The BRIC program seeks to implement the following guiding principles to help communities undertake hazard mitigation projects to reduce risks they face from potential natural hazard events:
- Support state and local governments, tribes and territories through capability- and capacity-building to enable them to identify mitigation actions and implement projects that reduce risks posed by natural hazards.
- Encourage and enable innovation while allowing flexibility, consistency and effectiveness.
- Promote partnerships and enable high-impact investments to reduce risk from natural hazards with a focus on critical services and facilities, public infrastructure, public safety, public health and communities.
- Provide a significant opportunity to reduce future losses and minimize impacts on the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF).
- Promote equity, including by helping members of disadvantaged groups and prioritizing 40% of the benefits to disadvantaged communities as referenced in Executive Order (EO) 14008 on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (Jan. 27, 2021) in line with the Administration’s Justice40 Initiative.
- Support the adoption and enforcement of building codes, standards and policies that will protect the health, safety and general welfare of the public, considering future conditions, prominently including the effects of climate change, and have long-lasting impacts on community risk reduction, including for critical services and facilities and for future disaster costs.
Additional guiding principles also may be outlined in the NOFO governing the respective BRIC application cycle.