Dive Brief:
- The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon blocked the Trump administration from withholding grant money from states for emergency management, disaster relief and homeland security operations, stating that changes to the conditions and timing of the grants were “arbitrary and capricious.”
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A coalition of 12 states sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in November after FEMA froze Emergency Management Performance Grant funds until states verified that population counts excluded people removed under federal immigration law — which required data states said they did not have access to. The administration also reduced the grant reimbursement window from three years to one.
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DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in an emailed statement, called the decision “judicial sabotage” that “threatens the safety of our states, counties, towns,” and she said the Trump administration “will fight to restore these critical reforms and protect American lives.”
Dive Insight:
EMPG grants fund approximately 50% of Arizona’s emergency management functions, Hawai‘i’s public information and warning systems and equipment and training for Wisconsin’s SWAT and urban search and rescue teams, according to the Dec. 23 ruling. The funds were used for preparedness and response operations during 2024’s Tropical Storm Helene in North Carolina and severe flash flooding in Maryland.
In their lawsuit, Arizona, Colorado, Hawai’i, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Wisconsin and the governor of Kentucky said DHS and FEMA “provided no reasoned explanation (or, indeed, any explanation) for why they added this hold, no legal basis for adding the hold, and no guidance for States to use in attempting to comply.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Amy Potter wrote in the Dec. 23 ruling that the rule changes forced states to “face a Hobson’s choice: accept the grant subject to a term they feel is unlawful or decline to accept.”
“This abrupt change in policy is particularly harmful to local emergency management,” Potter wrote.
Potter said that states have “no way of complying with the Population Certification Hold,” and the reimbursement window change would cause funding lapses that risk emergency management and homeland security capacities. “Many states and localities would not be reimbursed for emergency management expenses already incurred,” she wrote.
Therefore, Potter wrote, the grant changes are not “consistent with Congressional intent or FEMA’s mission.”
“The court saw through FEMA’s attempt to break the law and deny money that North Carolina relies on to respond to hurricanes, natural disasters, and other emergencies,” North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said in a statement. “Our state is going to get back the $17 million that Congress promised so that our emergency responders and law enforcement officers are ready to respond to the next crisis.”
