Authorizing Representation By the Senate Legal Counsel in the Case of Desmond Bellard V. Ronald Wyden, U.S. Senator
Floor Speech
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Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, what you see depends on where you sit. Last Friday, it was announced that the BRIC Program, or the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program, run by FEMA would end, and money which had been allocated would be pulled back from the States which were receiving it.
Now, most families across the country have not heard of the BRIC Program, but if you were to explain what it does, they would say, oftentimes, that they need it. I can tell you folks in Louisiana do.
Louisiana has benefited the most per capita in the BRIC's latest round of funding, and I would argue that this actually saves tax dollars for the rest of the country because the BRIC Program helps prevent against flooding, flooding that may occur after a big rain event or after a hurricane. And in Louisiana and in many parts of our country, this is an inevitable part of life.
But the best way to recover from a flood is to never flood at all. The old saying:
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Another:
A stitch in time saves nine.
The same principle applies to flood resilience and mitigation infrastructure. When we invest in levies and floodwalls, communities are protected when the storm hits, and the Federal Government saves billions in a recovery effort that never has to be done.
If you go down to South Louisiana, for example, you will see homes elevated by the BRIC Program that were not previously elevated. Now that they are elevated, that family is secure should the floodwaters come.
Now, you can say: Wait a second. That is just Louisiana. There is a parish in Louisiana in which the flood control structures prevented 10,000 homes from being flooded in the last hurricane--talk about an ounce of prevention because those programs, those families, they would have received Federal help. Turns out no Federal help was needed because we were able to build resilience. We were able to keep those homes from flooding in the first place. This is the type of work that we need to do. And if we do it, then never is a National Flood Insurance Program claim filed.
The family saves; the taxpayer saves. Investing now saves money down the line.
That is why back in 2018, during President Trump's first term, Congress established the BRIC Program to invest in those flood protections needed to prevent future flooding. And through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, another billion dollars was added to that program. This is because the BRIC Program is an effective tool, the type of tool that my communities in my State and communities elsewhere in the country depend upon.
Now, apparently, though, the BRIC Program is in danger. And it is being endangered, I gather, because of the effort to eliminate government waste. Now, there is a lot of government waste, and I am all for eliminating that waste. If there is fraud, we should eliminate it. If there is waste, we should eliminate it.
But preventing homes from flooding, that if they do flood will cost the Federal taxpayer billions of dollars, that is not waste; that is good planning. That is what we should all be doing in every aspect of our life: planning ahead, planning proactively. The waste is that, if we don't do this program and the inevitable flood occurs, then we have to go in and rescue communities. That is waste because we could have prevented that from happening in the first place by implementing programs such as the BRIC Program.
I would ask FEMA to reconsider the impact of cuts to the BRIC Program and to reconsider canceling the BRIC applications that are already placed.
They should. This is a congressionally authorized piece of legislation--authorized and congressionally appropriated. Congress has said that this program will exist. We passed BRIC into law. We provided funds for it. To do anything other than to use that money to protect families from flooding, to protect the Federal taxpayer from having to put out billions to rescue communities which have flooded, is to thwart the will of Congress. And that is why Congress passed it in the first Trump term, and that is why President Trump supported it. It improves efficiency, not decreases it.
I can tell you, people in South Louisiana--whether it is Terrebonne, Lafourche, Ascension Parishes, and places you wouldn't expect to flood like Livingston Parish--that overwhelmingly--that supported President Trump 95 percent of the time, they would overwhelmingly support this sort of flood mitigation.
Here are some examples of the money that is already going out: Roughly, $40 million to the city of Central; $36 million to Ascension Parish. In Central, they were trying to reduce flooding after the great floods of 2016 in Louisiana, trying to keep that from happening again.
The $36 million to Ascension Parish is to fortify electrical infrastructure. Hurricane comes along; electricity goes out. Of course, no electricity, the whole community is incapacitated.
Twenty million dollars to Lafourche Parish to strengthen 16 miles of power lines; $10 million to the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to provide evacuation routes during flooding. Evacuation routes during flooding, that is something that we should make sure we are building so that you don't have to helicopter people out or you don't have to get them out by boat.
So these are examples of BRIC Programs that are a stitch in time that will save nine.
Now, of course, it is important to my State. I will point out that Louisiana was the third largest recipient of BRIC Program funding recently and the largest on a per capita base. And without BRIC funding, none of these projects would happen--whether it is East Baton Rouge Parish, Ascension Parish, Lafourche, or the Coushatta Tribe.
Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson had a $25 million application for grid-hardening so that the people of Lafourche would be able to get back on their feet quicker after a hurricane. I can tell you, I went down to Lafourche Parish after the last hurricane, and all the power poles had just toppled over. It is almost as if you were playing dominoes. They weren't touching, but they all toppled just like that. And there were crews from around the country that had been-- electrical crews that had been mobilized to come and reinstall those.
If you hardened the grid, that doesn't happen. If you harden the grid, those tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars spent to get those electricity poles back up does not have to be spent. This money is an investment in a more resilient future that doesn't require the investment of private and public capital to restart communities. This is not waste.
In fact, if you went to Archie Chaisson's parish, I can tell you, those folks would tell you they are against government waste. They would also tell you that this is not waste. This is something which will save their homes, save lives, and save communities.
Now, we can ask ourselves if FEMA were to move forward with the plan to cut BRIC, what would be the alternative? Flooding costs up to almost $500 billion in damage every year throughout the United States, not just Louisiana. Again, $500 billion in damage that we have to pay after the fact versus investing a few million now to prevent.
Now, the darker the color, the more the recent flooding. So you can say, although I have been speaking about Louisiana, you can see that, across our Nation, floods have been destroying homes and neighborhoods; downing power lines; harming businesses; in some cases, taking lives.
Just since the start of 2025, at least eight Americans in these four States in dark red have died as a result of storms hitting their communities. In the last 3 months, 37 States have experienced flooding.
These are the States that are in red. It goes all the way from Maine to Minnesota, to Michigan, to Montana--you don't think of Montana being a flood State--Idaho. All of these States in red have had flooding in the last 3 months.
And you see, it is not just the coastline in which there is a coastal surge like Louisiana or Florida. It is also what is called riverine. ``Riverine'' meaning you have a valley, a river down the middle, the river rises, and people on the lower part of that valley--I think that would be the situation in Kentucky--are going to flood.
These are all places that could benefit from a resiliency program, from a BRIC Program. We know it works. We know it saves money.
And just to bring this home to my State, this is Livingston Parish, LA, just after the great flood of 2016. Look at that. These are homes in areas that had never flooded before. And in some incredible, once- in-500-years flood event, they were all flooded. Livingston Parish, 2016--we call it the Great Flood. It affected not just this parish but all those in what we call the capital region--Tangipahoa Parish, going up to Monroe, LA--it was almost a statewide event.
Now, if we built resiliency, this doesn't happen. If you look at this, can you image the Federal response?
They were so honored then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump came down and spent time in Livingston Parish after this flood to call attention to it because he felt as if President Obama was not paying attention. President Trump came with Vice President nominee Pence, spent time there, brought hope to the people, and that is when, in 2018--I am sure part of his motivation was to sign into law what has ultimately become the BRIC Program.
These people testify with their flooding how lives are changed when you don't have resiliency.
I just want to say one more thing because I would talk to these people. I am privileged to represent them. Each of these homes has a story. There was a wedding dress that a mother had, saving for her daughter, that was ruined in a flood. There were wedding pictures from a grandparent, parents, and daughters--multigeneration--and an album to save for generations totally lost in a flood. There were, in this flood, neighbors who went out and died, not recognizing the place they were stepping wasn't the side of a road but rather a ditch, and they went down, got swept away in this flood. I can go through each house and imagine a story that could have been prevented if there had been resiliency built into this community before this flood.
The purpose of the BRIC grants is to build that resiliency so that we don't have stories to tell which are tragic or sad but rather stories where people continue on with their life as if--well, as if the flood never occurred.
Local leaders advocating implementing using these dollars are advocating for the people they represent. So am I. Right now, representing those people calls for me to ask that any effort to stop BRIC grant funding is halted, that the will of Congress, that the law that Congress passed, that the funding Congress put into the program, that be honored--by law, it should be honored--and that the money which is out there stays there and the applications which have been placed be accepted, processed, and fulfilled.
If rules need to be changed because the Biden administration did things which are silly to have done, then change those rules. But to end a program--to end a program--which has the ability to prevent this sort of disaster, not just in my State but across the Nation, we should not end that program. To do so is to inflict harm both upon the rule of law and upon these communities.
Let's keep BRIC in place.
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