Almost $80 million in flood mitigation funds revoked by the Trump administration last year is on its way back to Maryland, but state officials are still looking for clarity.
The Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program was created by the U.S. Congress in 2018 as part of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act.
Housed within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), BRIC grants are used for pre-disaster mitigation, providing states with funding for projects that help protect against fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes.
Over the past four years, FEMA has selected nearly 2,000 projects for roughly $4.5 billion in BRIC funding nationwide.
Maryland was awarded more than $80 million in BRIC funding from 2020-2023, but much of that money was made unavailable when the Trump administration decided to cancel the program in April of last year, calling it “wasteful and ineffective.”
Twenty-two states, including Maryland, and DC promptly sued over the decision, arguing the funds had already been Congressionally allocated and that the Trump administration did not have the authority to stop the program.
Federal Judge Richard Stearns ruled in favor of the states in December and mandated that FEMA restore the BRIC program.
However, months went by without states seeing a penny, and states filed an additional motion to ensure requirements under the December court order would be met.
Stearns again sided with the states just last month, noting at the time there was “no indication… that the agency intends to issue a Fiscal Year 2025 [Notice of Funding Opportunity] in the near future.”
The judge acknowledged that some of the delays could be attributed to staffing shortages from mass federal layoffs and the ongoing U.S. Department of Homeland Security budgetary freeze.
Nonetheless, Stearns gave FEMA 14 days to communicate to each state the status of all BRIC projects and 21 days to issue a Notice of Funding Opportunity for fiscal year 2024.
On March 25, FEMA opened up applications for the fiscal year 24 and 25 BRIC program, making $1 billion in funds available for disaster mitigation projects.
Maryland Department of Emergency Management (MDEM) Deputy Secretary Chas Eby says the state will be applying for new grants, but they are still waiting for communication around the owed backlogged funds.
“We have gotten a little bit of clarity since then, but we're still awaiting additional guidance from FEMA on how some of those projects will be awarded and obligated,” Eby said.
The two main projects MDEM is waiting on funding for is a flood resiliency project in Somerset County’s city of Crisfield and a shoreline restoration project in Southern Baltimore.
Crisfield was awarded $36 million for the first phase of its project that would build flood gates and gauges around the city dock and high-risk areas downtown.
South Baltimore is waiting on $27 million for the second phase of its project looking to protect against coastal flooding from the Chesapeake Bay and harbor area.
“It's a green and gray infrastructure project, which means that they're restoring some of the wetland, there's inclusion of public space and park areas, but then there's also an infrastructure component that could stop, or mitigate to a large degree, the flooding that occurs down there for both the community as well as some of the critical infrastructure in the area,” Eby explained.
There are several smaller projects that are also slated to receive BRIC funding, all of which Eby anticipates will move forward when the grants are finally distributed.
“Our approach is to work very closely with those subapplicants to make sure that any request for information, any little snags that we can anticipate, that we can break through that red tape and get that information to the federal government to get it awarded as expeditiously as possible,” he said.
Eby says the volatility of these types of federal grants has not been easy on MDEM, especially when it comes to long-term and strategic planning.
“The timing and the amounts that we've planned for are subject to change, and frankly, costs go up over time too. So some of these projects that communities have really been planning for for years, in some cases, construction costs can go up.”
Maryland has even had to step in to provide aid in unprecedented ways in order to fill federal funding gaps under the current administration.
FEMA denied the state’s initial request and an appeal for a Major Disaster Declaration for severe flooding that occurred in Allegany and Garrett Counties in May 2025.
Since the flooding, FEMA itself validated more than $33.7 million in damages in Western Maryland, which is nearly three times the state’s qualifying threshold for assistance.
“FEMA has a responsibility to weigh the merits of each emergency request objectively. Instead, President Trump and his Administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who will pay the price,” Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement following the appeal denial in October. “While we disagree with both this process and outcome, our resolve is unbroken. We will continue to support Marylanders recovering from these storms, even if Washington won’t.”
Eby says the lack of federal funding assistance led MDEM to open up programs, some for the first time ever, to provide Western Maryland with support.
This included the use of the State Disaster Recovery fund, providing almost $460,000 in recovery support for individuals impacted by the flooding.
Moore also announced an additional $1 million in Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funds for families in Allegany and Garrett counties.
The changes in federal assistance under the Trump administration has prompted MDEM to change its approach to its funding requests in some ways.
Eby explains the relaunch of BRIC fiscal year 24 and 25 applications came with new prioritizations for infrastructure resilience projects instead of hazard mitigation planning.
“We're evaluating how best to approach our application given some of the changes in criteria, but in the end, the priority should be for those highest-risk communities, and we intend to work really closely with them to submit a really robust and strong application,” he said.
Applications for BRIC funding will remain open until July 23.
