A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from going forward with its plans to redirect money originally intended for a massive natural disaster resilience program on other priorities.
The preliminary injunction, issued by Judge Richard Stearns in the Massachusetts District Court, prevents the Federal Emergency Management Agency from spending the hundreds of millions of dollars intended for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program on anything else.
The injunction was granted at the request of 20 Democratic-led states, which sued the Trump administration in mid-July over its cancellation of the BRIC program. Those states, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York and California, were depending on the program to help fund infrastructure projects that would address serious flood risks in populated areas.