‘Higher risk of harm from natural disasters’: Trump admin sued for ‘unlawfully’ installing acting FEMA heads with ‘no prior emergency management experience’

A collection of blue state attorneys general and a governor filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts on Wednesday accusing President Donald Trump of “unlawfully” installing acting administrators to “suddenly—and illegally—shut down” FEMA’s “all-purpose pre-disaster mitigation program” by withholding congressionally appropriated funds — and at a time when “Americans across the country face a higher risk of harm from natural disasters.”

The lawsuit, brought by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, contends that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem’s stated efforts to either shut down or remake FEMA brought an abrupt halt to funding of Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) initiatives. The plaintiffs allege that the move undercut a program created in the spirit of “two decades of federal investments in mitigation” that “have saved Americans $157.9 billion.”

FEMA is part of DHS and BRIC came about in 2018 as Trump, during his first term, signed into law the Disaster Recovery Act. That year, deadly wildfires raged in California and hurricanes wreaked havoc on Texas, Puerto Rico, and Florida.

“Over the past four years, FEMA has selected nearly 2,000 projects from every corner of the country to receive roughly $4.5 billion in funding,” the suit said, noting that “coastal communities have received the largest allocations over the past four years, with California, Louisiana, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina, and Washington leading the way.”

Earlier in 2025, wildfires leveled Los Angeles. Over July 4 weekend, Texas was devastated by flooding that, as of this writing, has taken the lives of 134 people, raising questions about the effectiveness of FEMA’s response and whether the National Weather Service adequately warned citizens amid staffing cuts.

And yet, the Trump administration’s “unlawful” shift in emphasis to post-disaster relief was enabled by acting FEMA administrators — Cameron Hamilton and then David Richardson — who didn’t have the authority to fill those roles, said the lawsuit.

“By unilaterally shutting down FEMA’s flagship pre-disaster mitigation program, Defendants have acted unlawfully and violated core separation of powers principles,” the suit said. “Second, the steps Defendants have taken to implement the termination—refusing to spend funds Congress directed toward BRIC or trying to spend them on other programs—also violate the Constitution and unlawfully intrude on Congress’s power of the purse.”

“Third, neither Mr. Hamilton nor his successor, David Richardson, were lawfully appointed to run FEMA, and they therefore lack the authority to shut down the BRIC program,” the filing continued. The suit emphasized that, leaving aside the way Hamilton and Richardson were named acting administrators, neither of them have the emergency management experience required by law.

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“Like Hamilton, Richardson ‘has no prior emergency management experience,’ so he also does not meet the statutory qualifications for the FEMA Administrator,” the suit said.

The AGs and Shapiro argued that an injunction is necessary and appropriate to block the administration from illegally diverting billions intended for pre-disaster mitigation to post-disaster relief — especially as the government may begin spending those funds soon.

“Consistent with the Hamilton Memo, FEMA revealed in June that at some point in April, FEMA initiated a ‘Reversal of Building Infrastructure and Communities Set Aside’ and unlawfully diverted $4.071 billion out of the National Public Infrastructure Predisaster Mitigation Fund into the Major Declarations component of the Disaster Relief Fund, which funds FEMA’s post-disaster grants,” the lawsuit went on. “FEMA projects that it will start spending the BRIC funds on these other post-disaster programs in just a few weeks.”

The suit claimed that the shuttering of the BRIC program “has been devastating” for state and local efforts to mitigate catastrophes before they happen.

“The impact of the shutdown has been devastating. Communities across the country are being forced to delay, scale back, or cancel hundreds of mitigation projects depending on this funding,” the plaintiffs asserted. “Projects that have been in development for years, and in which communities have invested millions of dollars for planning, permitting, and environmental review are now threatened. And in the meantime, Americans across the country face a higher risk of harm from natural disasters.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a longtime rival of the president under investigation by Trump’s DOJ following mortgage fraud allegations she denies, said in statement that lives are on the line.

“This administration’s decision to slash billions of dollars that protect our communities from floods, wildfires, and other disasters puts millions of New Yorkers at risk,” James said. “New Yorkers depend on quality roads, floodwalls, and other vital infrastructure to keep them safe when disaster strikes. This administration has no authority to cut this program that has helped save countless lives, and I will continue to fight to ensure New York gets the support we need to prepare for dangerous natural disasters.”

FEMA announced the termination of BRIC on April 4, in a press release that is not currently accessible on its website. Law&Crime conducted a Google search for the press release, turning up a URL that leads to a “Page Not Found” and the “page you are looking for has been removed, renamed or may be temporarily unavailable.” The same URL for the press release was cited in footnote 33 from the AGs’ lawsuit.

Wayback Machine save history for the press release.

A subsequent search of the URL on the Wayback Machine indicates that the last snapshot of the press release was taken on July 5 and that no other snapshots were taken last week or so far this week, unlike every other week since the press release was issued.

Law&Crime reached out to DHS for comment on the suit and for an explanation about why the press release is not currently accessible at its original URL, but no response was immediately forthcoming.

In the archived press release quoting an unnamed FEMA spokesperson, Noem was credited for “eliminating waste, fraud and abuse” by cancelling 2020-2023 grant applications and returning $882 million to the U.S. Treasury. The spokesperson called BRIC “yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program” and one that was “more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.”

The post ‘Higher risk of harm from natural disasters’: Trump admin sued for ‘unlawfully’ installing acting FEMA heads with ‘no prior emergency management experience’ first appeared on Law & Crime.