Groups sue FEMA and HUD to focus energy funds on distributed solar and storage

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed lawsuits against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), alleging the agencies have withheld public records and failed to outline plans to use “resilient” renewable energy to “rebuild communities ravaged by the climate emergency.”

FEMA “focuses almost exclusively on restoring centralized fossil fuel-based energy systems as it spends billions of taxpayer dollars each year rebuilding communities after disasters,” the center said in a statement.

Last year the center filed a lawsuit aiming to redirect toward solar power FEMA’s $13 billion to rebuild Puerto Rico’s grid. That lawsuit cited a study that recommended equipping every home in Puerto Rico with 2.7 kW of PV and 12.6 kWh of battery storage. Last month the judge handling that FEMA lawsuit transferred the case, at the government’s request, to the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico.

The new lawsuit against FEMA says the agency has failed to comply with a 2018 congressional requirement to define the term “resiliency.” The center says FEMA’s definition of resiliency would show whether the agency is focused on ensuring that communities rebuild “to both withstand and address the climate emergency.”

Meanwhile, HUD “spends billions annually” on utilities in public and assisted housing, the center said, “further propping up the fossil-fuel economy, without significant effort to encourage the use of renewable energy.”

The center’s lawsuit against HUD says the agency violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by withholding public records detailing its spending on energy-related projects to help communities rebuild after disasters. Those public records “should show how much HUD spends on fossil-fuel related projects compared to sustainable renewable energy alternatives,” the center said. The lawsuit asks the court to compel HUD to disclose the records that the center requested in its FOIA request.

The Center for Biological Diversity also submitted formal rulemaking petitions to FEMA and HUD, each supported by 22 other organizations, to develop regulations that would redirect each agency’s resources toward distributed renewable energy, energy efficiency, and building electrification. The lawsuit against FEMA asks the court to require the agency to complete such a rulemaking, specifically to define the terms “resiliency” and “resilient.”

Speaking for a co-plaintiff in the FEMA lawsuit, Ruth Santiago, attorney for Comite Dialogo Ambiental, a community environmental group in Puerto Rico, said that both FEMA and HUD must direct public funds to “resilient energy alternatives” such as onsite solar and storage “that can provide energy security, justice, and equity, and promote community empowerment.”

“FEMA and HUD are stuck in the fossil fuel past,” said Roishetta Ozane, director of the nonprofit Vessel Project of Louisiana, another co-plaintiff in the FEMA lawsuit. “Hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, you name it, communities across the Gulf Coast are overwhelmed by the climate emergency,” she said, adding “it’s time for FEMA and HUD to center energy justice and build a renewable future.”

Speaking for FEMA co-plaintiff New York Communities for Change, the group’s Campaign Director Alicé Nascimento said “people in low-income communities living in flood zones like Southeast Queens have borne the brunt of climate change, facing high tides and flash flooding, and the destructive effects of Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Ida. Every dirty energy project FEMA funds brings us more destroyed livelihoods.”