by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — Describing recent cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and National Weather Service (NWS) as “catastrophic”, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, called on the Trump administration to release millions of dollars in funds to help cities and states across the country improve extreme weather-related resilience.
At risk is $50 million from the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRICs) grant, which is designed to provide funds for projects that reduce the overall risk to population and structures from future hazard events, while also reducing the reliance on federal funding from future disasters. The grant awards $882 million to projects all over the country.
“This administration is canceling grants that are absolutely necessary to prepare for weather emergencies and to make our communities more resilient,” Blumenthal said. “This kind of cancellation is cruel, and it’s literally counterproductive and more costly to cancel grants for resilience and prevention of damage due to weather disasters because ultimately the cost will be higher when it comes to repairs.”
Meriden Mayor Kevin Scarpati, who joined Blumenthal at the briefing on the north side of the State Capitol, said the cancellation of the grants jeopardizes two bridge replacement projects which already have shovels in the ground.
“One of those bridges is already down,” Scarpati said. “We are relying on funds from FEMA to continue this project. Funds we’ve already been awarded, a contract that’s already been signed with contractors that are on site today and we have been told we’ve got just over a month to finish this project.”
Scarpati said the bridge work was a two-year project that started about seven months ago.
“We were not expected to finish this project until the end of 2026, so that’s just one project that we would either be unable to finish or we’ll have to hit our taxpayers to finish,” he said.
The Trump administration canceled the BRICs grant in April, calling the program “wasteful and ineffective” in a statement. Additionally, the administration has reduced FEMA’s workforce by 2,000, or a third of the agency. Trump had announced his intention to permanently end FEMA and allow states to control their own disaster relief, but only Congress has the authority to end the federal agency. NWS has lost about 600 employees.
Blumenthal said the cuts, along with the federal response to the destructive flooding in Texas two weeks ago, has led him to call for an investigation by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security and congressional hearings.
“These cuts in staff almost certainly had an effect in Texas. I want to know what effect they will have nationally for preparation and prevention of storm damage,” Blumenthal said. “This investigation ought to cover how disaster preparation is affected and how response times are affected. These kinds of cuts, cancellations, freezes on hiring are affecting communities across the country, including here in Connecticut.”
Blumenthal acknowledged that FEMA may be in need of improvement and reform, but said that what the Trump administration is doing amounts to “demolition” of the agency. He said that while he and his colleagues were fighting to restore BRICs funding and the cuts to FEMA and other agencies critical to predicting extreme weather, it may already be too late.
“If we have hurricanes this year and we see weather disasters, FEMA may well not be there for us, as it has been in the past,” Blumenthal said.