Federal judge orders FEMA to restore $4 billion in canceled funding for blue states.

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A federal judge in Massachusetts on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore billions of dollars in canceled FEMA disaster mitigation funding, siding with 22 states and the District of Columbia that sued over the canceled grants this summer.

President Donald Trump’s administration said in April it was “ending” the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which helped communities with predisaster projects to harden infrastructure and improve resilience against the increasing threats of climate change.

The administration called the program “wasteful and ineffective” and said it would halt $3.6 billion in funding awarded but not yet paid and would not award $882 million in grants for the following fiscal year.

The program’s disruption upended projects across hundreds of communities in both Republican- and Democratic-led states, thwarting plans to improve stormwater drainage, harden electrical lines and even help relocate households living in areas most vulnerable to disasters.

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“The Biden Administration abandoned true mitigation and used BRIC as a green new deal slush fund,” the spokesperson said, referring to a Democratic plan to combat climate change. “It’s unfortunate that an activist judge either didn’t understand that or didn’t care.”

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