Oregon Files Lawsuit After Homeland Security Puts FEMA Crisis Funding In Jeopardy

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield joined a 12-state coalition in a lawsuit filed yesterday against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Secretary David Richardson, who, again, interfered with emergency and homeland security grants already promised to the states.

Oregon Lawsuit To Preserve Emergency & Homeland Security Funding

Several attempts by the Trump administration to reduce FEMA’s role and shift the burden of emergency management to the States have been made since Donald Trump took office in January.

The administration has denied or restricted requests for emergency declarations, withheld grant funding, and imposed on recipients of long-standing FEMA grants irrelevant and unconstitutional terms.

AG Rayfield said, “Oregonians shouldn’t have to worry about whether the money to keep them safe in times of crisis is actually going to show up.”

In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, the multi-state coalition argues that the Trump Administration included illegal and impossible-to-meet grant terms in the Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) and the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) that deviate from past practice and create obstacles to access and use funding for emergency management, disaster-relief, and homeland security operations previously promised.

Federal grants support Oregon’s emergency management system. Without this funding, the Oregon Department of Emergency Management estimates that about two-thirds of Oregon’s counties could lose significant, or even all, capacity to perform basic emergency management functions.

Homeland security grants that fund critical safety work, such as terrorism prevention training, emergency response exercises, and Oregon’s TITAN Fusion Center, are also in jeopardy. An improper funding hold was placed on one grant, and the expenditure timelines for both grants were changed.

These terms exceed the federal government’s authority, are contrary to law, fail to comply with required procedures, and remain unexplained. The coalition argues that the terms restrict the States’ ability to use the funding as planned.