1. Emergency Management Planning
PLAN 4015/6015: Presidential Disasters
Anuradha Mukherji
Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning

2. PRESIDENTIAL DISASTER DECLARATIONS
Presidential disaster declarations are an important instrument of
policy and politics in emergency management
1. Disaster Relief Act of 1950 and Stafford Act of 1988 gave the
president the authority to issue a disaster declaration for
disaster caused by terrorism or natural or technological hazard
2. Stafford Act enhanced presidential declaration authority by
imposing fewer restrictions on types of disasters for declaration
3. Presidential authority further centralized and increased after
9/11 by defining presidential declaration authority as a national
security instrument (not the case earlier)
4. So all major disasters, emergencies, and catastrophic incidents
declared by the president are now incidents of national
significance under the NRF (National Response Framework)

3. SIGNIFICANCE OF CHANGES
1. President now has vast authority to mobilize federal, state and
local resources
2. Because major disasters and emergencies are now defined as
incidents of national significance, emergency management is
an issue of national security (link to earlier discussion on the
back and forth between civil defense and natural disasters)
3. Terrorism has assumed more importance under the current
framework and other types of disasters occupy diminished
positions within homeland security (though Hurricane Katrina
and Sandy might have swung the pendulum back a bit)

4. PRESIDENTIAL DISCRETION
1. Presidential discretion – the discretion to interpret broadly or
narrowly what can be declared as a major disaster or
emergency and is made on case-by-case basis
2. The declaration legitimizes the disaster and provides federal
assistance to supplement state and local efforts and resources
3. Declaration happens through a chain of command – governor
sends request to regional FEMA director, who reviews and sends
recommendation to FEMA headquarters in Washington DC
4. Final recommendation to the President – approve or reject –
made after consulting with governor(s) and Secretary of
Homeland Security (since 2002)
5. President may or may not follow recommendation or FEMA’s
assessment criteria
6. Governor can petition the president directly for declaration to
expedite the process
7. President can issue declaration even before a governor asks for it
8. President can approve a governor’s request for emergency but
elevate it to a major disaster later (e.g., 9/11 attacks in New York)

5. DECLARATION PROCESS
1. Governor provides info to FEMA on severity and magnitude of
disaster and amount of state and local resources committed to it
2. Governors have to demonstrate to FEMA that the state is unable
to respond adequately and so federal assistance is needed –
most controversial part
3. Governors claim that state budget limitations make it impossible
to respond adequately OR that they do not have reserve funds
to pay for the costs of the response
4. Ability to judge ‘unable to adequately respond’ complicated by
new media coverage, political pressures on both FEMA officials
and president by legislators, and by difficulty of calculating state
and local disaster response
5. So disaster declarations can be made without documentary
evidence that the disaster has met FEMA criteria
6. FEMA determines the amount and type of assistance
7. State and local governments are expected to share percentage
of rebuilding costs, although the president can waive that
8. So each declaration identifies the counties eligible to receive
federal dollars and the types of assistance (e.g., cash grants,
housing assistance, emergency medical aid, unemployment
assistance, assistance to rebuild public facilities & infrastructure)

6. POLITICAL SUBJECTIVITY
1. Political subjectivity in presidential declarations - not perhaps for
large catastrophic disasters, more in case of marginal disasters
2. Distributive politics & news media coverage come into play
3. Often pressure from members of Congress whose districts
affected (e.g., senators and representatives petition the
President as a state delegation to press for declaration)
4. States with frequent disasters get more federal assistance for re-
development – other legislators think that they have ‘gamed’
the system

7. MAJOR PLAYERS
1. President – Wide discretion, Declarations an instrument of
political power, states politically important may get higher
declarations
2. Secretary of Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Cabinet
member
3. Director, FEMA – Sends recommendation to President, FEMA
spending during declarations not to exceed USD 5 million, If it
does, President notifies Congress that the cap will be exceeded
4. Congress – Power to approve emergency supplemental
appropriation to re-capitalize the Disaster Relief Fund, especially
during mega disaster that swallows up the money in the fund,
emergency supplement need to be enacted into law and
usually comes with pork benefits
5. Governors – Have to demonstrate ‘unable to respond’, due to
vague language in the Stafford Act this can mean budget
limitations, lack of supplies or reserve funds, ‘play the game’
6. News Media – Camcorder polities, 24/7 media coverage of
events, complicates presidential assessments, political officials
seek opportunities to be filmed at disaster sites to show
compassion