About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1 1 (June 17, 2024)

handle is hein.crs/govepqg0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congres&onal Research infon ing I Ie~ I live d~ a ~ o Updated June 17, 2024 National Level Exercises: History, Authorities, and Congressional Considerations Every two years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducts a National Level Exercise (NLE) to evaluate the nation's progress toward preparedness for catastrophic events. These exercises have multiple components, and culminate in a large, full-scale exercise with thousands of participants from multiple federal agencies, state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments, industry partners, and nongovernmental organizations. The next NLE, scheduled in 2024, is to test the nation's ability to respond to a large hurricane on the Hawaiian Islands. Furthermore, NLE 2024 is to include cyberattacks in Guam further complicating supply chain issues caused by the damage to Honolulu Harbor. Istory and Author ities In 1988, much federal attention was paid to the ability of the nation to respond to and recover from emergencies and major disasters. Congress passed the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (P.L. 100- 707), and President Ronald Reagan issued Executive Order 12656, which established a national security emergency exercise program and directed FEMA to coordinate the planning, conduct, and evaluation of these activities. The order did not mandate exercises of national scope or broad participation by federal agencies. In 1996, due to increasing concern about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Congress passed the Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-201). The law directed the Secretary of Defense to develop and carry out a program for testing and improving the responses of Federal, State, and local agencies to emergencies involving biological weapons and related materials and emergencies involving chemical weapons and related materials (50 U.S.C. §2315). It also mandated a five-year series of annual exercises to be conducted in coordination with the Secretary of Energy, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the FEMA Administrator, as well as state and local officials. Congress further addressed the need for an exercise of national scope in 1998. The Senate Committee on Appropriations, noted that few of the top officials of agencies have ever fully participated in ongoing preparedness exercises, and directed that an exercise be conducted in fiscal year 1999 with the participation of all key personnel who would participate in the consequence management of ... an actual terrorist event. The result was the Top Officials (TOPOFF) exercise, the first of what became a series of four full-scale exercises conducted between 2000 and 2007. The series was held biennially to assess the nation's crisis and consequence management capacity under extraordinary conditions and leveraged scenarios of national scope. Each exercise focused on terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction. During this time period, the September 11, 2001, attacks and anthrax attacks amplified the need for domestic preparedness. Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296) and assigned the responsibility for exercises to various positions within the newly formed Department of Homeland Security; no additional direction was provided regarding the quantity, quality, or scope of preparedness exercises. In 2003, President George W. Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 8 (HSPD- 8) which directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a multi-year national homeland security preparedness-related exercise plan and submit it to the Homeland Security Council (HSC) for review and approval. HSPD-8 did not provide additional guidance on the nature or frequency of national level exercises. Despite having had two TOPOFF exercises, federal agencies and other government partners were considered largely unprepared to respond to the catastrophic events of Hurricane Katrina, as documented by S.Rept. 109-322. In response, Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act in 2006 (P.L. 109-295) and required the Administrator of FEMA to test and evaluate the capability of federal, state, territorial, local, and tribal governments to detect, disrupt, and prevent threatened or actual catastrophic acts of terrorism, especially those involving weapons of mass destruction ... and to test and evaluate the readiness of Federal, State, territorial, local, and tribal governments to respond and recover in a coordinated and unified manner to catastrophic incidents at least every two years. The law required tests and evaluations of readiness for catastrophic incidents to assure preparedness for major natural hazards as well as weapons of mass destruction. It also shifted the focus of participation from top federal officials to whole-of-nation stakeholders. In 2009, TOPOFF exercises were renamed Tier 1 National Level Exercises and continued under this name until 2012. In 2011, President Barack Obama issued Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8) to further clarify the federal government's approach to preparedness. PPD-8 established that the national preparedness system shall include guidance for planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercises to build and maintain domestic capabilities. It shall provide an all-of-Nation approach for building and sustaining a cycle of preparedness activities over time. NLEs were renamed Capstone Exercises to represent their placement in the broader scheme of federal and SLTT exercises. In 2018, FEMA returned to the NLE naming convention.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most