Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Dir. Joseph Allbaugh a...
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Dir. Joseph Allbaugh agreed with Senate panel Tues. that ability of first responders to communicate during emergencies is important element of nation’s domestic security efforts. Because of broad requirements of those efforts, he said…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
he was reluctant to designate specific portion of President Bush’s fiscal year 2003 budget request to deploy and test equipment used to improve cross-agency communications interoperability. White House wants to allocate $3.5 billion for FEMA-led improvements to state and local emergency capabilities, measure seen as necessary in wake of last year’s terrorist attacks. Sen. Wyden (D-Ore.) said “single most important” goal of targeted emergency response improvements should be “to enable these first responders to talk with each other.” Allbaugh told Senate Environment & Public Works Committee he was “sure some of the money could be used” for interoperability-related purposes. However, he said FEMA’s recently created Office of National Preparedness would support state and local efforts in 4 general areas: (1) Equipment purchases, including “better, more interoperable communications equipment.” (2) Emergency response planning. (3) Training for operations in contaminated environments and for responding to terrorist attacks. (4) Coordinated regional emergency exercise programs. Sen. Voinovich (R-O.) said he supported FEMA’s expanded role in coordinating federal, state and local disaster preparedness and response but he suggested Congress make sure agency remain focused on improving those capabilities and ensure authorized funds weren’t used to supplement basic emergency services and equipment.