Federal funding for a major hospital expansion project in Astoria was in jeopardy last year after the Trump administration abruptly announced it was shutting down the grant program that had awarded the money.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said the decision to halt the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program, or BRIC, was part of an effort to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.”
Now that money may be back on the table.
On Tuesday, the Oregon Department of Emergency Management announced it had received new information from FEMA about the status of the BRIC grant program.
In a letter to states, tribes and territories dated March 17, FEMA said it was resuming key activities around the BRIC grant program and reviewing sub-applications from prior fiscal years.
The announcement follows a successful lawsuit brought by a coalition of states including Oregon that argued the closure of the BRIC program in 2025 was unlawful. A ruling by a Massachusetts federal court in December reinstated the funding.
Recently the federal judge set deadlines for FEMA to reverse its plans to terminate the BRIC program and issue new notices of funding opportunity.
On Wednesday, FEMA announced that $1 billion in federal funding would be available to states, local governments, territories and tribes for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
“When done correctly, mitigation activities save lives and reduce the cost of future disasters,” said Karen Evans, who is currently serving as the FEMA administrator, in a statement. “That’s why President Trump signed the BRIC program into law during his first administration. Under his leadership once again, the program is now better than ever.”
The application period opened on Wednesday. The deadline to submit applications is July 23.
Erin Zysett, a spokesperson with Oregon Emergency Management, called FEMA’s earlier announcement to the states about the reinstatement of the BRIC program a “tentative win.”
She told KMUN the state still doesn’t have much information about what happens next or what FEMA’s announcement will mean for the various projects that already have contracts with Oregon to receive the BRIC grant funding that the federal government had tried to cancel.
One complicating factor is the ongoing government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security. While grant management software is back up for the BRIC program, full programatic activities won’t resume until FEMA itself is out of the shutdown.
“It’s a win,” Zysett said. “We just don’t exactly know what that win is going to look like and we won’t know until FEMA is back up and running.”
The state also isn’t sure what the reinstatement of the program will mean for organizations like Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria that moved ahead with work meant to be funded by a BRIC grant award even while the grant program was in limbo.
Columbia Memorial landed a $14 million award through the BRIC grant program in 2023, part of a $300 million expansion project at the hospital’s Astoria campus. The federal money was intended to fund various components of a new building to make it resilient in the face of earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters.
The hospital was required to provide a $6 million match to the BRIC grant and was in the middle of seeking that from the Oregon Legislature to bring the total award to $20 million when the program was slashed.
Lawsuits over the closure quickly followed. Oregon lawmakers still approved the requested $6 million and Columbia Memorial proceeded with construction at its Astoria campus despite concerns about what this could mean for future eligibility if the BRIC grant program was restored.
At the time, Columbia Memorial’s CEO Erik Thorsen said the project was in motion and it wouldn’t make sense to halt or postpone that work or existing agreements with contractors.
Now with FEMA’s letter to Oregon Emergency Management this month, Thorsen is “cautiously optimistic.”
He noted that the hospital is still waiting on further details about the award and has not yet received any official communication from FEMA.
“We’re looking forward to hearing what exactly it means for our grant,” Thorsen said.
Anxieties about eligibility persist, but Thorsen told KMUN the hospital has done what it could to follow the parameters of the grant.
When the BRIC program was closed, “it was done with very little guidance about how to proceed,” Thorsen said. “So we have maintained complete compliance with all the required elements that we’re aware of under the BRIC grant program and we continue to do that today with our project.”
“We should still be eligible for the grant,” he added, “and we’re going to fight really hard to make sure that those dollars come to Clatsop County.”
Thorsen said the expansion project is proceeding on schedule and within budget.
Clatsop County was a sub-recipient of the BRIC grant and served as a pass-through to the hospital.
Justin Gibs, Clatsop County’s emergency management director, said Columbia Memorial has submitted documentation for the first phase of work. This will be submitted to the state and then to FEMA. Then the hospital and county will move onto approvals for funding of phase two work, the actual construction taking place now.
Gibbs still has questions around the legal process that seems to be dictating FEMA’s actions currently: If there are any additional hearings that could change the trajectory, for example.
“Just making sure that we’re prepared should there be a negative outcome,” he said. “But, I mean, there is a lot of optimism right now that potentially things are going to be resolved.”