Want Insurers to Show Their Math

Colorado's HB25-1182 forces insurers to disclose risk scores and credit homeowners for mitigation work. Eighteen states introduced similar bills this year. The logic is sound. But transparency tells you the price of your risk. It doesn't hand you the money to reduce it.

Polluter Pays

Climate Superfund Money Is Years Away, Maybe Forever

New York's climate superfund law targets $75 billion from fossil fuel companies over 25 years. The DOJ sued to block it. Implementing regulations won't arrive until June 2027 at the earliest. Maine and Maryland pulled back their own versions, waiting to see if New York's survives.

Local Finance

States Already Pay Most and Still Can't Keep Up

States and localities fund 78% of infrastructure projects already. After the LA wildfires, S&P downgraded the city's water utility credit, making borrowing more expensive precisely when the city needed it most. Both SPUR and Brookings found existing municipal tools structurally insufficient for adaptation at scale.

Climate Litigation

Boulder's Eight-Year Climate Suit Reaches the Supreme Court

Boulder v. Suncor was filed in 2018. Oral arguments arrive this fall. A favorable ruling wouldn't award damages. It would confirm the case can proceed in state court, where discovery, trial, and appeals would follow. Any actual money remains years out, if it comes at all.

The Math

Every Dollar in Mitigation Saved Six. Nothing Replaces That.

The National Institute of Building Sciences found every $1 in federal mitigation grants prevented $6 in future disaster costs. BRIC covered 75% of project costs for communities that couldn't fund resilience alone. No state bond, superfund law, insurance reform, or lawsuit replicates that ratio or that reach.

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