With the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund is set to run out of money this fall, the Biden Administration announced on Monday nearly $3 billion in funding for hundreds of communities across the U.S.
The funds are meant to reduce their vulnerability to “climate-change-influenced” extreme weather events.
The money will come from the infrastructure bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Biden in 2021, and it will be distributed through two grant programs managed by FEMA.
- $1.8 billion will be for critical resilience projects through FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, and another $642 million will be for community flood mitigation projects through Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grants.
- The dollars will go toward 124 BRIC projects in 115 communities across 38 states, one tribe and the District of Columbia and 149 FMA projects in 28 states and D.C.
FGEMA says that its disaster relief fund, which is separate from its budget for mitigation projects, will fall into a deficit sometime between late August and early September if Congress and the Biden administration do not soon pass a funding bill or a continuing resolution.