U.S. Representative Suzanne Bonamici and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield say they are still fighting to land federal money for a major hospital expansion project in Astoria.
At a press event with other officials at the Columbia Memorial Hospital construction site Wednesday, Bonamici said the Trump administration is “playing games with people’s lives” by delaying the release of the money.
The hospital is in the middle of a $300 million expansion project. It was awarded a $14 million grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, program in 2023. The grant was meant to fund various components of a new building to make it resilient in the face of major disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis.
FEMA abruptly canceled the BRIC program in early 2025. Following legal pushback from Oregon and other states, FEMA resumed funding the program, but Columbia Memorial Hospital is still waiting to receive its $14 million.
Hospital leaders say they have had almost no communication from FEMA about the status of the grant.
“I call for those funds to be released today and will keep fighting for that to happen,” Bonamici said, adding that BRIC program grants went out to communities across the country. The funding had bipartisan support and were, she argued, a “good use of federal dollars.”
“Fourteen million dollars in the overall scheme of the federal budget is a tiny little drop, but here, right here at Columbia Memorial Hospital, it is a life-saving investment and we need that money to come through,” Bonamici said.
The congresswoman also took shots at the war in Iran, which is estimated to have cost more than $37 billion so far, according to reporting in late July.
“I will note that the amount of money that’s being spent every day on an illegal war that … most people in this country don’t want and the amount of money that’s going to enrich this administration through corruption is outrageous,” Bonamici said. “It makes $14 million here in Columbia Memorial Hospital seem — again, if we don’t get this, it would be a gross injustice.”
On Wednesday, Rayfield said they are waiting to see what FEMA will do next. He said Oregon expects to pursue additional legal action if FEMA does not move ahead with releasing the money. He said the state would likely go back with an amendment to the lawsuit or file a new lawsuit to enforce the terms and commitments of the previous lawsuit.
The CMH Foundation, the fundraising arm for Columbia Memorial Hospital, has raised $8 million of a $10 million fundraising goal. If the BRIC grant fails to materialize, CEO Erik Thorsen said the hospital may need to explore additional fundraising through donations and grants, or pull from reserves — something Thorsen said would potentially delay or jeopardize other investments in hospital equipment.
Columbia Memorial’s BRIC grant required a $6 million match, which the hospital requested from the Oregon Legislature last year. When the BRIC program was canceled, hospital leaders amended their request and were successful in landing the money to help fill the funding gap.
State Representative Cyrus Javadi, an Oregon Democrat, championed that request, and said on Wednesday he would be willing to go back to the Legislature with another request for funding if necessary.
“It’s a big ‘get’ when you get it,” he said of the $6 million ask. “And going back and asking for $14 million or $10 or whatever we need to fill in that gap is going to be a big ask especially going into a year where we’re facing, at the state level, budget crisis shortfalls in every category including healthcare and education.”
“But again,” he added, “the costs of not doing it … absolutely outweigh the costs of letting a project like this just not quite get to the finish line the way we wanted or stealing from other (hospital) projects and priorities that need to be completed.”