Michigan AG challenges Trump administration over FEMA grant restrictions

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(The Center Square) – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is leading a lawsuit against the Trump administration over alleged “illegal terms” to Federal Emergency Management Agency funding.

Eleven other states have joined Nessel on the lawsuit, which was filed against Secretary Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary David Richardson and FEMA.

“The Trump Administration should be working with states to keep our residents safe,” Nessel said. “Instead, the White House continues again and again to pull the rug out from under us, putting the safety of our communities in jeopardy.”

While under previous presidents, federal storm aid was often seen as a “given,” not so under the Trump Administration. Instead, it has shifted some of the burden back to the states, something The Center Square has previously reported.

“The federal government focuses its support on truly catastrophic disasters – massive hurricanes, devastating earthquakes, or wide-scale attacks on the homeland,” said Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, according to May reporting.

The lawsuit takes issue with this reprioritization. It argues that the administration is imposing “irrelevant and unconstitutional terms” on recipients of long-standing FEMA grants.

“Congress created FEMA to ensure the federal government would stand with the people it serves in times of crisis, not abandon them,” Nessel said. “Only Congress – not the president – has the authority to scale back that mission, and as promised, each and every time this administration acts unlawfully and harms the people of Michigan, I will take legal action on behalf of the people of our state.”

The lawsuit specifically refers to “illegal and impossible-to-meet” terms for the Emergency Management Performance Grant and the Homeland Security Grant Program.

Those grants fund a substantial portion of Michigan’s emergency management services, according to the lawsuit. That funding is used for active shooter and active assailant response training, reimbursement of the emergency manager’s salary and fringe benefits, and emergency training for Michigan’s one FEMA-designated high-risk urban area (the “Detroit-Warren-Dearborn” area).

Nessel, who has joined dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration since he first took office, was already granted a legal win in a similar case. The court’s decision in that case resulted in the release of approximately $100 million in FEMA grant reimbursements to the Michigan State Police.

The current lawsuit is filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and seeks a permanent injunction against the Trump administration. Michigan is joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Hawai’i, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Wisconsin, as well as the governor of Kentucky.