What GAO found
On September 24, 2026, the Government Accountability Office released FEMA: Billions in Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Subgrants Remain Unawarded (GAO-26-107774). BRIC is FEMA's program for funding projects that reduce damage before a disaster rather than after one: drainage and flood control, utility and road hardening, building retrofits, and the adoption and enforcement of building codes.
GAO's findings are stark. Across BRIC's first four grant cycles, fiscal years 2020 through 2023, FEMA had awarded 1,245 subgrants as of March 2025 and allocated about $2.5 billion, half of the $4.8 billion available. It had reimbursed $62 million, and 37 subgrants had finished their work. From April 2025 to March 2026, FEMA awarded no subgrants and obligated no funds. As of March 2025, 700 subapplications tied to about $2.2 billion were still waiting because FEMA had not completed the second of its two review stages. Even before the pause, the median time to finish reviews and make an award was seven to nine months.
GAO also found that FEMA did not share key information, inside the agency or with applicants, between announcing the end of BRIC in April 2025 and announcing its restart in March 2026, and did not clarify which subgrants would be terminated. Some subrecipients stopped work because of the uncertainty, which GAO notes may raise project costs. FEMA had set performance goals for the program but did not consistently define how to measure them, and did not use performance information when it decided to end BRIC.
GAO made seven recommendations, covering review times, internal and external communication, and performance measurement and reporting. The Department of Homeland Security concurred with all seven.
How the program got here
In April 2025, FEMA announced it was ending BRIC. CBS News reported that the cancellation halted about $3.6 billion and nearly 700 projects. A coalition of 22 states and the District of Columbia sued, and U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns ordered the program restored, first in December 2025 and again in March 2026.
On March 25, 2026, FEMA opened a new BRIC funding opportunity of $1 billion, covering fiscal years 2024 and 2025, with applications due July 23, 2026. The round carries new priorities. According to CBS News and the International Code Council, FEMA ended BRIC funding for hazard mitigation planning and for non-financial direct technical assistance, capped what any single recipient can receive, gave priority to new applicants, impoverished communities and major infrastructure projects that are ready to build, and set aside $81 million for building code adoption and enforcement. FEMA generally pays 75 percent of project costs, and the recipient covers the rest in cash or in kind.
Why it matters to communities
Mitigation money is slow by nature. A drainage project or a substation flood wall goes through scoping, engineering, environmental review and procurement before anyone breaks ground. A year with no awards does not delay those projects by a year. It can push them past a construction season, past a bid's validity period, or past the tenure of the staff who wrote the application. GAO's observation that some subrecipients stopped work points to costs that will not show up in any federal ledger, only in local budgets.
The new rules shift the burden in two ways. First, by favoring projects that are ready to build, the program rewards communities that already have engineering and design work done. Communities without in-house grant and engineering staff, usually the small and rural ones, start further behind. Second, ending BRIC support for mitigation planning means the plans that identify projects in the first place now have to be paid for some other way, even though most FEMA mitigation funding still depends on a current local hazard mitigation plan, which is typically updated every five years.
There is also a quieter point in GAO's findings. Without consistent performance measures, neither FEMA nor the public can say clearly what BRIC's first $2.5 billion in allocations has bought. That weakens the argument for the program in every budget cycle, regardless of how well individual projects perform.
Questions to ask local officials
| Ask | Who usually answers | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Does our community, county or utility have a BRIC subapplication from fiscal years 2020 through 2023 still pending, and what is its status? | Emergency management, State Hazard Mitigation Officer | About 700 were still awaiting decisions |
| Did any funded local project stop work during the pause, and what has the delay cost? | Public works, finance director | GAO warns delays may raise project costs |
| Did we, or our state, apply in the round that closed July 23, 2026? | Emergency management, State Hazard Mitigation Officer | This is the only open BRIC round covering fiscal years 2024 and 2025 |
| When does our local hazard mitigation plan expire, and how will the update be paid for? | Emergency management, planning department | BRIC no longer funds planning, but a current plan is still a gateway to most mitigation money |
| Which mitigation projects are designed and ready to build if funding appears? | Public works, engineering | The new round favors ready projects |
| Is the 25 percent local match identified for priority projects? | Finance director, governing board | Without a match, an award cannot be accepted |
| Which building code edition do we enforce, and could the code set-aside help update it? | Building department | $81 million is reserved for code adoption and enforcement |
For public facilities that cannot wait for a grant cycle, the brief on retrofit pathways for public buildings looks at how to phase protective work into ordinary maintenance.