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entitled 'Emergency Management Assistance Compact: Enhancing EMAC's 
Collaborative and Administrative Capacity Should Improve National 
Disaster Response' which was released on August 30, 2007.

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Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 
U.S. Senate:

United States Government Accountability Office:

GAO:

June 2007:

Emergency Management Assistance Compact:

Enhancing EMAC's Collaborative and Administrative Capacity Should 
Improve National Disaster Response:

EMAC's National Disaster Response:

GAO-07-854:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-07-854, a report to the Committee on Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate

Why GAO Did This Study:

The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is a collaborative 
arrangement among member states that provides a legal framework for 
requesting resources. Working alongside federal players, including the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Guard 
Bureau, EMAC members deployed an unprecedented level of assistance in 
response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  Although EMAC played a 
critical role in our nation’s response to these hurricanes, the 
magnitude of these events revealed limitations. 

GAO was asked to (1) examine how the use of EMAC has changed since its 
inception; (2) assess how well existing policies, procedures, and 
practices facilitate collaboration; and (3) evaluate the adequacy of 
the EMAC network’s administrative capacity to achieve its mission. GAO 
examined documents and interviewed officials from 45 federal, state, 
and local agencies and offices. 

GAO makes recommendations to the Secretaries of DHS and DOD to further 
enhance the administrative capacity required to support the EMAC 
network and to develop guidance and to formalize certain procedures to 
alleviate burdens experienced by EMAC members during catastrophic 
disasters.   DHS concurred with all of our recommendations. DOD did not 
concur with one recommendation.  

What GAO Found:

Since its inception in 1995, the EMAC network has grown significantly 
in size, volume, and the type of resources it provides. EMAC’s 
membership has increased from a handful of states in 1995 to 52 states 
and territories today, and EMAC members have used the compact to obtain 
support for several types of disasters including hurricanes, floods, 
and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The volume and variety of 
resources states have requested under EMAC have also grown 
significantly. For example, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist 
attacks, New York requested 26 support staff under EMAC to assist in 
emergency management operations; whereas, in response to the 2005 Gulf 
Coast hurricanes, approximately 66,000 personnel—about 46,500 National 
Guard and 19,500 civilian responders—were deployed under EMAC from a 
wide variety of specialties, most of whom went to areas directly 
impacted by the storms. 

EMAC, along with its accompanying policies, procedures, and practices, 
enables its members to overcome differences to achieve a common 
mission—streamlining and expediting the delivery of resources among 
members during disasters. While these policies, procedures, and 
practices have worked well for smaller-scale deployments, they have not 
kept pace with the changing use of EMAC, sometimes resulting in 
confusion and deployment delays. The EMAC network has taken steps to 
address several of these challenges, but additional improvements can be 
made in a number of areas including clarifying roles and 
responsibilities of EMAC members and improving existing systems that 
track resources deployed under EMAC. In addition, a lack of 
sufficiently detailed federal standards and policies has led to some 
reimbursement delays and additional administrative burdens.  

While the EMAC network has developed a basic administrative capacity, 
opportunities exist for it to further build on and sustain these 
efforts. The EMAC network has adopted several good management 
practices, such as using after-action reports to learn from experiences 
and developing a 5-year strategic plan. However, the EMAC network can 
enhance its administrative capacity by improving how it plans, 
measures, and reports on its performance. FEMA provided $2 million to 
help build this capacity in 2003, but the agreement has recently 
expired. FEMA and EMAC leadership are in the process of finalizing a 
new 3-year cooperative agreement. Such an agreement would enhance the 
EMAC network’s ability to support its collaborative efforts.  

(See PDF for image)

Source: FEMA.

[End of figure]

[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-854].

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Stanley Czerwinski at 
(202) 512-6806 or Sharon Pickup (202) 512-9619.

[End of section]

Contents:

Letter:

Results in Brief;

Background;

EMAC's Membership and Usage Have Grown Over Time to Include Different 
Types of Disasters and Responders;

EMAC Provides for Successful Collaboration, but Opportunities Exist for 
Improvement;

EMAC Network Has Developed a Basic Administrative Capacity, but 
Opportunities Exist to Further Support Its Mission;

Conclusions;

Recommendations for Executive Action;

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation;

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology;

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense;

Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments;

Figures:

Figure 1: The EMAC Process;

Figure 2: Growth in EMAC Membership from 1995 through 2007;

Figure 3: Number of Civilian and National Guard Personnel Deployed 
through EMAC in Response to Selected Disasters;

Figure 4: Types of Civilian Personnel Deployed through EMAC in Response 
to Selected Disasters;

Figure 5: Percentage of Out-of-State Personnel Deployed on September 
10, 2005, in Response to Hurricane Katrina;

Figure 6: EMAC Members' Ability to Deploy Private Sector and Volunteer 
Assets through EMAC;

Abbreviations:

DHS: Department of Homeland Security:
DOD: Department of Defense:
EMAC: Emergency Management Assistance Compact:
FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency:
NEMA: National Emergency Management Association:
NGB: National Guard Bureau:
NRP: National Response Plan:

United States Government Accountability Office:

Washington, DC 20548:

June 29, 2007:

The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman:
Chairman:
The Honorable Susan M. Collins:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
United States Senate:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita provide powerful examples of how 
catastrophic events can overwhelm the capacity of individual states, 
requiring them to rely on outside sources for assistance. Over the past 
12 years, states affected by disasters such as hurricanes Katrina and 
Rita have increasingly relied on the Emergency Management Assistance 
Compact (EMAC) as a means to access resources from other states, 
including emergency managers, National Guard assets, and first 
responders. For example, approximately 66,000 personnel from 48 states, 
2 territories, and the District of Columbia deployed to the Gulf states 
in 2005 to assist in response and recovery efforts--by far the largest 
example of state mutual assistance to date. While this assistance was 
state to state, these resources played a critical role in the nation's 
overall disaster response efforts and cost the federal government 
hundreds of millions of dollars.

EMAC establishes a structure for member states to request and deploy 
assistance, reimburse states that provide assistance, and confer 
liability and workers' compensation protections.[Footnote 1] As your 
committee and others have reported, EMAC enabled an unprecedented level 
of assistance in 2005 to be deployed to impacted areas in a timely and 
effective manner.[Footnote 2] However, the magnitude of catastrophic 
events such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita strained the EMAC process 
and revealed limitations in the system to support operations. 
Responding to disasters involves many actors and the inclusion of every 
level of government, as well as the network of EMAC member states (EMAC 
network). As a result, effective collaboration between these members, 
as well as between the EMAC network and federal agencies such as the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Guard 
Bureau (NGB), is essential for states to identify, request, deploy, and 
reimburse resources under EMAC.

You asked us to determine (1) the extent to which EMAC membership and 
usage have changed since its inception in 1995; (2) the degree to which 
existing policies, procedures, and practices facilitate collaboration 
among EMAC's members and between the EMAC network and certain federal 
agencies; and (3) the extent to which the EMAC network has the 
administrative capacity--the ability to provide adequate human capital, 
financial, information technology, and other resources to support 
operations--to build and sustain the collaborative effort to achieve 
its mission.

To determine how EMAC membership and usage have changed, we reviewed 
and analyzed membership data and available data detailing previous 
activations of the EMAC process, including the volume and type of 
resources deployed for each activation. To assess the reliability of 
the data, we reviewed additional documents and conducted additional 
interviews with local, state, and federal emergency management 
officials for selected events captured by the database. In cases where 
the data were inaccurate, we supplemented them with data from more 
reliable sources. In addition, we selected past disasters for further 
analysis based on the type, scale, and timing of the disasters. We 
interviewed past and present leaders of the EMAC network and state 
officials who requested assistance in previous disasters under EMAC. We 
also reviewed relevant guidance, protocols, and law.

To determine the degree to which existing policies, procedures, and 
practices facilitated collaboration, we analyzed civilian and military 
guidance and laws that specified how the various players were to 
coordinate, and we compared them to actual coordination during the 
disasters. We also interviewed government officials at the state, 
local, and federal levels. Our interviews included officials from 29 
states, civilian and National Guard responders, and EMAC leadership. In 
addition, we interviewed officials from localities including Hancock 
and Harrison counties, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana. To 
assess collaboration between levels of government, we interviewed 
officials from FEMA, NGB, and the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, along with the state and local officials previously 
mentioned. In assessing the nature and extent of collaboration among 
EMAC members and between the EMAC network and key federal players, we 
applied criteria we previously developed regarding successful 
collaborative practices.[Footnote 3]

To determine the extent to which the EMAC network has the 
administrative capacity to build and sustain the collaborative effort, 
we interviewed EMAC leadership and officials from EMAC member states 
and analyzed EMAC strategic planning documents and state, federal, and 
EMAC after-action reports. For more information on our scope and 
methodology, see appendix I. We conducted our work from June 2006 
through June 2007 in accordance with generally accepted government 
auditing standards.

Results in Brief:

Since its inception in 1995, the EMAC network has grown significantly 
in membership as well as volume and type of resources it provides-- 
responding to a myriad of disasters, including hurricanes, floods, 
wildfires, and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.[Footnote 4] 
During this time, EMAC membership has grown from 4 states to its 
current membership of 49 states, 2 territories, and the District of 
Columbia. The resources deployed through the EMAC network have also 
greatly increased in number and diversity. Prior to 2004, states used 
EMAC primarily to request emergency management personnel to support 
their emergency management operations centers. For example, in 2001, 
New York requested 26 emergency management personnel in response to the 
September 11 terrorist attacks. In 2004, the way states used EMAC to 
augment in-state assistance changed significantly. In response to the 
2004 Florida hurricanes, approximately 2,500 National Guard and 
civilian personnel deployed to state operations centers as well as to 
impacted areas.[Footnote 5] In response to the 2005 Gulf Coast 
hurricanes, the personnel deployed through EMAC increased to 
approximately 66,000 persons--about 46,500 National Guard and 19,500 
state and local civilian responders--from a wide variety of 
specialties, most of whom were deployed to areas directly impacted by 
the storms.[Footnote 6] In addition, resources deployed under EMAC in 
2005 represented a substantial portion of overall out-of- state 
assistance. For example, on September 10, 2005, such deployments 
constituted more than half of all out-of-state personnel.

EMAC, along with its accompanying policies, procedures, and practices, 
facilitates successful collaboration among its members. The compact 
provides a framework for members to overcome differences in 
organizational cultures and established ways of doing business in order 
to achieve a common mission--streamlining and expediting the delivery 
of resources among members during disasters. Building on this 
framework, the EMAC network also delineates member roles and 
responsibilities for states requesting assistance in several areas, 
such as receiving and integrating emergency management personnel into 
their state emergency operations centers. In addition, to facilitate 
collaboration among members in times of a disaster, the EMAC network 
has established standards and systems regarding how members seek and 
provide assistance through EMAC. Finally, some members have developed 
practices that may provide models or insights to other members to 
enhance their ability to leverage resources under EMAC--providing 
additional benefits that would not otherwise be available. For example, 
through advanced planning and coordination with other states, Florida 
has been able to reduce the amount of time it takes to secure medical 
transportation for patients in the Florida Keys should such services be 
required following a disaster. Conversely, states have identified other 
scenarios where they will not likely be able to turn to the EMAC 
network for assistance, such as an influenza pandemic.

Although the EMAC framework and accompanying policies, procedures, and 
practices provide for collaboration, they have not kept pace with the 
growing use of EMAC. While delineated roles and responsibilities have 
worked well for smaller-scale deployments through EMAC, large-scale 
deployments, such as those in response to the 2004 Florida hurricanes 
and 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, revealed some shortcomings. For 
example, although the EMAC network delineates roles and 
responsibilities with regard to receiving and integrating emergency 
management personnel into state emergency operations centers, similar 
guidelines do not exist for the receipt and integration of first 
responders into impacted areas, sometimes resulting in confusion and 
deployment delays. Limitations in EMAC standards and policies presented 
challenges with regard to efficient communication of resources and 
comprehensive resource tracking. As a result, emergency resources were 
delayed up to several days as mission specifications were clarified, 
and limitations in tracking resource requests yielded confusion as to 
the status of some missions. Limitations in EMAC standards and 
policies, coupled with a lack of understanding of these standards and 
policies, led to reimbursement delays. In addition, a lack of 
sufficiently detailed federal standards and policies resulted in 
reimbursement delays and additional administrative burdens.

The EMAC network has begun to develop the basic administrative capacity 
necessary to facilitate efficient and effective sharing of resources 
between members in a disaster, but opportunities exist to further build 
and sustain these efforts. The EMAC network has adopted several good 
management practices, such as using after-action reports to learn from 
past disasters and developing a 5-year strategic plan. Building on its 
progress, there are additional opportunities to improve the way the 
network plans, tracks, and reports on its performance. In 2003, FEMA 
provided $2 million to help build the EMAC network's administrative 
capacity, but this agreement has recently expired. FEMA and EMAC 
leadership are in the process of finalizing a new 3-year cooperative 
agreement. Such an agreement would enhance the EMAC network's ability 
to provide adequate human capital and information technology to support 
its collaborative efforts.

We are making recommendations to the Secretaries of Homeland Security 
and Defense to enhance the administrative capacity required to support 
the EMAC network and to develop guidance and to formalize procedures to 
alleviate financial and administrative burdens EMAC members have 
experienced in response to catastrophic disasters. We provided a draft 
of this report to the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary 
of Defense for comment. The Director of FEMA's Office of Policy and 
Program Analysis provided oral comments, concurring with all of our 
recommendations. FEMA also provided technical comments that were 
incorporated as appropriate. The Department of Defense (DOD) did not 
concur with one recommendation and its response is reprinted in 
appendix II. In his written comments on a draft of this report, the 
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs did not agree with 
our recommendation that the Secretary of Defense work with the 
Secretary of Homeland Security to amend the National Response Plan's 
Catastrophic Incident Supplement Execution Schedule to include early 
consideration of the use of Title 32 in situations where the Secretary 
of Defense deems it appropriate. The Assistant Secretary stated that 
use of National Guard forces in Title 32 status is an inherent DOD 
function outside the purview of the Secretary of Homeland Security. We 
agree that the use of National Guard forces in Title 32 status is an 
inherent DOD function, and our recommendation is consistent with this 
statement. However, the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense, 
per Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5, shall establish 
appropriate relationships and mechanisms for cooperation and 
coordination in response to catastrophic disasters. Our reference to 
the Secretary of Homeland Security was simply to acknowledge DHS's 
coordinator role for the National Response Plan. DOD also stated that 
amending the National Response Plan as we suggested could be 
interpreted to imply that it is DOD policy to place National Guard 
forces into Title 32 status. However, our recommendation does not state 
that DOD should place National Guard forces into any particular status. 
Instead, we call for a mechanism to trigger DOD's consideration of 
whether authorization of Title 32 status is appropriate in the earlier 
stages of a catastrophic event. We also provided the draft report to 
the Chair of the EMAC Executive Task Force and the Executive Director 
of the National Emergency Management Association. Relevant sections of 
the draft report were provided to state and local emergency offices 
whose experiences we reference. Technical suggestions from these groups 
have been incorporated as appropriate.

Background:

Interstate compacts are legal agreements between states that allow them 
to act collectively to address issues that transcend state 
borders.[Footnote 7] Interstate compacts that may affect the balance of 
power between states and encroach upon or impair the supremacy of the 
United States must have congressional consent.[Footnote 8] Since the 
late 1940s, states have entered into interstate compacts to facilitate 
the sharing of resources across state lines in response to disasters. 
In passing the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950,[Footnote 9] Congress 
encouraged states to enter into interstate agreements that provided a 
legal framework for mutual defense aid and disaster assistance. By the 
early 1950s, virtually all states and other jurisdictions entered into 
defense aid and disaster compacts. However, after years of minimal 
financing and public support, the Federal Civil Defense Act did not 
play a significant role in facilitating disaster response.

After Hurricane Andrew devastated southern Florida in 1992, Congress 
enacted many of the repealed provisions of the Federal Civil Defense 
Act into the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency 
Assistance Act in 1994.[Footnote 10] Responding to similar concerns 
raised following Hurricane Andrew, the Southern Governors' Association 
created the Southern Regional Emergency Management Assistance Compact 
to enable member states to provide mutual aid in managing any emergency 
or disaster that had been designated as such by the governor of the 
impacted state. It also provided for mutual emergency-related 
activities, testing, and training. In 1995, the Southern Governors' 
Association opened membership to all U.S. states and territories, 
revising the terms of the agreement and adopting the new name, the 
Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). Congress consented to 
the compact in 1996.[Footnote 11]

Member States Provide Governance for EMAC Network While NEMA Provides 
Administrative Support:

EMAC is a mutual aid agreement among member states and is not a 
government agency.[Footnote 12] Overall governance is provided by the 
EMAC Committee, whose chair is selected annually by the President of 
the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA).[Footnote 13] Day- 
to-day work of the EMAC Committee is carried out by an EMAC Executive 
Task Force whose members are elected by the EMAC membership. The Chair 
of the EMAC Committee works with the Executive Task Force to develop 
policies and issue guidance. NEMA provides administrative oversight for 
the EMAC network. Since 2003, NEMA has assigned one person to serve as 
the EMAC Coordinator--the only paid employee dedicated full time to 
EMAC--as well as a part-time consultant who serves in the position of 
EMAC Senior Adviser.[Footnote 14] Both of these positions have been 
funded through a cooperative agreement between FEMA and NEMA to provide 
administrative and management support for EMAC.

Process for Requesting and Providing Assistance under EMAC:

EMAC operating protocols outline one process for member states to 
request and provide assistance, whether these resources are civilian or 
National Guard. The process describes how to request, provide, receive, 
and reimburse assistance from other member states in response to a 
disaster. Before resources can be deployed under EMAC, the governor of 
an impacted state must first declare an emergency. Representatives from 
the impacted state then contact EMAC leadership to inform them that 
interstate assistance may be needed. If desired, the impacted--or 
requesting--state can ask the EMAC leadership to send a team of 
emergency management personnel to the state's emergency operations 
center to assist with subsequent resource requests under EMAC. The 
requesting state can then request additional resources through the EMAC 
network from other member states. These states--often referred to as 
assisting states--work with the requesting state to identify resources 
required and other details. Once both the requesting and assisting 
states approve the final details, resources are deployed to the area of 
need. Once the missions have been completed and resources have returned 
home, the assisting states prepare formal requests for reimbursement, 
which are then sent to, and processed by, the requesting state. Figure 
1 provides a summary of this process.

Figure 1: The EMAC Process:

[See PDF for image]

Source: GAO analysis of EMAC operating procedures.

[End of figure]

In cases when a disaster strikes multiple states, FEMA has a standing 
agreement with NEMA to request a team of emergency managers to deploy 
to its national or regional coordination centers to help coordinate 
EMAC network and federal activities, as appropriate.

Impacted States Can Request Assistance From FEMA to Help Cover Eligible 
Costs for Missions Under EMAC:

Although EMAC is an agreement between states, catastrophic disasters 
can overwhelm the resources of an impacted state, requiring it to seek 
assistance from the federal government. In the case of a presidentially 
declared disaster, impacted states can work with FEMA to seek federal 
financial assistance to cover costs associated with emergency response 
efforts that may include eligible missions conducted under EMAC. In 
such cases, the impacted state prepares project worksheets--a form used 
to collect and document information on the scope and estimated cost for 
public assistance projects--and submits them to FEMA for review. Once 
approved, FEMA will obligate funds for the project to the impacted 
state, which in turn reimburses the assisting state directly. As of 
June 2007, Mississippi and Louisiana are in the process of seeking 
financial assistance from FEMA to cover approximately $200 million for 
missions conducted under EMAC.

NGB Is the Coordinator of National Guard Assets:

The National Guard Bureau's (NGB) mission is to participate with the 
Army and Air Force staffs in the formulation, development, and 
coordination of all programs, policies, concepts, and plans for the 
National Guard. NGB has visibility of all National Guard assets and 
advises the states on force availability to support all requirements. 
NGB serves as a coordinator between the Secretaries of the Army and Air 
Force and state National Guard assets. This is achieved through 
coordinating with state governors and adjutant generals. NGB also 
monitors and assists the states in the organization, maintenance, and 
operation of their National Guard units.

Another aspect of NGB's coordination is working with other DOD agencies 
as it carries out responsibilities to address domestic emergencies 
assigned in accordance with the National Response Plan (NRP). The 
purpose of the NRP is to establish a comprehensive, national, all- 
hazards approach to domestic incident management across a spectrum of 
activities, including prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. 
In addition, it contains a catastrophic incident annex that establishes 
the strategy for implementing and coordinating an accelerated proactive 
national response to a catastrophic incident, including strategies to 
rapidly provide key resources to augment state, local, and tribal 
response efforts during a catastrophic event. The NRP also contains a 
catastrophic incident supplement with a detailed execution schedule 
that lists steps that agencies should take at specific times ranging 
from within 10 minutes of the start of an incident time to within 96 
hours after the incident occurs. The purpose of this supplement is to 
accelerate the delivery of federal and federally accessible resources 
and capabilities in support of a response to a no-notice or short-
notice catastrophic incident. These are incidents in which the response 
capabilities and resources of the local jurisdiction (including mutual 
aid from surrounding jurisdictions) will be profoundly insufficient and 
quickly overwhelmed.

EMAC's Membership and Usage Have Grown Over Time to Include Different 
Types of Disasters and Responders:

Since the inception of the EMAC in 1995, both the number of members and 
the volume and types of resources requested have grown considerably. 
States activated EMAC in response to a variety of emergencies, 
including hurricanes; floods; wildfires; and the September 11, 2001 
terrorist attacks. In recent years, the volume and types of resources 
deployed under EMAC have also increased. Resources deployed under EMAC 
represented a substantial portion of overall out-of-state assistance 
deployed in response to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.

EMAC Membership Has Increased to 52:

EMAC membership has grown from a handful of members in 1995 to 52 
today. EMAC grew out of the Southern Regional Emergency Management 
Assistance Compact, which was created in August 1993 by the Southern 
Governors' Association and the Virginia Department of Emergency 
Services following Hurricane Andrew. When EMAC was formed in 1995, 
membership consisted of 4 states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, 
and Virginia. Since that time, as figure 2 shows, EMAC membership has 
grown to 49 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the 
District of Columbia.[Footnote 15]

Figure 2: Growth in EMAC Membership from 1995 through 2007:

[See PDF for image]

Source: GAO analysis of state laws.

[A] California's membership expired in March 2007.

[End of figure]

During this period, states have used EMAC in response to a variety of 
emergency events, including natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and 
other disasters and emergencies. For example, the states activated the 
EMAC process in response to disasters such as the 2005 Gulf Coast 
hurricanes; tornadoes in Kansas and Kentucky; floods in West Virginia 
and New Hampshire; wildfires in Texas and Nebraska; the September 11, 
2001 terrorist attacks; and a variety of other disasters and 
emergencies, such as the 2003 Rhode Island Nightclub Fire and the Space 
Shuttle Columbia Disaster.

2004 and 2005 Deployments Exceeded Prior Years:

In 2004 and 2005, the number and types of deployments under EMAC 
exceeded previous years' deployments. Although deployment data for 1995 
through 2004 are incomplete, EMAC leadership reported that deployments 
were higher in 2004 than in previous years. Data compiled by the EMAC 
network demonstrate that the total civilian and National Guard 
deployments in response to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes were more 
than 25 times the number of the deployments for the 2004 Florida 
hurricanes. Figure 3 shows EMAC deployment data for some significant 
disasters.

Figure 3: Number of Civilian and National Guard Personnel Deployed 
through EMAC in Response to Selected Disasters:

[See PDF for image]

Source: GAO analysis of EMAC, New York, and Florida state data.

Note: Given the limited reliability of the aggregate data maintained by 
the EMAC network, we have supplemented the data where appropriate. See 
app. I for more details.

[End of figure]

States have made larger requests for assistance under EMAC, and they 
have requested a wider range of resources. According to EMAC 
leadership, prior to 2004, states primarily requested emergency 
management personnel to support their state emergency operations 
centers. For example, of the estimated 40,000 people who responded to 
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York, New York officials 
requested only 26 emergency management personnel under EMAC to 
supplement state emergency management efforts. In 2004, Florida 
requested a wider variety of resources from other states under EMAC 
than had been requested in previous disasters. It requested first 
response personnel, health professionals, logistics support, and 
emergency management support for county emergency operations centers. 
In 2005, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, and Florida requested 
an even greater variety of resources under EMAC, including 46,503 
National Guard personnel, 6,882 law enforcement responders, 2,825 fire 
and hazardous materials responders, and 9,719 other responders, many of 
whom were local government assets deployed directly to the impacted 
areas.[Footnote 16] Figure 4 shows the variety of civilian personnel 
deployed under EMAC for selected significant disasters.

Figure 4: Types of Civilian Personnel Deployed through EMAC in Response 
to Selected Disasters:

[See PDF for image]

Source: GAO analysis of EMAC and New York state data.

[End of figure]

During the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes, Resources Deployed under EMAC 
Represented a Substantial Percentage of Overall Out-of-State Response:

Resources deployed under EMAC in response to the 2005 Gulf Coast 
hurricanes constituted a substantial portion of overall out-of-state 
response efforts. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Louisiana and 
Mississippi both relied heavily on support from other states to 
supplement their own emergency response efforts. Although the exact 
number of personnel deployed to Louisiana and Mississippi in response 
to Hurricane Katrina is not known, data available on the response 
during the first 2 weeks clearly indicate that the share of personnel 
deployed under EMAC represented a significantly larger share of 
personnel deployed from out of state than from any other contributor, 
including states that are not members of EMAC; the active component, 
military; FEMA; the U.S. Coast Guard; and federal law enforcement. 
Figure 5 shows the distribution of out-of-state personnel deployed to 
impacted states following Hurricane Katrina.

Figure 5: Percentage of Out-of-State Personnel Deployed on September 
10, 2005, in Response to Hurricane Katrina:

[See PDF for image]

Source: GAO analysis of DOD, DHS, and EMAC data.

[A] California did not join EMAC until September 14, 2005.

[End of figure]

EMAC Provides for Successful Collaboration, but Opportunities Exist for 
Improvement:

EMAC, along with its accompanying policies, procedures, and practices, 
provides for successful collaboration that enables its members to 
request resources and provides timely assistance to states in need. 
However, opportunities exist to enhance and sustain collaborative 
efforts within the EMAC network and between the network and federal 
agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Our previous work 
identified a number of steps that can improve collaboration, including 
(1) clearly articulating roles and responsibilities; (2) establishing 
clear, consistent, and compatible standards; and (3) identifying 
opportunities to leverage and share resources.[Footnote 17] While the 
compact itself and the policies and procedures adopted by the EMAC 
network have clarified roles and responsibilities for some key 
operations, coordination can be improved among EMAC members to reduce 
confusion and delays when deploying resources. EMAC members have also 
adopted protocols, standards, and systems that work well for smaller- 
scale deployments, though gaps still exist with regard to requesting 
resource needs, tracking resource requests, and facilitating 
reimbursement following catastrophic disasters. Finally, some members 
have developed practices that may provide models or insights to other 
members to enhance their ability to leverage resources under EMAC.

EMAC Provides a Framework to Achieve a Common Mission:

As we have previously found, to overcome differences in organizational 
cultures and established ways of doing business, collaborating 
organizations must have a clear and compelling rationale to work 
together.[Footnote 18] This compelling rationale can be imposed through 
legislation or other directives or can come from the organizations' own 
perceptions of the benefits they can obtain from working together. 
Collaborating organizations must also work across organizational lines 
to define and articulate a common outcome consistent with their 
respective goals.

EMAC provides a framework that helps its members to overcome 
differences in missions, organizational cultures, and established ways 
of doing business in order to achieve a common outcome--streamlining 
and expediting the delivery of resources among members during 
emergencies. Each member must enact identical legislation to that of 
the EMAC legislation passed by Congress in 1996, ensuring that member 
states' goals are aligned with the goals outlined in the compact. The 
EMAC language sets the foundation for members to provide mutual 
assistance in a disaster or emergency, regardless whether it is a 
natural disaster or a man-made disaster, such as technological hazard, 
civil emergency, community disorder, or enemy attack. In addition, the 
compact language:

* outlines responsibilities for the members to formulate procedural 
plans and programs for interstate cooperation through EMAC;

* affords personnel from assisting states the same duties, rights, and 
privileges afforded to similar personnel within the requesting state 
(except for the power of arrest);

* accepts licenses, certificates, or other permits for skills requested;

* provides liability protection to responders from assisting states as 
agents of the requesting state for tort liability and immunity purposes;

* requires that assisting states provide workers' compensation for 
resources deployed from their states; and:

* calls for the reimbursement of services rendered through EMAC.

By streamlining legal and other administrative requirements associated 
with sharing resources across state lines, EMAC enables states to more 
quickly provide emergency assistance in times of disaster than if these 
states worked outside of EMAC to seek and provide assistance. For 
example, although New York was not a member of EMAC prior to the 
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it joined shortly thereafter. New 
York officials stated that they expedited the arrival of the 
supplemental assistance by requesting assistance from EMAC members.

The Lack of Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities in Some Areas 
Limits EMAC's Effectiveness:

While the compact and its accompanying protocols establish roles and 
responsibilities that have worked well for smaller-scale deployments, 
they have not kept pace with the growing use of EMAC, sometimes 
resulting in delays and limiting EMAC's overall effectiveness. Our 
previous work has shown that defining roles and responsibilities among 
collaborating organizations both enhances and sustains 
collaboration.[Footnote 19] In doing so, organizations clarify who will 
do what, thereby better organizing both joint and individual efforts 
and facilitating decision making. In 2004 and 2005, the lack of clearly 
defined roles and responsibilities with regard to receiving and 
integrating resources deployed under EMAC resulted in delays and 
confusion. During this same period, the EMAC network and NGB 
experienced challenges in effectively coordinating, though they have 
since made improvements.

A Lack of Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities in Some Areas Led 
to Delays and Confusion:

The EMAC network delineates roles and responsibilities for requesting 
states to receive and integrate emergency management personnel deployed 
under EMAC through its protocols into states' emergency operations 
centers. For example, the EMAC Operations Manual recommends that 
requesting states provide workstations, equipment, and technology for 
emergency managers deployed to their states' emergency operations 
centers and that these resources be integrated into their states' 
emergency operations centers' organizational charts.

However, the roles and responsibilities of member states have not kept 
pace with the changing use of EMAC. While roles and responsibilities do 
exist for member states to receive and integrate emergency management 
personnel into state emergency operations centers, similar guidelines 
do not exist to define the roles and responsibilities of requesting 
states regarding how to receive and integrate first responders deployed 
under EMAC into impacted areas, leading to confusion and delays--this 
is especially important since most of the resources deployed under EMAC 
in 2004 and 2005 were deployed to areas outside state emergency 
operations centers. This, in turn, affected the overall ability of 
resources deployed under EMAC to provide the necessary assistance in 
response to the 2004 Florida hurricanes and the 2005 Gulf Coast 
hurricanes.

During the response to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, state officials 
managing response efforts on the ground were sometimes unaware of 
general EMAC policies and unprepared to receive or integrate resources 
deployed under EMAC into impacted areas. For example, although 
resources deployed under EMAC do not require additional certification 
to practice their respective professions in the impacted state, 
confusion arose when an emergency medical response team deployed, 
because Mississippi state health officials required the medical team to 
complete supplemental medical licensure applications. In addition, 
Florida health officials told us that they were initially not prepared 
to receive or integrate resources deployed under EMAC in response to 
the 2004 Florida hurricanes, causing some confusion and delaying 
deployments. Learning from their experiences in 2004, Florida officials 
stated that they resolved these shortcomings and had policies and 
procedures in place to receive and integrate out-of-state resources 
when Hurricane Katrina was approaching Florida in 2005.

Local officials we spoke with responsible for receiving and integrating 
resources deployed under EMAC--and many state and local responders who 
interacted with local officials responsible for receiving and 
integrating resources deployed under EMAC--stated that they had limited 
or no knowledge of what EMAC was or how it functioned, were not aware 
that resources had been requested or deployed to assist them, and did 
not have plans for how to employ these resources once they arrived. For 
example, local officials from counties in southern Mississippi told us 
they were unaware that emergency response teams from Florida or New 
York were deployed and were not sure how to employ their assistance. As 
a result, rather than providing immediate assistance at full capacity, 
the emergency response teams spent critical time briefing local 
officials on basic EMAC processes and emergency procedures. In other 
circumstances, resources that were deployed to impacted areas 
experienced challenges in locating points of contact and integrating 
into local command structures. For example, a South Carolina National 
Guard Unit deployed under EMAC told us that it "wasted valuable time" 
waiting for mission assignments from local authorities following 
Hurricane Katrina.

EMAC leadership has taken steps in the past year to address the lack of 
clarity regarding roles and responsibilities of states receiving and 
integrating assistance. These include updating the EMAC Operations 
Manual to include specific language suggesting the need for members to 
establish procedures for requesting and receiving assistance. EMAC 
leadership has also taken steps to address EMAC knowledge gaps among 
state and local officials by creating an ad hoc task force to evaluate 
and improve training materials available to member states, such as a 
brochure to help personnel deployed under EMAC understand basic EMAC 
protocols. However, the EMAC network has not developed as clear 
guidance for receiving and integrating resources into impacted areas as 
it has for receiving and integrating emergency managers into state 
emergency operations centers.

The EMAC Network and NGB Have Improved Coordination in Response to 
Challenges Raised in 2005:

In 2005, the EMAC network and NGB experienced coordination challenges. 
Although both the EMAC network and NGB facilitate the sharing of 
resources across state lines, they had limited visibility into each 
others' systems for initiating and fulfilling requests. For example, 
emergency management officials responsible for coordinating requests 
for assistance under EMAC in the first 3 weeks after Hurricane Katrina 
made landfall stated that they were frequently unaware of National 
Guard deployments under EMAC until after the resources had already 
returned to their home states. In addition, NGB officials responsible 
for coordinating deployments of National Guard resources stated that 
they were unaware of requests for assistance made through EMAC.

Learning from these challenges, the EMAC network and NGB have begun to 
work together to develop a better understanding of their mutual roles 
and responsibilities, as well as how they can collaborate to achieve an 
outcome that benefits their respective missions. For example, to 
improve coordination between the EMAC network and key partners such as 
NGB, EMAC leadership created the EMAC Advisory Group in 2006.[Footnote 
20] NGB, along with other advisory group members, has recently been 
granted access to view reports on requests and deployments under EMAC 
during a disaster.

Gaps in EMAC and Federal Policies, Standards, and Systems Have 
Contributed to Delays and Confusion:

We previously reported that collaborating organizations need to address 
the compatibility of standards, policies, procedures, and data systems 
in their efforts to facilitate working across boundaries and prevent 
misunderstanding.[Footnote 21] While the EMAC network has developed 
protocols, standards, and systems that have generally worked well for 
smaller-scale deployments, gaps emerged with the rapid growth in the 
number and types of resources deployed under EMAC. In addition, gaps in 
federal guidance and protocols resulted in administrative burdens and 
reimbursement delays. We identified challenges in five areas: (1) gaps 
in EMAC protocols with regard to communicating resource needs sometimes 
yielded deployment delays and confusion among requesting state 
officials and resource providers; (2) the lack of a comprehensive 
system to support the tracking of resource requests from initial offers 
of assistance through mission completion in 2005 caused delays, 
duplications of effort, and frustration; (3) existing reimbursement 
standards are not designed to facilitate timely reimbursement following 
catastrophic disasters; (4) the lack of federal guidance to obtain 
advance funding resulted in delaying some state-to-state reimbursements 
under EMAC; and (5) deployment of National Guard troops under two 
different authorities resulted in delays in reimbursement and 
additional administrative burdens.

EMAC Network Has Developed Standards for Communicating Mission 
Requirements, but Gaps Remain:

To facilitate collaboration in times of a disaster, the EMAC network 
has established standard processes and systems regarding how its 
members request resources through EMAC. EMAC processes enable members 
to solicit assistance through the use of standardized e-mail requests 
which are broadcast to everyone in the network, or directly from a 
specific member either in writing or verbally. When an assisting state 
responds to a request for assistance, the requesting and assisting 
states communicate back and forth to negotiate mission details: (1) 
officials from the requesting state approve, sign, and fax the request 
to an assisting state; (2) officials from the assisting state provide 
details on the assistance they intend to provide, sign the request, and 
fax it back to the requesting state; and (3) once the agreement is 
finalized, requesting state officials approve, sign, and fax the 
finalized request for assistance back to the assisting state.

Although the EMAC network has developed these basic processes, gaps in 
some areas have led to confusion and delays among member states 
regarding the effective communication of resource needs when responding 
to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. For example, emergency managers 
deployed under EMAC to Louisiana told us that they received repeated 
requests simply for "search and rescue" teams and that these initial 
requests did not initially contain sufficient detail regarding the type 
of skills and equipment needed to carry out the particular operation 
that was needed. Search and rescue missions can vary significantly--one 
type of mission might require an aerial search and rescue team, while 
another might require a canine search and rescue team. Therefore, 
identifying and then clearly communicating the specific skills and 
equipment required is critical. According to these officials, requests 
that initially omitted critical mission details had to be clarified, 
causing delays in resource deployments of up to 3 or more days as 
requesting and assisting state officials went back and forth to clarify 
these details.

A second shortcoming in how requests were communicated during the 2005 
Gulf Coast hurricanes was that requesting states did not provide 
sufficient details regarding conditions at the locations to which 
resources were deployed. This led to teams arriving in the area of 
operations without necessary support for responders. For example, the 
first firefighters deployed to New Orleans under EMAC were given 
incorrect information regarding the availability of food supplies and 
housing. Accordingly, these firefighters were told they would receive 
transportation, food, and lodging when they arrived. However, once they 
arrived at the initial staging area, they quickly realized that they 
were not going to receive any of these resources. As a result, they 
were delayed at the initial staging area until they located necessary 
supplies on their own.

Responding to concerns raised regarding the clarity of resource 
requests, the EMAC network has taken several steps to improve its 
processes and systems. For example, the EMAC network has adopted 
changes to the EMAC Operations Manual that require requesting states to 
include additional details such as the type of resources requested, 
specifying the particular skills, abilities, or equipment needed. EMAC 
leadership updated the basic form used to request assistance so that it 
now includes additional mission details, such as the severity of 
conditions within the area of operations. EMAC leadership is currently 
transitioning part of the process to an online format with templates, 
pull-down menus, and other tools to help further specify mission 
details and improve the consistency of language used in the request 
process. The new version of the form to request assistance more 
effectively captures personnel deployment considerations (e.g., 
recommended immunizations), but it does not capture equipment 
considerations (e.g., fuel supplies, maintenance provisions, and 
ownership of equipment purchased for the activation).

Lack of Comprehensive System to Track Resource Requests through Mission 
Completion:

The EMAC network does not have a comprehensive system in place to 
support the tracking of resources from initial offers of assistance 
through mission completion. Data systems in place to track resource 
requests and deployments when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005 
did not provide efficient tracking of resources deployed under EMAC. In 
addition, requesting states maintained duplicate and ad hoc systems for 
tracking resource requests and deployments. For example, when 
responding to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes emergency management 
support personnel responsible for facilitating requests for assistance 
recorded the same mission-related information in two separate systems: 
an EMAC system that cataloged all resource requests and a state- 
specific spreadsheet to track resource requests solely for that 
individual state. In 2005, the EMAC network itself found that these 
separate systems were often not aligned with each other and required 
emergency managers to manually reenter data into the EMAC system.

Immediate access to these data systems was not given to personnel 
deployed to state operations centers to facilitate requests under EMAC, 
causing some to create ad hoc systems for tracking requests. In 
addition, emergency managers deployed to state emergency operations 
centers to facilitate requests under EMAC in the first weeks of the 
Hurricane Katrina response efforts told us that they maintained 
duplicative systems to track these requests, including using Post-ItsTM 
and notepads. Emergency management officials responsible for 
coordinating assistance provided under EMAC with other efforts at the 
federal level did not have accurate information. In addition, there are 
no mechanisms in place to ensure that data electronically cataloged by 
the EMAC network are complete or accurate; of the 57 events for which 
the EMAC process was activated since 1995, the EMAC network has 
incomplete information for 72 percent of these events. As a result, 
aggregate data used to report on activities conducted by the EMAC 
network may not accurately reflect the number of deployments, personnel 
deployed, or estimated costs of resources deployed under EMAC.

Officials from assisting states also expressed frustration at not 
knowing whether their offers for assistance had been accepted or 
rejected. For example, after responding to a broadcast message to EMAC 
members for assistance in responding to Hurricane Katrina, emergency 
management officials from two states said that they sometimes had to 
wait several days before finding out whether their offers to assist 
were ultimately accepted. During this period, both states continued to 
ready their resources for deployment although it had turned out that 
their offers to assist were not selected by the requesting state. 
Because these officials were not informed in a timely manner that they 
were not selected to provide assistance on these missions, they 
incurred additional, nonreimbursable costs. As a result, these 
officials stated that they were less likely to mobilize resources in 
advance of a finalized agreement--resulting in additional time to 
deploy once an agreement was reached. In addition, some state officials 
stated they were less likely to deploy resources under EMAC in the 
future as a result of this lack of communication.

Recognizing the need for a more coordinated data system, EMAC 
leadership has taken steps to link requests for assistance with its 
existing resource tracking system. EMAC leadership stated that by 
migrating part of the request process online, they hope to reduce steps 
and simplify the EMAC network's abilities to capture initial requests 
electronically. However, progress remains to be made in developing an 
integrated system that incorporates EMAC mission details into the 
existing resource tracking system.

Reimbursement Processes Are Not Designed for Large-Scale Deployments:

The EMAC network developed a process for establishing basic standards 
and procedures for how states request and make reimbursements. While 
these standards and procedures worked sufficiently for smaller-scale 
deployments, shortcomings emerged when they were applied to larger- 
scale deployments in response to catastrophic disasters. These 
reimbursement delays caused some assisting states and localities to 
forgo or delay expenditures for equipment and other critical purchases. 
In some cases, these delays have caused states and localities to 
reconsider whether they would provide assistance through EMAC in the 
future. Following the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, the EMAC network has 
taken steps to address some of the concerns associated with the 
reimbursement process and standards.

To facilitate reimbursement between states following a disaster, the 
EMAC network developed a process for establishing basic standards and 
procedures for how states request and award reimbursements. While EMAC 
leadership and state emergency managers stated that this process has 
worked reasonably well for smaller-scale deployments, EMAC members 
encountered significant challenges with it during the large-scale 
deployments in response to the Florida hurricanes of 2004 and the Gulf 
Coast hurricanes of 2005. For example, although EMAC standards in 
effect during these events required that disbursement of funds be made 
within 30 days after a mission ended, it took considerably longer to 
actually do so. Specifically, assisting states were not completely 
reimbursed until 10 months after the conclusion of their missions 
following the 2004 hurricanes, and according to the latest data from 
provided to us by Louisiana and Mississippi, 57 percent, or about $119 
million, remains outstanding for missions completed in Mississippi and 
Louisiana following the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.

One of the causes of these delays is the lack of awareness among EMAC 
members regarding recordkeeping requirements and how to process 
reimbursement packages. For example, while EMAC protocols state that 
the requesting state is obligated to reimburse assisting states for 
approved missions deployed under EMAC, assisting states must first file 
reimbursement packages with the requesting state documenting their 
expenses and providing supporting documentation. After the 2005 Gulf 
Coast hurricanes, the lack of awareness of this requirement on the part 
of several assisting states resulted in additional burdens for 
requesting states. In July 2006, Louisiana officials sent letters to 37 
assisting states that had not yet submitted reimbursement packages with 
the state--11 months after Hurricane Katrina. In addition, assisting 
states were not always fully aware of the documentation required to 
support deployment activities. For example, officials from one state 
told us that they were not aware that under EMAC protocols they were 
expected to complete a predeployment inventory of all equipment and 
personnel taken into the impacted area. As a result, these officials 
encountered reimbursement challenges because the state could not 
document equipment lost during its response to the 2005 Gulf Coast 
hurricanes.

Reimbursement was further complicated by the lack of consistent 
understanding as to what is considered reasonably reimbursable 
according to criteria outlined in the EMAC Operations Manual. While 
EMAC protocols detailing reimbursement guidelines did identify a number 
of broad eligible costs--personnel costs, travel costs, equipment 
costs, contractual costs, commodities, and other expenses--they did not 
provide any standards for how states were to determine what types of 
costs under these broad categories were considered reasonable.

The delays in reimbursing assisting state and local agencies in turn 
delayed or eliminated planned expenditures to cover budgetary 
shortfalls. For example, officials with the Virginia State Police told 
us that delays in receiving reimbursement for $1.8 million in 
assistance they provided in response to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes 
forced them to delay or cancel the maintenance and purchase of critical 
equipment and supplies, such as ammunition, uniforms, and office 
supplies. Additionally, state and local officials told us that these 
reimbursement delays have caused them to reconsider the level of 
assistance they would be willing to provide through EMAC in the future.

Following the 2005 hurricane season, the EMAC network has taken steps 
to address some of these reimbursement concerns. For example, the EMAC 
network recently updated the EMAC Operations Manual to incorporate 
additional specificity on the types of costs eligible and not eligible 
for reimbursement. The manual also contains new flexibilities, 
including the elimination of the 30-day reimbursement requirement and 
the option for an assisting state to delay paying actual service 
providers, such as state agencies and local governments, until it first 
receives funds to cover these expenses from the requesting state.

Lack of Federal Guidance Delayed Some State-to-State Reimbursements 
under EMAC:

Although EMAC is an agreement between states, the involvement of the 
federal government following presidentially declared disasters can 
affect state-to-state reimbursements. Under EMAC, requesting states are 
obligated to reimburse assisting states for missions performed under 
the compact. However, catastrophic disasters can overwhelm the 
resources of an impacted state, requiring it to seek financial 
assistance. While the EMAC reimbursement process is intended to be 
independent of any efforts by a requesting state to seek federal 
assistance, the federal government, through FEMA, can offer funding for 
eligible response efforts following a presidentially declared disaster. 
In such circumstances, a requesting state works with FEMA to obtain 
financial assistance for eligible missions. Once it receives this 
assistance, a requesting state can then reimburse assisting states for 
missions performed under EMAC.

Shortly after a presidentially declared disaster occurs, impacted 
states can work with FEMA to seek financial assistance while response 
and recovery efforts are under way to help cover anticipated costs. In 
2004, in an effort to expedite the reimbursement of localities that 
responded to the 2004 Florida hurricanes, FEMA developed a process for 
impacted states to request and receive advance funding based on 
disaster estimates included in an expedited project worksheet. Unlike 
standard project worksheets, expedited project worksheets require less 
specificity as to how funding should be spent, so long as the expedited 
project worksheets are reconciled against actual, authorized spending 
at a later point. These funds could be used to reimburse assisting 
states for responses provided under EMAC or cover other anticipated 
costs. According to a senior FEMA official for the Public Assistance 
Program, guidance on how to seek expedited project worksheets does not 
exist. In 2005, neither Louisiana officials nor Mississippi officials 
were aware that such payments existed. According to Louisiana 
officials, FEMA officials suggested that they obtain advance funding of 
$70 million to alleviate response and recovery costs--including 
assistance provided under EMAC. These officials added that this 
advanced funding enabled them to reimburse assisting states in the 
amount of almost $25 million, or slightly more than half of all 
reimbursements Louisiana provided to assisting states for missions 
conducted under EMAC in response to Hurricane Katrina. In contrast, 
Mississippi officials stated that they were not aware that expedited 
project worksheets could be used to cover eligible EMAC-related costs. 
Accordingly, they did not pursue the same opportunity, and as a result, 
Mississippi has only been able to pay 38 percent of the $113 million 
for missions provided under EMAC.

Deployment of National Guard Troops under Two Different Authorities 
Resulted in Delays in Reimbursement and Additional Administrative 
Burdens:

During Hurricane Katrina, National Guard troops provided assistance in 
their State Active Duty status as well as in Title 32 status, and the 
EMAC process was used for the deployment of National Guard resources. 
When units operate in State Active Duty status, they are under the 
command and control of the assisting state's governor and missions are 
funded by the state. When units are in Title 32 status, units remain 
under the command and control of the governor and continue to deploy 
under EMAC, but their missions are federally funded. Under EMAC, the 
governor of the assisting state delegates operational control to the 
emergency services authorities of the state receiving assistance. If 
deemed appropriate, the Secretary of Defense can approve federal 
funding of National Guard troops under Title 32.

The first National Guard units that responded after Hurricane Katrina 
deployed under State Active Duty status. Then, on September 7, 2005--9 
days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana--the Deputy 
Secretary of Defense authorized the use of DOD funding for National 
Guard troops through Title 32, retroactive to August 29, 2005; all but 
two states elected to do so.[Footnote 22]

While both requesting and assisting states were faced with 
administrative burdens and costs as they transitioned from State Active 
Duty status to Title 32 status, National Guard units deployed in State 
Active Duty status had more administrative requirements than those 
deployed in Title 32 status. Units that remained in State Active Duty 
status were required by EMAC procedures and their state emergency 
operations plans or other guidance to maintain cost-supporting 
documentation throughout their deployment, which was later used for 
reimbursement purposes. Following the disaster, states that deployed 
National Guard units in State Active Duty status submitted this 
documentation to the requesting state to obtain reimbursement, 
negotiating the final amount of the reimbursement with the requesting 
state. The requesting state, in turn, sought federal reimbursement 
through the Public Assistance Program at FEMA.

In contrast, states that deployed their units under EMAC in Title 32 
status were not required to seek reimbursement from the requesting 
state directly, but were reimbursed by DOD. In Title 32 status, 
expenses are directly tracked against a funding-site code assigned by 
DOD, which enables direct payroll payment. Also, a record of equipment 
and maintenance costs is kept for reimbursement through charges against 
the funding-site code.

Use of Title 32 status in response to Hurricane Katrina reduced the 
administrative burdens on both the requesting and the assisting states, 
eliminated the need for requesting states to fund National Guard 
assistance from outside their states, and reduced the time assisting 
states had to wait to be reimbursed. Iowa's and South Carolina's 
experience during the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes illustrates the 
difference between keeping a responding state's National Guard units in 
State Active Duty status and switching to Title 32 status. For those 
units deployed in State Active Duty status, Iowa was required to follow 
standard EMAC processes for seeking reimbursement as opposed to being 
directly reimbursed for missions performed in Title 32 status. It took 
until October 2006 for Iowa to be reimbursed for a water purification 
unit that Iowa's National Guard sent to Mississippi while in State 
Active Duty status in September 2005--9 months from the time the 
mission was completed. South Carolina National Guard troops performed a 
similar mission in Title 32 status, and the state was reimbursed within 
a month.

In addition, switching from State Active Duty status to Title 32 status 
has associated administrative costs. For example, one state recorded an 
estimated $87,000 in administrative costs for National Guard personnel 
and material expenses for making such a switch. Some of these costs 
were derived from rescinding State Active Duty orders; backing out of 
state payroll systems; performing audits to ensure that all data were 
adjusted appropriately; correcting faults discovered; compiling, 
reviewing, and transmitting troop personnel information for state 
processing; publishing Title 32 status orders; and estimating payroll 
expenses and equipment use costs.

Following Hurricane Katrina, many reviews of lessons learned focused on 
the failure of the federal government to implement the Catastrophic 
Incident Annex and Supplement of the NRP, which could have rapidly 
provided critical resources to assist and augment state and local 
response efforts. However, even if the Catastrophic Incident Supplement 
had been implemented, the decision to authorize the use of Title 32 
might not have come any sooner, because the supplement's execution 
schedule does not specify a time at which DOD should consider whether 
it is appropriate to authorize the use of Title 32 funding for National 
Guard response efforts during an incident.[Footnote 23]

States Can Enhance Their Ability to Identify and Request Assistance 
under EMAC:

Some states have developed practices that may provide models or 
insights to other members to enhance their ability to leverage 
resources under EMAC--including legislation and planning efforts-- 
providing additional benefits that would not be otherwise available. We 
have previously reported that organizations that effectively 
collaborate look for opportunities to address resource needs by 
leveraging each others' resources, obtaining benefits that would not be 
available if they were working separately.[Footnote 24] To this end, 
states have found ways to leverage resources, including: (1) 
substantially broadening the resource pool from which they can draw 
through intrastate mutual aid and other similar agreements and (2) 
proactively considering how resources deployed under EMAC might be able 
to fill in-state resource gaps. At the same time, states have 
identified other scenarios where they will not likely be able to turn 
to the EMAC network for assistance, such as an influenza pandemic.

The Use of Intrastate Mutual Aid and Similar Agreements Can Broaden the 
Available Resources Deployed under EMAC:

In addition to seeking and providing state-level resources deployed 
under EMAC, such as the National Guard, states are able to supplement 
these state-level resources with local and county resources through 
intrastate mutual aid and similar agreements. Intrastate mutual aid 
agreements create a system for mutual aid between participating state 
counties, parishes, or other political subdivisions in the prevention 
of, response to, and recovery from any disaster that results in a 
formal state of emergency. Firefighting, police, and medical personnel 
and equipment are examples of emergency response assets that can be 
leveraged within a state using such agreements. Through intrastate 
mutual aid, the types and volume of resources available under EMAC are 
substantially greater than those resources available solely at the 
state level. For example, in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, 
Illinois, New York, and Texas were able to deploy 1,663 local fire and 
hazardous materials response personnel and supporting equipment to 
Louisiana under EMAC--something that would likely not have been 
possible without these types of mutual aid.

Thirty-eight states have intrastate mutual or similar agreements in 
place that enable states to leverage local resources under EMAC. 
However, only 16 EMAC members have instituted intrastate mutual aid 
agreements that can also leverage private sector resources and 22 can 
deploy volunteer resources. For example, Indiana's intrastate mutual 
aid agreement includes a provision to call on state and private sector 
health professionals throughout the state. When this provision is 
applied, as in response to Hurricane Katrina deployment to Mississippi, 
through the Indiana Governor's Executive Order, the private sector 
personnel become temporary employees of the state's Department of 
Homeland Security. In this status, they are eligible to be deployed as 
a state asset under EMAC with all rights and licensing recognition 
afforded permanent state employees under that compact. Figure 6 shows 
which states are able to deploy private sector resources, volunteer 
resources, or both.

Figure 6: EMAC Members' Ability to Deploy Private Sector and Volunteer 
Assets through EMAC:

[See PDF for image]

Sources: National Emergency Management Association data and Map 
Resources (map).

[End of figure]

Some States Engage in Advanced Planning on How EMAC Can Fill Resource 
Gaps:

Some states have begun to plan for how interstate resources deployed 
under EMAC can supplement in-state resources, thereby improving their 
ability to respond to a disaster more quickly and effectively. For 
example, the Florida National Guard has a standing Memorandum of 
Understanding with North Carolina for the use of C-130 aircraft for 
medical evacuation of patients from the Florida Keys if required during 
a disaster. By having this agreement in place, Florida is able to 
bypass the need to solicit assistance across the EMAC network and 
reduce the time it would otherwise take to negotiate mission details.

Other states have also developed prescripted EMAC missions to fill in- 
state resource gaps. Louisiana, learning from its experiences during 
the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes, has been working with neighboring 
states to identify resources that can fill gaps identified through in- 
state planning efforts. For example, according to Louisiana National 
Guard officials, they have developed agreements to request security 
personnel from Arkansas and commodity distribution support from 
Oklahoma. These agreements include such details as: (1) mission 
description, (2) number of personnel required, (3) approximate length 
of deployment, (4) arrival location, (5) support/equipment 
requirements, (6) self-sustaining period (7) lodging arrangements, and 
(8) on-site point of contact information.

In addition, as states are more likely to turn to EMAC to fill in-state 
resource gaps caused by competing deployments related to national 
missions, such as missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, NGB is beginning to 
encourage the prescripting of National Guard assets for emergency 
response missions across several states. For example, officials from 
the Florida and South Carolina National Guards told us that deployments 
in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 
Operation Jump Start have reduced their availability of in-state 
emergency assets required for responding to disasters.[Footnote 25] 
These officials, citing similar and pending deployments that may 
diminish their emergency response capacity, stated that they expect an 
increased reliance on interstate assistance provided under EMAC as a 
result of such deployments.

While some states have identified situations where they will use EMAC 
to supplement in-state resources, others have identified scenarios 
where they were unlikely to do so. For example, EMAC leadership and 
emergency managers from several states we spoke with cited three 
reasons why they believe EMAC would not work well for an influenza 
pandemic. First, the officials stated that they would be reluctant to 
send personnel into a contaminated area. Second, the officials 
expressed their concern that resources would not be available should 
the pandemic spread to their respective states. Third, since EMAC 
member states are not required to provide assistance under EMAC and 
states cannot compel emergency response personnel to participate in any 
disaster response, these officials believe that emergency personnel 
would be reluctant to volunteer to respond to a pandemic event in 
another state.

EMAC Network Has Developed a Basic Administrative Capacity, but 
Opportunities Exist to Further Support Its Mission:

The EMAC network has begun to develop a basic administrative capacity 
to support its operations; however, improvements in how it plans, 
tracks, and reports on its performance, along with a consistent source 
of funding, would help the network achieve its mission. Although the 
EMAC network has adopted several good management practices, such as 
using a structured approach to learn from past deployments and 
developing a 5-year strategic plan, opportunities exist to further 
enhance these efforts by considering the experience of leading 
organizations in results-oriented performance measurement. In addition, 
the EMAC network and FEMA entered into a cooperative agreement that 
provided some federal funding to help build the EMAC network's 
administrative capacity, but this agreement has recently expired. The 
EMAC network's ability to provide the adequate human capital, 
information technology, and other infrastructure required to support 
the collaborative efforts is likely to be affected by this loss of 
funds.

EMAC Network Has Recently Begun to Develop a Basic Administrative 
Capacity to Support the Collaborative Effort:

The EMAC network has recently taken steps to develop a basic 
administrative capacity to support the sharing of resources between 
member states. Prior to 2003, the EMAC network's administrative 
capacity--that is, its ability to provide adequate human capital, 
financial resources, and information technology to support its 
operations--was very limited and was confined to situations when the 
EMAC process was activated in response to a disaster. Under such 
conditions, emergency managers from states whose members were serving 
in EMAC senior leadership posts would temporarily take on the 
responsibility of facilitating requests for assistance between member 
states, processing paperwork, and answering questions. There was no 
dedicated administrative support available to support routine 
activities, such as training, or to maintain regular coordination 
between the EMAC network and key federal players.

In 2003, the EMAC network, working through NEMA, entered into a 
cooperative agreement with FEMA that enabled it to hire a full-time 
staff member to serve as EMAC Coordinator. Among other things, this 
individual was tasked with supporting the development of training for 
responders deploying under EMAC and creating an information technology 
system that would capture mission-level information for each disaster 
for which EMAC was activated. In addition, these funds were used to 
support other capacity-building activities, including the holding of 
after-action reviews to capture lessons learned as well as the 
development of the EMAC network's first strategic plan and operations 
manual.

EMAC Has Some Planning Mechanisms in Place but Would Benefit from More 
Specific Objectives and Appropriate Performance Measures:

Over the last several years, EMAC leadership has taken steps to adopt a 
more systematic and rigorous approach to learning from its past 
experiences and planning for the future. These include using after- 
action reports following major events to identify ways in which the 
operation of the network might be improved and developing a strategic 
plan to help ensure that the activities and limited resources of the 
EMAC network are contributing to achieve its mission. We have 
previously reported that a structured, deliberate approach toward 
planning that includes long-term goals clearly linked to specific 
objectives and appropriate performance measures can provide a useful 
tool in helping organizations achieve their missions.[Footnote 26]

In 2004 and 2005, the EMAC network conducted the first two of what it 
expects to be a series of after-action reviews to analyze its 
performance and identify areas where it performed well and issues 
needing improvement. As part of this process, the EMAC network 
contracted with an outside firm to conduct focus groups of operations 
and management personnel who either facilitated requests for assistance 
on behalf of EMAC member states or first responders who responded to 
requests for assistance. Federal officials from FEMA and NGB also 
participated in these sessions. In addition, the outside firm analyzed 
data from EMAC databases that cataloged requests for assistance and 
validated its research with EMAC leadership. Information from these 
reports was widely disseminated among EMAC members and also provided 
the foundation for several objectives and tasks contained in the EMAC 
Strategic Plan.

In 2005, EMAC developed its first 5-year strategic plan to more clearly 
identify goals and objectives that would assist it in achieving its 
mission of "facilitating the efficient and effective sharing of 
resources between member states during times of disaster or emergency." 
The plan, which was updated in 2006, identifies four broad goals: (1) 
provide leadership on mutual aid issues, (2) sustain and enhance mutual 
aid capabilities, (3) promote mutual aid and strengthen relationships, 
and (4) align EMAC capabilities with nationwide preparedness and 
response priorities. Under each of these goals is a series of 
supporting objectives and still more specific tasks.

This plan represents a significant and positive first step; however, 
there are several areas where future efforts could be improved, 
particularly in the way the plan measures and reports on performance. 
We have previously reported on several key characteristics of effective 
plans, including performance measures.[Footnote 27] Performance plans 
that include precise and measurable objectives for resolving mission- 
critical management problems are important to ensuring that 
organizations have the capacity to achieve results-oriented 
programmatic goals. Appropriate performance measures, along with 
accompanying targets, are important tools to enable internal and 
external stakeholders to effectively track the progress the 
organization is making toward achieving its goals and objectives. To 
this end, organizations may use a variety of performance measures-- 
output, efficiency, customer service, quality, and outcome--each of 
which focuses on a different aspect of performance.

The EMAC leadership stated that they have informal mechanisms that 
assess targets for achieving objectives, such as regular status 
meetings. However, they do not have a formal implementation or action 
plan that operationalizes the goals and objectives outlined in the 
strategic plan. In the absence of such a plan, EMAC's current strategic 
plan contains no quantifiable measures or targets for its many goals 
and objectives. For example, EMAC's strategic plan calls for the 
development of a comprehensive training program, listing seven key 
tasks including evaluating training needs and developing training 
modules. However, the plan does not provide milestones for these 
activities or any performance measures for assessing whether these 
activities are in fact having their intended impact.

The lack of clear and formal performance measures is compounded by the 
regular rotation of senior leadership within the EMAC network. As we 
have previously reported, sustained focus and direction from top 
management is a key component of effective management.[Footnote 28] 
Management control requires that organizations consider the effect upon 
their operations if key leadership is expected to leave and then 
establish criteria for a retention or mitigation strategy. Each year, 
the Chair of the Executive Task Force, responsible for the day-to-day 
management of EMAC, changes. EMAC has reduced some of the challenges 
that may be associated with such regular transitions by requiring that 
each new chair of the Executive Task Force first serve in an 
observational role for 1 year before becoming the chair and then serve 
as a mentor to the incoming chair following a 1-year term. However, 
because the leadership changes annually and there are no formal 
performance measures to determine whether goals and objectives are 
being achieved, it may be difficult to clearly assess whether the EMAC 
network is operating effectively and efficiently. To alleviate 
potential challenges that may arise by the annual rotation of its 
leadership, the EMAC network has recently begun transitioning more 
management responsibilities to NEMA.

A Lack of Funding May Affect the EMAC Network's Ability to Build and 
Sustain the Collaborative Effort:

Since its inception, the EMAC network has received disparate funding to 
sustain its administrative capacity. From 2000 through 2002, the EMAC 
network received minimal financial support from its members through 
voluntary annual contributions of approximately $1,000 per member. In 
2003, FEMA and the EMAC network entered into a 3-year, $2 million 
cooperative agreement to fund EMAC operations through May 31, 
2007.[Footnote 29] This cooperative agreement enabled the EMAC network 
to develop an electronic system to collect, manage, and analyze the 
EMAC process; coordinate with FEMA on efforts to develop standard 
resource deployment packages; improve EMAC training initiatives; and 
hire one staff member to coordinate EMAC network operations.

In October 2006, Congress for the first time specifically authorized 
FEMA to obligate up to $4 million in grants in fiscal year 2008 to 
support EMAC operations and coordination activities.[Footnote 30] In 
May 2007, Congress appropriated $2.5 million to FEMA for interstate 
mutual aid agreements,[Footnote 31] and according to FEMA officials, 
FEMA and EMAC leadership are in the process of finalizing a 3-year 
cooperative agreement to improve the use and awareness of resource 
typing among its members, and develop training programs to improve 
awareness of EMAC at the federal, state, and local levels. Present and 
past EMAC leadership stated that if the EMAC network does not receive 
additional funding to support operations, efforts to build and sustain 
the administrative capacity will have to be scaled back. Specifically, 
they stated that the EMAC network will lose day-to-day administrative 
support, there will be no resources to maintain the electronic systems 
that facilitate requests under EMAC or the EMAC Web site, training 
initiatives organized and led by EMAC leadership will be suspended, and 
coordination between the EMAC network and key federal players will be 
curtailed.

Conclusions:

EMAC's success relies on effective collaboration among its members. The 
compact provides a broad and flexible framework that enables its 
members to overcome differences in missions, organizational cultures, 
and established ways of doing business in order to achieve a common 
mission. The EMAC network has built upon this framework, establishing 
roles and responsibilities and developing standards and systems in some 
key areas. At the same time, we found that opportunities exist for the 
EMAC network--as well as individual members--to make improvements in 
several areas, such as (1) developing member roles and responsibilities 
regarding how first responders are received and integrated into 
impacted areas; (2) continuing to develop electronic systems that 
enable the EMAC network to track resources, from request through 
mission completion; (3) continuing to improve understanding of 
reimbursement guidelines and standards among member states, especially 
following large-scale deployments; (4) promoting good practices across 
the EMAC network that improve members' abilities to leverage resources; 
and (5) enhancing the EMAC network's strategic and management planning 
efforts by considering more robust performance measures.

In addition to helping states assist one another, EMAC has shown that 
it plays a critical role in our nation's disaster response. However, 
there will be times when the EMAC network will be strained, and our 
nation's next large-scale disaster will likely produce similar 
challenges to those encountered following the 2005 Gulf Coast 
hurricanes. With this in mind, opportunities exist at the federal level 
to help alleviate these challenges. One way to improve the nation's 
overall capacity to respond to disasters is to build the EMAC network's 
administrative capacity through mechanisms such as cooperative 
agreements, grants, or training initiatives. In doing so, planning and 
coordination within the EMAC network can be enhanced--key elements 
required for developing the capacities needed to respond to disasters.

Valuable opportunities also exist to reflect on lessons learned to 
alleviate financial and administrative burdens placed on both the 
assisting and requesting states in response to catastrophes. 
Opportunities exist to reduce confusion among states with regard to 
seeking and obtaining advance funding through expedited project 
worksheets to facilitate timely reimbursements under EMAC. 
Additionally, early consideration of whether it would be appropriate to 
authorize the use of Title 32 status for National Guard units 
responding to catastrophic incidents could decrease the administrative 
and financial burdens states endure when switching between State Active 
Duty status and Title 32 status.

Recommendations for Executive Action:

We are making the following three recommendations:

To further enhance the administrative capacity required to support the 
EMAC network, we recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security 
direct the Administrator of FEMA to look for ways to build the 
administrative capacity required to support the EMAC network, such as 
cooperative agreements, grants, and training initiatives.

In situations involving catastrophic disasters that require significant 
assistance from several states and in turn increase the financial and 
administrative burdens on EMAC members:

* We recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security develop guidance 
for impacted states to efficiently seek and obtain advance funding 
through expedited project worksheets to facilitate more expedited 
reimbursement for those states providing assistance through EMAC to 
impacted areas.

* We recommend that the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security 
work together to amend the NRP's Catastrophic Incident Supplement 
Execution Schedule to include early consideration of the use of Title 
32 in situations where the Secretary of Defense deems it appropriate.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretary of Homeland 
Security and the Secretary of Defense for comment. The Director of 
FEMA's Office of Policy and Program Analysis provided oral comments, 
concurring with all of our recommendations. FEMA also provided 
technical comments that were incorporated as appropriate. The 
Department of Defense did not concur with the recommendation that calls 
for an expedited consideration of whether to offer Title 32 following 
catastrophic disasters requiring significant assistance from several 
states. DOD's response is reprinted in appendix II.

In written comments on a draft of this report, the Assistant Secretary 
of Defense for Reserve Affairs did not concur with our recommendation 
that the Secretary of Defense work with the Secretary of Homeland 
Security to amend the National Response Plan's Catastrophic Incident 
Supplement Execution Schedule to include early consideration of the use 
of Title 32 in situations where the Secretary of Defense deems it 
appropriate. The Department stated that use of National Guard forces in 
Title 32 status is an inherent DOD function and, in accordance with 
Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5, outside the purview of the 
Secretary of Homeland Security.

We agree that the use of National Guard forces in Title 32 status is an 
inherent DOD function, and our recommendation recognizes the authority 
of the Secretary of Defense to determine when use of that authority is 
appropriate. While making clear that the directive in no way impairs or 
affects the authority of the Secretary of Defense over DOD, Homeland 
Security Presidential Directive-5 also states that the Secretary of 
Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish 
appropriate relationships and mechanisms for cooperation and 
coordination between their two departments. The Secretary of the 
Department of Homeland Security has responsibility for the National 
Response Plan, which already assigns responsibilities to DOD, as a 
cooperating agency, and changes to the plan must be coordinated through 
his department. Our reference to the Secretary of Homeland Security was 
simply to acknowledge DHS's coordinating role.

DOD also stated that amending the Catastrophic Incident Supplement 
Execution Schedule of the National Response Plan as we suggested "could 
be interpreted to imply that it is DOD policy to place National Guard 
forces into Title 32 status when in fact, the response to the event 
only requires National Guard in State Active Duty status." Our 
recommendation does not state that DOD should place National Guard 
forces into any particular status. The intent behind our recommendation 
is to create a mechanism that would trigger DOD's consideration of 
whether authorization of Title 32 status is appropriate in the earlier 
stages of an event, when the event has been designated as 
"catastrophic" under the National Response Plan. In our view, a 
decision point for consideration of Title 32 status does not imply that 
the decision should be made in favor of or in opposition to authorizing 
Title 32. The Secretary of Defense may decide that it would not be 
appropriate to offer Title 32 status, and even if the Secretary did 
decide to offer Title 32, states would still be free to deploy their 
forces under State Active Duty status if they preferred. In addition, 
the Department of Defense would not be precluded from considering the 
issue again at a later time. However, a quicker decision from DOD 
concerning the appropriateness of Title 32 would, in circumstances 
where the authorization of Title 32 was deemed to be appropriate, allow 
states to deploy their National Guard forces under a single status 
rather than switching statuses in the midst of a catastrophe. This 
could enhance state responses because, as our report highlights, states 
face additional administrative burdens when they switch their National 
Guard forces from State Active Duty status to Title 32 status.

We also provided a draft of this report to the Chair of the EMAC 
Executive Task Force and to the Executive Director of NEMA. Relevant 
sections of the draft report were provided to state and local emergency 
offices whose experiences we reference. Technical suggestions from 
these groups have been incorporated as appropriate.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 
days from the date of this letter. We will then send copies of this 
report to interested congressional committees as well as the 
Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, members of the EMAC 
Executive Task Force, the Executive Director of the National Emergency 
Management Association, and state and local officials contacted for 
this report. We will also make this report available to others who are 
interested and make copies available to others who request them. In 
addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web 
site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please 
contact Stanley J. Czerwinski at (202) 512-6806 or czerwinskis@gao.gov 
or: Sharon L. Pickup at (202) 512-9619 or pickups@gao.gov. Contact 
points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs 
may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix III.

Signed by:

Stanley J. Czerwinski:
Director:
Strategic Issues:

Signed by:

Sharon L. Pickup:
Director:
Defense Capabilities Management:

[End of section]

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology;

To determine the extent to which the Emergency Management Assistance 
Compact's (EMAC) membership and its use have grown since its inception 
in 1995, we reviewed a number of disaster responses for which the EMAC 
process was activated based on the type, scale, and time frame of the 
event from information provided by EMAC officials. We also interviewed 
emergency management officials and analyzed sources that provided 
additional details for events for which the EMAC process was activated, 
including after-action reports. Our work was constrained by data 
limitations, since EMAC leadership maintained data only sporadically 
prior to 2005, and data capturing deployments under EMAC for disasters 
since 2005 were incomplete or inconsistent. To assess the reliability 
of the deployment data, we reviewed additional documents and conducted 
additional interviews with local, state, and federal emergency 
management officials for selected events captured by the database. In 
cases where the data were inaccurate, we supplemented them with data 
from more reliable sources. For example, in determining the number of 
civilian and military personnel deployed through EMAC for the September 
11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York and the 2004 Florida hurricanes, 
we obtained additional data from New York and Florida officials. In 
addition, in determining the number of out-of-state personnel deployed 
on September 10, 2005, in response to Hurricane Katrina, we worked with 
the Department of Defense (DOD) to obtain more accurate data regarding 
National Guard and active component, military deployment figures. We 
also attended conferences that addressed interstate compacts and EMAC, 
and we conducted literature and legal reviews of mutual assistance 
compact structures and governance.

To determine the degree to which existing policies, procedures, and 
practices facilitate successful collaboration among EMAC members and 
between the EMAC network and federal agencies, we interviewed various 
local, state, and federal emergency management officials and analyzed 
the procedures and practices they used during their response. We 
focused on the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes emergency response since it 
presented the largest use of the EMAC process to date, with 
approximately 66,000 civilian and National Guard responders deployed 
across several disciplines. In addition, we also selected a cross 
section of disasters for further analysis based on the type, scale, and 
timing of the disaster. To gain firsthand knowledge of EMAC procedures, 
we held a combination of in person and telephone interviews with some 
of the actual civilian and National Guard emergency responders to the 
2004 Florida hurricanes and the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. In 
addition, we applied criteria for practices GAO previously developed to 
assess collaboration among EMAC members and between the EMAC network 
and key federal officials. [Footnote 32] We used the first six of these 
eight practices for this report:

* defining and articulating a common outcome;

* establishing mutually reinforcing or joint strategies;

* identifying and addressing needs by leveraging resources;

* agreeing on roles and responsibilities;

* establishing compatible policies, procedures, and other means to 
operate across agency boundaries;

* developing mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results;

* reinforcing agency accountability for collaboration efforts through 
agency plans and reports; and:

* reinforcing individual accountability for collaborative efforts 
through performance management systems;

We did not use the last two practices because they were beyond the 
scope of this review, and the sixth practice is discussed in our 
assessment of the EMAC network's administrative capacity. We then 
selected examples that illustrated and supported the need for 
improvement in specific areas where the key practices could be used. We 
also spoke with individuals who were responsible for various roles 
during these disasters such as resource identification and requests, 
coordination, and reimbursement. These discussions were held with 
officials from the following offices and commands;

Local Officials:

* Arlington County Office of Emergency Management, Arlington, Virginia;

* Hancock County Emergency Management Agency, Louis, Mississippi;

* Harrison County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency, 
Gulfport, Mississippi;

* Henrico County Manager, Richmond, Virginia;

* Maryland Emergency Management Agency, Charles County, Maryland;

* Maryland Emergency Management Agency, Kent County, Maryland;

* New Orleans Fire Department, New Orleans, Louisiana;

* New York City Fire Department, Brooklyn, New York;

State Officials:

* California Department of Emergency Management, Sacramento, California;

* California Highway Patrol, Sacramento, California;

* California Incident Management Team, Sacramento, California;

* Colorado Department of Local Affairs - Division of Emergency 
Management, Denver, Colorado;

* Council of State Governments, Midwestern Region, Lombard, Illinois;

* Delaware National Guard, Wilmington, Delaware;

* Florida Department of Community Affairs/Division of Emergency 
Management, Tallahassee, Florida;

* Florida National Guard, St. Augustine, Florida;

* Georgia Homeland Security - Emergency Management Agency, Atlanta, 
Georgia;

* Indiana State Department of Health, Indianapolis, Indiana;

* Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division, Johnston, 
Iowa;

* Iowa National Guard, Johnston, Iowa;

* Louisiana Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency 
Preparedness, Baton Rouge, Louisiana;

* Louisiana National Guard, Pineville, Louisiana;

* Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, Pearl, Mississippi:

* Mississippi National Guard, Jackson, Mississippi;

* Montana Department of Emergency Affairs/Disaster and Emergency 
Services Division, Helena, Montana;

* National Emergency Management Association, Lexington, Kentucky;

* New Mexico Department of Public Safety/New Mexico State Police, Santa 
Fe, New Mexico;

* New York State Emergency Management Office, Albany, New York;

* North Carolina Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, 
Raleigh, North Carolina;

* North Carolina Regional Coordinating Team, Raleigh, North Carolina;

* North Dakota Department of Emergency Services-Homeland Security 
Division, Bismarck, North Dakota;

* Oregon National Guard, Salem, Oregon;

* South Carolina National Guard, Columbia, South Carolina;

* South Carolina Department of Emergency Management, West Columbia, 
South Carolina;

* Texas Governor's Division of Emergency Management, Austin, Texas;

* Virginia Division of Emergency Management, Richmond, Virginia:

* Washington D.C. Emergency Management Agency, Washington, D.C.

Federal Officials:

* Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia;

* Department of Defense - Office of General Counsel, Arlington, 
Virginia;

* Department of Defense - Inspector General, Arlington, Virginia;

* Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C.;

* Federal Emergency Management Agency - Public Assistance, Washington, 
D.C.;

* National Guard Bureau, Arlington, Virginia;

* National Guard Crisis Action Team (Army), Falls Church, Virginia;

* National Guard Crisis Action Team (Air Force), Camp Springs, Maryland;

Furthermore, we reviewed the EMAC process through which state and local 
assets are requested and activated. In addition, we looked at how the 
deployment status of National Guard support affected the timeliness of 
reimbursement.

To determine the extent to which the EMAC network has the 
administrative capacity to build and sustain the collaborative effort 
to achieve its mission, we interviewed a select number of former and 
current EMAC leaders as well as emergency management officials from 
EMAC member states. We also reviewed and analyzed the EMAC strategic 
planning documents and selected after-action reports. We performed 
similar reviews of state and federal after-action reports for 2004 
through 2006. These discussions and reviews helped us gain an 
understanding of EMAC organizational structure and developmental and 
funding plans.

We conducted our review from June 2006 through June 2007 in accordance 
with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards 
require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, 
appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and 
conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence 
obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 
based on our audit objectives.

We provided drafts of relevant sections of this report to state and 
local emergency management officials whose experiences we reference and 
we incorporated their technical corrections as appropriate. In 
addition, we requested comments on a draft of this report from DOD and 
DHS, as well as the Chair the EMAC Executive Task Force and the 
Executive Director of NEMA. Comments from DOD are reprinted in appendix 
II. Their comments are addressed in the Agency Comments section of this 
report. The Department of Homeland Security provided oral comments, 
concurring with all of our recommendations.

[End of section]

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense;

Assistant Secretary Of Defense:
1500 Defense Pentagon:
Washington, DC 20301-1500:

Reserve Affairs:
June 22, 2007:

Ms. Sharon L. Pickup:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
U. S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W.:
Washington, DC 20548

Dear Ms. Pickup:

Thank you for the opportunity to review the GAO draft report, GAO-07-
854, "Emergency Management Assistance Compact: Enhancing EMAC's 
Collaborative and Administrative Capacity Should Improve National 
Disaster Response,dated June 1, 2007 (GAO Code 450479).

The Department nonconcurs with the recommendation contained in this 
report. Our detailed comments are enclosed.

My point of contact is COL Eric Lindner at 703-693-4204. 

Sincerely,

Signed by:

T.F. Hall

Enclosure: 
As stated:

GAO Draft Report - Dated June 1, 2007
GAO CODE 450479/GAO-07-854

"Emergency Management Assistance Compact: Enhancing EMAC's
Collaborative and Administrative Capacity Should Improve National 
Disaster Response"

Department Of Defense
Comments To The Recommendation;

Recommendation: The GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Defense and 
Homeland Security work together to amend the National Response Plan's 
(NIP) Catastrophic; 

[End of section]

Appendix III: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments;

GAO Contacts:

Stanley J. Czerwinski, (202) 512-6806 or czerwinskis@gao.gov:

Sharon L. Pickup, (202) 512-9619 or pickups@gao.gov:

Acknowledgments:

In addition to the contacts named above, Peter Del Toro, Assistant 
Director; Michael J. Ferren, Assistant Director; Andrew C. Edelson; 
Gwyneth M. Blevins; James A. Driggins; K. Nicole Haeberle; K. Nicole 
Harms; Molly E. McNamara; Justin L Monroe; Sheila D. Rajabiun; and 
Nathaniel J. Taylor made key contributions to this report.

[End of section]

FOOTNOTES

[1] GAO, Catastrophic Disaster: Enhanced Leadership, Capabilities, and 
Accountability Controls Will Improve the Effectiveness of the Nation's 
Preparedness, Response, and Recovery System, GAO-06-618 (Washington, 
D.C.: Sept. 6, 2006).

[2] U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared (Washington, 
D.C.: May 2006), and White House Homeland Security Council, The Federal 
Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 
23, 2006).

[3] GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance 
and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, GAO-06-15 
(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005).

[4] For the purposes of this report, "disaster" refers to both natural 
or nonnatural disasters or emergencies.

[5] For the purposes of this report, "2004 Florida hurricanes" refers 
to hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne as well as tropical 
storm Bonnie.

[6] For the purposes of this report, "2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes" 
refers to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

[7] GAO, Interstate Compacts: An Overview of the Structure and 
Governance of Environment and Natural Resource Compacts, GAO-07-519 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 3, 2007).

[8] Virginia v. Tennessee, 148 U.S. 503, 517--18 (1893).

[9] The Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950, June 12, 1951. ch. 1228, 64 
Stat. 1245.

[10] Pub. L. No. 103-337, Div. C, § 3401, 108 Stat. 2663 (Jan. 25, 
1994).

[11] Pub. L. No. 104-321, 110 Stat. 3877 (Oct. 19, 1996).

[12] For the purposes of this report, "states" includes the 50 states, 
the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and U.S. 
territorial possessions.

[13] NEMA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association of emergency 
management and homeland security professionals with a mission to 
provide national leadership and expertise in comprehensive emergency 
management; serve as a vital emergency management information and 
assistance resource; and advance continuous improvement in emergency 
management through strategic partnerships, innovative programs, and 
collaborative policy positions. NEMA has tax-exempt status under § 
501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

[14] For the purposes of this report, "EMAC" refers to the compact 
itself and "EMAC leadership" refers to the state representatives who 
have been selected by EMAC members to oversee day-to-day operations 
relating to EMAC as well as the Chair of the EMAC Committee, EMAC 
Coordinator, EMAC Senior Advisor, and NEMA Legal Committee Chair who 
provide administrative and other assistance to the EMAC network.

[15] Although California became a member of EMAC on September 14, 2005, 
its membership expired on March 1, 2007. As of the date of this report, 
the California State Legislature is considering legislation, AB 1564, 
that will renew California's membership in EMAC. 

[16] Other responders include professionals in engineering, animal 
resources, public works, transportation and highways, emergency 
management, agriculture and forestry, and search and rescue.

[17] GAO-06-15.

[18] GAO-06-15.

[19] GAO-06-15.

[20] The EMAC Advisory Group is intended to serve as a conduit between 
the EMAC network and the constituencies represented by the advisory 
group members, identify and share best practices, provide guidance for 
the strategic direction of the EMAC network, and provide a connection 
between other mechanisms that provide aid. 

[21] GAO-06-15.

[22] The two states that elected to continue to deploy in State Active 
Duty status after Title 32 status was made available were Delaware and 
Iowa. 

[23] As we have previously reported, the Catastrophic Incident 
Supplement lists very few specific tasks that DOD should perform during 
a catastrophe. For more information, see GAO, Hurricane Katrina: Better 
Plans and Exercises Needed to Guide the Military's Response to 
Catastrophic Natural Disasters, GAO-06-643 (Washington, D.C.: May 15, 
2006).

[24] GAO-06-15.

[25] Operation Enduring Freedom includes ongoing operations in 
Afghanistan and in certain other countries; Operation Iraqi Freedom 
includes ongoing operations in Iraq; Operation Jump Start includes 
ongoing operations on the southern border of the United States.

[26] GAO, Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government 
Performance and Results Act, GAO/GGD-96-118 (Washington, D.C.: June, 
1996).

[27] GAO, Managing for Results: Enhancing Agency Use of Performance 
Information for Management Decision Making, GAO-05-927 (Washington, 
D.C.: Sept. 9, 2005).

[28] GAO, Managing for Results: Next Steps to Improve the Federal 
Government's Management and Performance, GAO-02-439T (Washington, D.C.: 
Feb. 15, 2002).

[29] The agreement was expected to expire on January 31, 2006, but FEMA 
extended the cooperative agreement to May 31, 2007.

[30] Pub L. No. 109-295, title VI, §661, 120 Stat. 1335, 1432-33 (Oct. 
4, 2006).

[31] Pub L. No. 110-28, title III, ch.5, 121 Stat. 112, 142 (May 25, 
2007).

[32] GAO-06-15. 

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