Congressional lawmakers from both parties have consistently criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s ability to respond quickly to disasters and disperse funds for risk mitigation projects in a timely manner. A new report from the Government Accountability Office lends credence to these claims, highlighting the large number of communities that spend months, even years, waiting for notification of whether they will receive funding from FEMA’s Building Resilience Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program for critical projects that remain “under review.”
On average, according to the GAO, it takes FEMA seven to nine months to decide whether or not to fund a project.
“There’s a lot of waiting,” said Chad Berginnis, executive director and CEO of the State Floodplain Managers Association. He says members of his group told him this summer that his states were still waiting on awards and bonds for projects in the 2022 and 2023 funding rounds, some of them “very large” projects.
While FEMA’s BRIC program has accumulated through federal appropriations about $4.8 billion to distribute for resiliency projects and programs, only about half has been dispersed during the first three grant application rounds since the program was established during the first Trump administration in 2020.
As of March 2025, 700 applications for grants from local communities, considered sub-applications for state grants, remained in limbo. Communities told GAO that such review deadlines could lengthen project timelines and increase costs.
Additionally, FEMA did not approve or deny any grant applications while the program was canceled from April 2025 until March 2026, when the program was reinstated following a federal court order. Shortly after the BRIC program was revived, FEMA announced a $1 billion funding opportunity for new applicants.
The agency “failed to communicate key information internally and externally until March 2026 when it announced it was restarting BRIC,” the report’s authors said.
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During the pause, “FEMA did not clarify which grants would be terminated. Officials and stakeholders said the lack of useful information from FEMA headquarters created challenges and delayed mitigation efforts.” In some cases, projects were cancelled. GAO said one state’s officials said its community had already spent significant time, effort and resources on its application and that the project was “unlikely to continue without BRIC funds.”
Chris Currie, GAO’s director of Homeland Security and Justice and lead author of the report, told ENR, “It puts the community in a real conundrum. It’s like, well, we don’t have $20 million to tackle the rest of the project right now because we were hoping to break even. So do we put it on hold? We wait?”
A seismic upgrade project in Mesa County, Calif., had received state approval to begin construction in April 2024, but most of the funding needed for the project to move forward was put on hold because the application was still pending approval when the BRIC program closed in 2025, the Kern Valley Sun reported.
Adding fuel to the fire
Shortly after the BRIC program was revived, FEMA announced a new $1 million funding opportunity notice, which closed on July 23.
The cumulative impact of these developments has created confusion among various stakeholders, says Brett Mattson, senior legislative director for justice and public safety at the National Association of Counties (NACo).
“This 11-month hiatus that we had with the program being canceled, brought back, new money going out the door, has obviously delayed a lot of these projects,” Mattson told ENR. “I think we’re still trying to pick up the pieces in terms of what that means moving forward and how FEMA is going to work, and I don’t think it’s immediately clear to us how [the program’s operations] will develop over the next few months or years, therefore.”
Mattson added that he is hopeful that the BRIC program can begin to reduce the backlog of projects awaiting funding decisions now that it is operational again.
ahead
The GAO report makes a number of recommendations, most related to increased transparency and communication with stakeholders, and FEMA officials say they will adopt most of them.
NACo’s Mattson notes that if Congress adopts the FEMA Act, which passed the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in 2025 but has yet to be introduced in the Senate, FEMA would be forced to streamline its review processes.
Chris Currie, says FEMA was put in a difficult position, between the cancellation of the program and DOGE-related staff cuts. “In the end we may never know who made the decision to cut the program,” he said.
Currie adds that he has spoken with FEMA officials and believes they are sincere about adopting the report’s recommendations. “I think they’re committed to helping states build resilience because they understand how important that is to disaster prevention.”
However, the agency lost more than a year when billions of dollars could have been put toward mitigation before the disaster, Currie said.
“I think there’s a fair amount of skepticism, too,” said Berginnis of the floodplain association, who noted that he’s heard that in at least some states, fewer communities came forward during the last call for funding.
“Basically, you’re waiting for funding for a program that was canceled and then restarted, but no money is coming your way, so why invest the time and effort to apply?” he said
