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Attorney General Nessel Leads Lawsuit Challenging Illegal Terms to FEMA Grants
November 04, 2025
LANSING — Today, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel led a coalition of 12 states in a lawsuit (PDF) against Secretary Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary David Richardson, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for, once again, interfering with grants already promised to the states for emergency management, disaster relief, and homeland security operations.
“The Trump Administration should be working with states to keep our residents safe,” Nessel said. “Instead, the White House continues again and again to pull the rug out from under us, putting the safety of our communities in jeopardy. Congress created FEMA to ensure the federal government would stand with the people it serves in times of crisis, not abandon them. Only Congress—not the president—has the authority to scale back that mission, and as promised, each and every time this administration acts unlawfully and harms the people of Michigan, I will take legal action on behalf of the people of our state.”
Since taking office in January, the Trump Administration has attempted to reduce FEMA’s role and shift the burden of emergency management to the States by denying or restricting requests for emergency declarations, withholding grant funding, and imposing irrelevant and unconstitutional terms on recipients of long-standing FEMA grants. Many of these illegal actions have been successfully challenged in court, and a previous case resulted in over $100M reimbursed to the Michigan State Police.
The coalition maintains 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 depart from past practice and serve only as obstacles in obtaining and using the funding as previously promised.
These grants fund a substantial portion of the State’s emergency management apparatus, including the Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division within the Michigan State Police. They also provide federal funding to states to assist with homeland security and terrorism prevention, like active shooter trainings for law enforcement and school personnel in Michigan, as well as local police support for the Secret Service and operational overtime for state Troopers.
The federal government has placed an improper funding hold on one grant and changed the timeline for the expenditure of funding under both grants. The coalition argues that these terms are unlawful because they exceed Defendants’ authority, are contrary to law, fail to comply with required procedures, and are unexplained. By imposing these terms, Defendants have inappropriately restricted the states’ ability to use the funding as anticipated—including for past and future projects that fall within the scope of the grant programs.
Joining Attorney General Nessel are the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Hawai’i, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Wisconsin, as well as the Governor of Kentucky. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.
A video from Attorney General Nessel discussing the suit can be found online and is available for public use.
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