LOADING ERROR LOADINGJuly 16 (Reuters) - A group of 20 mostly Democrat-led U.S. states filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to block the Trump administration from terminating a multibillion-dollar grant program that funds infrastructure upgrades to protect against natural disasters. The lawsuit filed in Boston federal court claims that the Federal Emergency Management Agency lacked the power to cancel the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program in April after it was approved and funded by Congress. “By unilaterally shutting down FEMA’s flagship pre-disaster mitigation program, Defendants have acted unlawfully and violated core separation of powers principles,” said the states, led by Washington and Massachusetts. The funding has been used for evacuation shelters, flood walls and improvements to roads and bridges, among other projects. AdvertisementOver the past four years FEMA has approved roughly $4.5 billion in grants for nearly 2,000 projects, much of which went to coastal states, according to Tuesday’s lawsuit.
