BerkeleyLaw Library

"The United States has laws that make it illegal to harm protected wildlife. Those laws could be used to prosecute those who caused the 2010 oil spill. Perhaps the most famous of these laws is the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which provides for both criminal and civil penalites for acts that harm species listed under the act. The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) also provides for civil and criminal punishment when an action takes a marine mammal. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) makes it a crime to kill migratory birds.

"While there are endangered species and marine mammals in the area affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, it is more likely that any criminal prosecution would use the MBTA rather than the ESA or the MMPA. This is because the MBTA is a strict liability statute in relevant part, unlike the other laws. Accordingly, the prosecution does not have to show that the defendeant(s) intended to harm wildlife. The prosecution does not have to prove that the defendants knew their action(s) would lead to an oil spill to find liability. The MBTA was used to prosecute Exxon following the Exxon Valdez spill and has been used for decades to find corporations and even their employees criminally liable for the deaths of protected birds."

"Two years after Hurricane Katrina decimated the homes of thousands of Gulf Coast residents, the American Association for Justice (AAJ) today released a report exposing how insurance companies systematically denied paying policyholders fair and just claims following this and other natural disasters.

"The report...reveals how insurers collected billions in premiums from policyholders and then stiffed them in their time of greatest need. Shockingly, in the two years since the nation's worst natural disaster, insurance companies have reaped more $100 billion in profits.

"The AAJ called on insurance regulators to immediately initiate investigations into companies that continue to unfairly delay and deny thousands of unresolved claims in light of the obscene profits insurers have pocketed over the past two years. A special AAJ website People over Profits will also enable citizens to contact their state officials with the same demand."—Press release (August 28, 2007)

"The Special Committee on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Universities of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) finds that there was 'nearly universal departure from (or in some cases complete abandonment of) personnel and other policies' by five New Orleans institutions―the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, the University of New Orleans, Southern University at New Orleans, Loyola University New Orleans, and Tulane University―as they contended with the disaster that befell the city and its universities.

"The report identifies several specific areas of widespread dereliction:

• The number of faculty terminations 'exceeded the inescapable or minimal needs of the institution, sometimes substantially';
• The notice and timing of personnel actions 'also failed to meet AAUP standards and created needless, even at times unconscionable, uncertainty';
• Alternative placement of affected faculty 'universally fell below AAUP standards, but also fell short of the institutions' apparent capacity to mitigate the harshest effects of inevitable personnel reductions';
• The opportunity for internal review of adverse judgments 'failed to meet most accepted standards of due process as well as the institutions' own established review procedures';
• Faculty tenure (which all these institutions had previously recognized and by and large respected) 'received far less deference than AAUP policy and prior practice [on these campuses] would have required.'" —Press release

"The twin blows of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack and the August 29-30, 2005, devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, clearly demonstrated that major disasters pose a multitude of challenges to the people and governments of the United States. The challenges not only threaten the lives of Americans but the legal fabric that binds our society together. The Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association convened a Task Force to evaluate whether the legal system operated effectively in these situations and whether changes could be recommended that would more completely insure adherence to the rule of law. Neither the Task Force nor the Section of Litigation considers ourselves to be experts in disaster planning. An array of professionals, with substantial talent and expertise, has contributed valuable insights on how governments, businesses and families should prepare to respond to, and overcome, a major disaster.

"It is the purpose of these Principles to preserve the rule of law in times of major disaster. The Principles are intended to help insure that justice will continue to be dispensed despite the damage and disruption caused by a major disaster. The Principles are also intended to foster reliance on legal mechanisms when the effort is undertaken to restore a disaster-torn community through programs designed to compensate for loss or render assistance in recovery."—Introduction.

• "More than half (52%) report very little or no progress in the recovery of the emergency care system.
• Three-fifths (60%) report their emergency departments are not functioning to the extent they had before the storms.
• Two-fifths (32%) remained upbeat about their own emergency departments, saying they are functioning to the extent they had before the storms.
• Sixty-five percent say that their patients were being harmed because they must wait for treatment.
• Thirty-six percent say that if the recovery were not sufficiently improved by the second year anniversary, they would consider leaving to practice in another state."
—Summary.

"The New Orleans Police Department's response to Hurricane Katrina holds important lessons for other police organizations. The increased interest generated by this disaster should prompt other departments to review and revise their existing disaster response plans. Following a brief history of the New Orleans Police Department, this paper examines the failure of planning and problems of execution in the department's response to the flooding after Katrina. A communications and coordination breakdown followed insufficient emergency planning and training in New Orleans, requiring the police force to reconstitute command on an ad hoc basis while leaning heavily on federal support. A comparison with the San Francisco Police Department's response to the 1989 earthquake shows similar gaps in disaster planning that, due to the limited nature of that event, did not become dire. The paper then discusses the standard of performance for police forces in disaster situations and tackles specific suggestions for police disaster response re-evaluation."—Abstract.

"This report, which will be updated as events warrant, discusses the following:

• Medicaid's rules on eligibility, benefits, and financing in the context of current questions and issues raised by Hurricane Katrina.
• Recent state actions in response to Medicaid issues raised by the hurricane.
• Federal Medicaid waiver authority, including information on current activity in this area and the New York Disaster Relief Medicaid waiver granted in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
• Current federal legislation related to Medicaid and Hurricane Katrina relief efforts."

—Summary.

"Members of Congress have introduced legislation in both the House and Senate to alter federal emergency management organizational structures and responsibilities, amend authorities that guide federal action, impose emergency management leadership qualification requirements, and make other changes. The proposals are based upon investigations conducted on the role of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other entities in the response to Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005.

"Some observers reduce the matter to one basic question: 'Should FEMA remain within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), or should the agency regain the independent status it had before the creation of DHS?' The issue, however, is more complex than just one of organizational placement."—Summary.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assists states and localities overwhelmed by, or at risk from, disasters. FEMA also coordinates federal emergency management activities and planning for the continuity of government should national security be threatened.

"Since 1979 FEMA has administered a range of authorities that enable the agency to serve as the primary source of federal technical and financial assistance for emergency management. Among the types of aid provided through FEMA programs are grants and material to help disaster victims meet pressing needs such as food and shelter, education and training programs to improve the response capabilities of nonfederal officials, and mobile communications equipment. FEMA exercises little regulatory authority, but directives that underlie the agency's mission authorize the agency to establish standards for reconstruction of buildings after a disaster declaration is issued, for the construction of federal buildings in earthquake-prone areas, and for the operation of first responder equipment.

"FEMA has responded to, and has helped communities prepare for, terrorist attacks in the United States. The Office of Homeland Security (OHS), established by President Bush subsequent to the attacks in 2001, has a similar, but more encompassing, mission related to disasters caused by terrorist actions. Congressional debate on the contours and framework for federal administration of homeland security might include consideration of FEMA's mission, the extent to which that mission overlaps with the assignments given the new OHS, and a new structure or set of authorities for the agency.

"This report identifies authorities drawn from public sources. It does not refer to classified authorities not available to the public, does not include references to temporary authorities that require FEMA to provide assistance for specific disasters or needs, and does not include information on plans, regulations, or operating manuals developed to implement these policies. This report will be updated as the authorities governing the agency's mission undergo significant change."—Summary.

• Richard Posner, Federalism, Economics, and Katrina (October 9, 2005)
• Gary Becker, Comment on Federalism, Economics, and Katrina (October 9, 2005)
• Richard Posner, Katrina and Federalism (Response to Comments) (October 15, 2005)
• Gary Becker, Response to Comments on Comment on Federalism and Katrina (October 16, 2005)

"Legal Planet, a collaboration between UC Berkeley School of Law and UCLA School of Law, provides insight and analysis on energy and environmental law and policy. The blog draws upon the individual research strengths and vast expertise of the law schools' legal scholars and think tanks."

Includes entries on a range of topics, including the Gulf of Mexico oil spill (see here, here, and here for example).

"Hurricane Kartrina and similar natural disasters raise significant legal issues. Potentially liable parties quickly invoke the common law Act of God doctrine as a limitation on liability.

"However, the defense is severely restricted in its application. For example, the common law held it was inapplicable when an Act of God coalesced with an Act of Man, in other words human negligence, to cause injury.

"This article analyzes the traditional Act of God defense while positing that most large scale natural disasters entail human errors, such as in design, construction, operations, maintenance, inspection, regulation, or preparation or response to an emergency. The legal result is the same whether the Act of God is viewed as a defense, duty issue, or intervening causation issue.

"Two follow up articles, in a trilogy dealing with the legal issues involved with natural risks and societal responses to emergencies, are The Duty to Disclose Gelologic Hazards in Real Estate Transactions, 1 Chapman Law Review 13 (1998) and Emergency Action Plans: A Legal and Practical Blueprint Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail, 63 U. Pitt. Law Review 791 (2002)." —Abstract.

"The tragedies of 9/11, Katrina and Rita raised major problems with emergency responses, which did not proceed according to plan. Emergency action plans (EAP's) are a relatively new phenomenon, but the legal principles governing them are based in long-established rules of negligence.

"Statutes, regulations, and professional standards often require the preparation of emergency action plans (EAP's) to facilitate the response, recovery, and rebuilding efforts when a disaster occurs. The tragic events of 9/11 prompted an article, published by the University of Pittsburg Law Review (63 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 791) three years ago. It laid out the legal issues invoved with emergency planning. The article discussed the three separate problems with EAP's: 1) Failure to prepare an EAP in the first instance; 2) Failure to follow the EAP; and 3) ineffectiveness of the EAP. The article has been substantially expanded since the initial publication in recognition of the reality that we are still on a steep learning curve with emergency planning.

"The article was the third in a series dealing with the issues of disasters. The first, Act of God? or Act of Man? A Reapprisal of the Act of God Defense in Tort Law was published at 15 The Review of Litigation 1 (1996) and is available on SSRN. The second is The Duty to Disclose Geologic Hazards in Real Estate Transactions, 1 Chapman Law Rev.13 (1998). The thesis of the three articles is that natural disasters are generally foreseeable today, and even if they cannot be prevented, the effects may be ameliorated through the exercise of reasonable care in the planning and response efforts." —Abstract.

"The tragedies of 9/11 and Katrina bring to the fore the need for emergency action planning. Government has responded by enacting statutes and ordinances, and issuing regulations. Industry has responded through the promulgation of professional standards, especially NFPA 1600, which was highly praised by the 9/11 Commission. The National Fire Protective Association is one of the most prominent private standards setting organizations nationally and throughout the world. Its standards and codes are often incorporated into statutes, ordinances, and regulations.

"This article outlines the role these sources of legal authority should play in establishing legal standards for emergency responses. It looks to both traditional legal precedence and the case law which has evolved around NFPA standards.

"Unlike many earlier articles, this essay emphasizes that statutes, ordinances, regulations, and professional standards only set the floor for legal liability. The common law duty of reasonable care under the circumstances may impose a higher duty of care based upon the reasonable foreseeability of the risk." —Abstract.

"With seas rising, storms getting stronger, and ground subsiding, another disaster like Katrina seems inevitable. Yet some residents would rather run that risk than leave the place they call home.

"Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in United States history, was also a warning shot. Right after the tragedy, many people expressed a defiant resolve to rebuild the city. But among engineers and experts, that resolve is giving way to a growing awareness that another such disaster is inevitable, and nothing short of a massive and endless national commitment can prevent it."

"We initiated this audit in response to Congressional concerns that, in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, multitier subcontracting (1) increased costs to the government, (2) limited opportunities for small and local businesses to participate in response and recovery efforts, and (3) resulted in layers of subcontractors being paid profit and overhead while adding little or no value to the work performed under the contract. Our objectives were to determine the validity of these concerns, as well as to determine the potential effect Section 692 of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 could have on future disaster contracting.

"It does not appear that multitier subcontracting, as an isolated factor, caused significant increases in costs to the government, nor did it reduce subcontracting opportunities for small and local businesses. The prime contractors subcontracted a significant amount of the value of their contracts to small and local businesses.

"Although FEMA relied on large national prime contractors, initially preventing small and local businesses from participating as prime contractors themselves, the national prime contractors generally did well hiring small and local subcontractors. However, because subcontractor invoices generally do not include specific information on lower tier subcontractors, we could not determine how many layers of subcontracting existed on contracts or whether any layers involved contractors charging profit without contributing substantially to the work being performed on the contract.

"Although Section 692 of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 would limit subcontracting to 65% of total contract costs, nothing in this legislation specifically restricts the number of tiers of subcontractors. Further, by limiting subcontracting, Section 692 could restrict funding available to small and local businesses while potentially impairing FEMA's ability to respond quickly to future catastrophic disasters. The Department of Defense has promulgated less restrictive rules to control multitiering that reduce the risks inherent in Section 692. Therefore, we recommend FEMA officials work with DHS officials, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and Congress to promulgate less restrictive rules over multitier contracting." —Executive Summary.

The Oil Spill Response Plan is a 582-page document that "was developed in order to respond effectively to all emergency incidents that occur in the Gulf of Mexico, and will be utilized in the event of an oil spill occurring in Federal or State waters.

"The purpose of the Plan is to establish procedures, clarify responsibilities, and provide lines of authority and the sequence of communications to be followed in the event of an emergency response. Proper execution of the procedures detailed in this manual will help to limit environmental and ecological damage to sensitive areas as well as minimizing loss or damage to BP facilities in the event of a petroleum release and/or other emergency response incidents." — Purpose and Use.

"The ability to measure emergency preparedness—to predict the likely performance of emergency response systems at future events—is critical for policy analysis in homeland security. It is also key for answering the fundamental question that the public and policymakers alike have about those systems: How much confidence should we have that they will function as planned when the next large-scale incident or disaster occurs? Though substantial effort has been devoted to developing measures of preparedness in a range of fields, good measures are still elusive. This work makes a contribution to that larger effort, by drawing on the fields of systems analysis and engineering and applying concepts of system reliability to the evaluation of response systems. By laying out a planned response operation in detail and systematically asking what might go wrong that will prevent the response system from performing as designed, this approach can help to estimate the likelihood that the response system will be able to meet the needs of a future large-scale incident or disaster. . . .

"This work should be of interest to individuals at the federal, state, and local level involved in preparedness and planning; members of the private sector involved in contingency and business continuity planning; members of the executive and legislative branches interested in homeland security, emergency management, assessment, and performance measurement; and members of the public interested in disaster and emergency preparedness."—Preface.

"Hurricane Katrina was an unprecedented physical and administrative disaster. In addition to the loss of life, human suffering and physical debris left in its wake, there was substantial financial and procedural disorganization in the provision of relief services due to fraud, understaffing, unclear guidelines, and general lack of preparation. This paper explores the problem of fraud after Katrina and offers a solution for providing aid more effectively in the event of a future disaster. This can be achieved through use of Electronic Benefits Technology (EBT) and the centralization of beneficiary demographic databases, which would require much broader information sharing among federal, state, and local governments and non-profits in order to provide faster and broader emergency services and safeguards against fraud.

"Problems will doubtlessly arise because vast information sharing decreases the privacy of victims and leaves them open to criminal prosecution and deportation. In addition, reliance on public databases to provide verification of identification for emergency benefits is likely to aggravate the ability of vulnerable populations, such as undocumented aliens, to obtain aid, which could result in the denial of services to actual residents in great need. An emergency system must therefore endeavor to use EBT and information sharing resources to speed intake and prevent fraud, while not neglecting these vulnerable populations by installing strict privacy regulations and providing victims with the assurance that their information will not be used for any adverse purpose. A fully interoperable EBT system together with advanced planning and increased staffing will almost certainly ensure that the next disaster will not be an administrative tragedy."—Abstract.

"It is likely that in some heavily damaged parts of New Orleans redevelopment will be restricted, either temporarily, or even permanently. The possibility of such restrictions immediately gives rise to the following question: Will restrictions on development in New Orleans effect compensable regulatory takings under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? In this paper, we try to answer that question, or to at least provide a framework for answering it. We conclude, although cautiously, that it is more likely than not that temporary restrictions will not effect compensable takings because property owners still have economically valuable interests, while it is more likely than not that permanent restrictions will result in compensable takings because of owner expectations and a lack of reciprocity of advantage.

"We have three primary goals. First, we summarize the proposal for redevelopment which explicitly allows for the possibility of moratoria on redevelopment in certain neighborhoods. Second, we situate the current case law on this issue within the larger context of takings jurisprudence. Understanding the courts' trends on this issue, if any are discernible, will be indispensable in trying to get a sense of how courts would rule in litigation that might arise out of regulating redevelopment in New Orleans. Third, we give an analysis of how current holdings on takings issues might apply to the situation in New Orleans. Because of the complexity of takings jurisprudence, and because of the somewhat unusual nature of the situation in New Orleans, it is difficult to make a confident prediction about how such claims would come out."—Abstract.

"The legal system ostensibly plays a central role in disaster prevention, response, and management. Attorneys, members of the judiciary, and decision-makers at every level of government must anticipate and respond to disasters in a coordinated manner. It is increasingly clear, however, that the law is woefully unprepared to handle disasters. A growing community of academics recognizes this problem, and is formulating solutions under the rubric of disaster law. This emerging legal academic field encompasses a wide-ranging, intra- and inter-disciplinary body of thought, research and dialogue which seeks to inform and improve disaster-related decision-making.

"On June 25th, 2007, eighteen law professors and legal practitioners who count disasters among their primary research interests, gathered at U.C. Berkeley Law School to chart disaster law's course for the immediate and long-term future. Appendix A, Workshop Participants and Agenda. Over the course of the day, participants highlighted a wide variety of important intellectual concerns and potential problem-solving strategies regarding disaster management.

"In a series of productive discussions, participants first addressed central normative issues of disaster law, including terminology and the role of the legal academy. The group then addressed four sub-areas of disaster law: international collaboration, social justice, compensation and insurance, and prevention and response. Participants' recommendations for action included the creation of an annual disaster law conference, the integration of disaster law into law teaching, and an increased internet presence.

"This white paper, a record of the milestone June 25th workshop, is intended as a tool for use by disaster law practitioners and academics in mapping the direction and future of the field."—Executive Summary.

"After several decades of supporting the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet despite its economic inefficiency and negative environmental impacts, the United States Army Corps.of Engineers has been charged with the task of assessing various proposals to deauthorize the passage to deep-draft navigation. In reality the passage has been closed to deep-draft travel since Hurricane Katrina destroyed many of the levees bordering the MRGO and dumped a tremendous amount of material into the channel. Whereas continuing to dredge the channel in the past simply maintained the status quo, it would now be a very large undertaking with little legitimate justification considering that the MRGO's negative impact on the region was made perfectly clear by Hurricane Katrina. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently in the process of exploring various plans of action regarding the MRGO. The focus of this assessment is flood control, seen both as a product of wetland protection and direct storm surge channeling. Though the importance of wetland preservation in protecting the region from flooding may finally be afforded appropriate weight during this process, the correct policy must still be funneled through the politics of both Congress and the Corps. To a large extent, the politics of water projects have prevented the development of a comprehensive policy for flood prevention in the region and though Hurricane Katrina may have heightened Congress' sense of urgency in reevaluating the MRGO, it certainly did not alter the pitfalls inherent to the legislative process."—Abstract.

"On April 19, 2007, the Preventive Defense Project convened a workshop of leading federal government civilian and military officials, scientists, policy experts, and journalists to address the actions that can and should be taken in the 24 hours following a nuclear blast in a U.S. city.

"The needed actions by government and the public on the Day After will fall into two categories: actions to recover from the first detonation, and actions to prevent a second detonation. The Workshop addressed both types of action in as much detail, including technical detail, as possible. Topics included emergency response, evacuation and sheltering, immediate radiation effects, follow-on threats to the first nuclear weapon, attribution and retaliation, and the long process of cleanup--especially the uniquely difficult problem of fallout and residual radioactivity."—Foreword.

"Two years after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the city faces challenges as it tries to rebuild: not just those posed by mountains of rubble and the prospect of future hurricanes, but also a rebuilding effort hampered by inaction, mismanagement, and corruption.

"View the slideshow below for a by-the-numbers look at post-Katrina New Orleans. All images courtesy of the Associated Press."

"The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital record of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. George Mason University's Center for History and New Media and the University of New Orleans, in partnership with the Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of American History and other partners, organized this project.

"The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank contributes to the ongoing effort by historians and archivists to preserve the record of these storms by collecting first-hand accounts, on-scene images, blog postings, and podcasts. We hope to foster some positive legacies by allowing the people affected by these storms to tell their stories in their own words, which as part of the historical record will remain accessible to a wide audience for generations to come.

"This project builds on prior work by George Mason University's Center for History and New Media, and other partners such as the Library of Congress and the Red Cross, to collect and preserve history online, especially through the ECHO project and the September 11 Digital Archive. It is part of a growing practice of using the Internet to preserve the past through "digital memory banks." —Website.

For fifteen months following Hurricane Katrina, The Center for Public Integrity highlighted the best coverage of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath and tracked government contracts awarded for cleanup and reconstruction. "The Katrina Watch project presents original reports by the Center for Public Integrity and an archive of links to information culled from media and government Web sites." -Center for Public Integrit, Katrina Watch

"Hurricane Katrina revealed fundamental problems with our nation's ability to respond to natural disasters. Not only did Katrina overwhelm governments at all levels in their abilities to respond to the disaster, but it also revealed their inadequate emergency preparation and response plans. There was a failure among local, state and federal levels to effectively optimize assistance and resources coming from other states and the federal government.

"This paper advocates an amended Stafford Act to include three solutions that are crucial to strengthening national preparedness for future disasters. First, local jurisdictions and states should be required to develop comprehensive disaster preparedness and response plans, consistent with a national framework, that enable them to effectively manage complex disasters. Second, the federal government needs to harmonize its disaster-relief infrastructure and consolidate natural emergency preparedness and response functions in the Federal Emergency Management Agency within the Department of Homeland Security. Finally, the Stafford Act should include a contingency plan for a catastrophe so large it renders traditional emergency management impracticable.

"While these structural changes for national preparedness can be implemented by executive order as governmental reports and studies have suggested, this paper stresses the importance of enacting these recommendations in legislation. The Stafford Act is the touchstone of federal disaster relief. Updating the Stafford Act to include a national framework for disaster response, the federal infrastructure for disaster management under the leadership of DHS, and the framework for the nation's response to catastrophic incidents, will achieve clarity and permanency for all parties involved. Updating the Act as suggested will ensure that the country shall be primed and prepared for future disasters."—Abstract.

"On September 7, 2005, CREW sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which FEMA is a component, seeking records related to the federal government's long-term planning for a hurricane on the Gulf Coast as well as its immediate preparations for and response to Hurricane Katrina. In January 2006, CREW sued to force DHS to comply with the FOIA. The Best Laid Plans is based on the 7,500 records DHS provided in response to CREW's lawsuit.

"Critically, CREW found that FEMA had created a 'Southeast Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Plan' (SLCHP), which forecast a range of specific consequences....

"Nevertheless, despite the comprehensive SLCHP, post-Katrina FEMA documents demonstrate that the plan was never implemented."—Press release.

Emergency Preparedness

Advice for practitioners on the pre-emergency phase, with generic material on key frameworks (such as the Civil Contingencies Act) and disciplines (such as risk assessment and business continuity).

• Emergency Preparedness
• Civil Contingencies Act

Emergency Response and Recovery

Advice for practitioners on the post-emergency phase, with generic material on key frameworks (such as the UK Central Government Concept of Operations) and disciplines (such as care and treatment of people).

• Emergency Response & Recovery

Emergencies

Specific assessments and guidance in relation to the broad classes of emergency which our risk framework has identified." — About UK Resilience

"In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, victims evacuating New Orleans for safer ground in Gretna, LA, were stopped by a Gretna Police blockade. A class action lawsuit seeks damages from the officers and the City of Gretna for, inter alia, infringement on the right to travel.

"While the complaint does not allege 42 U.S.C. ? 1983 claims against the City of Gretna, such a claim could succeed."—Synopsis.

"The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also known as the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill or the BP Oil Spill) is a large ongoing oil spill caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform about 50 miles southeast of the Mississippi River delta on April 20, 2010... Most of the 126 workers on the platform were safely evacuated, and a search and rescue operation began for 11 missing workers. The Deepwater Horizon sank in about 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of water on April 22, 2010. On April 23, the U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search for missing workers who are all presumed dead...

"The sinking of the platform caused crude oil to gush out of the riser—the 5,000-foot pipe that connects the well at the ocean floor to the drilling platform on the surface. Attempts to shut down the flow, first estimated at about 1,000 barrels of oil a day, failed when a safety device called a blowout preventer could not be activated." — Overview.

"Major energy transitions are accompanied by transformative cultural, economic, demographic, technological, and environmental changes. The transition to fossil fuel-based energy systems powered rapid economic growth and raised living standards, but it also caused pervasive environmental change at local, regional, and global scales, as well as violent conflict over remaining supplies of oil. The fossil fuel transition co-evolved with a culture that places a high value on consumerism and affluence, a lifestyle that requires large amounts of energy to support and generates significant wastes. In our time the depletion of fossil fuels (especially oil), surging energy demand in the developing world, and the need to manage future climate change are driving humanity to the brink of another major energy transition."—About.

Includes daily entires on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by the numbers.

"CDG is a new initiative launched by the Institute of Development Studies and Christian Aid investigating climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction governance at a national and sub-national level.

"CDG is currently focusing on four research themes. Each theme is a potential governance arena for linking climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction policy processes, institutional development, finance flows and policy implementation: (1) Citizen engagement and accountability in policy processes; (2) The role of established social protection policy instruments applied to differentiated vulnerability analysis; (3) Opportunities for building institutions for CCA, DRR and humanitarian assistance in fragile states; (4) Implications of international policy frameworks on national and sub-national responses to climate change and disasters.

"CDG will contribute to a better understanding of the extent to which international policies inhibit or support national and sub-national responses to climate change's research agenda by addressing critical gaps.

"In particular, CDG is examining the implications of international agreements reached under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the current and upcoming development phase of a post-Kyoto agreement." —About CDG.

"At the core of the set of challenges that confront national, state, and local government officials concerning homeland security national preparedness public policy are a set of assumptions, upon which current and evolving policies are based, that are suspect if not fatally flawed. The policy outcomes resulting from these faulty assumptions (and facilitated by hindering institutional pathologies, misguided policies, and bad policy instruments) have left the nation less prepared than is possible had forward-thinking, aggressively applied modern public management models been used as the foundation upon which national preparedness could be established. The assumptions brought into focus in this article are:

"1. There is an idealized level of national preparedness; achieving a prescribed level of preparedness to respond to events of national significance, whether man-made or natural in origin, is possible based on current or foreseeable resource levels.

"2. The federal government is obliged to direct the development of national preparedness policy to ensure that state and local governments are working toward policy compliance and are providing full accountability for grant funds.

"3. Current homeland security public policy is coherent, embraces an all-hazards approach to national preparedness and reflects the comprehensive involvement of state and local governments in its development, deployment, and implementation.

"After a brief discussion of research methodology, this article traces the evolution of national preparedness policies and describes the institutional pathologies and policy instruments that have inhibited national preparedness. The next section provides analysis related to the research and an explanation of why the assumptions identified above are flawed. Finally, recommendations are offered that might allow the next administration and those with public safety, emergency management, and homeland security responsibilities at the state and local level insights into building community resilience and governance capacity that raises preparedness to as high a level as possible." —Introduction.

"Policymakers fight over bureaucratic structure because it helps shape the legal interpretations and regulatory decisions of agencies through which modern governments operate. In this article, we update positive political theories of bureaucratic structure to encompass two new issues with important implications for lawyers and political scientists: the implications of legislative responses to a crisis, and the uncertainty surrounding major bureaucratic reorganizations. The resulting perspective affords a better understanding of how agencies interpret their legal mandates and deploy their administrative discretion.

"We apply the theory to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Two principal questions surrounding this creation are (1) why the president changed from opposing the development of a new department to supporting it and (2) why his plan for such a department was far beyond the scope of any other existing proposal. We argue that the president changed his mind in part because he did not want to be on the losing side of a major legislative battle. But more importantly, the president supported the massive new department in part to further domestic policy priorities unrelated to homeland security. By moving a large set of agencies within the department and instilling them with new homeland security responsibilities without additional budgets, the president forced these agencies to move resources out of their legacy mandates. Perversely, these goals appear to have been accomplished at the expense of homeland security.

"Finally, we briefly discuss more general implications of our perspective: first, previous reorganizations (such as FDR's creation of a Federal Security Agency and Carter's creation of an Energy Department) also seem to reflect presidential efforts to enhance their control of administrative functions - including some not directly related to the stated purpose of the reorganization; and, second, our analysis raises questions about some of the most often-asserted justifications for judicial deference to agency legal interpretations." —Abstract.

"This report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) addresses factual questions about the values of properties insured at subsidized rates (hereafter called subsidized properties) under the NFIP. Specifically, it compares the values of the properties covered by subsidized and unsubsidized insurance policies, and it examines in particular the subset of properties that are not primary residences—vacation properties, second homes, or rental properties.

"The analysis uses data on the values of more than 10,000 NFIP-insured properties, sorted into four groups as subsidized or unsubsidized properties in coastal or inland areas."—Summary and Introduction.

"Damage to or destruction of the nation's water supply and water quality infrastructure by terrorist attack or natural disaster could disrupt the delivery of vital human services in this country, threatening public health and the environment, or possibly causing loss of life. Interest in such problems has increased greatly since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

"Across the country, water infrastructure systems extend over vast areas, and ownership and operation responsibility are both public and private, but are overwhelmingly non-federal. Since the attacks, federal dam operators and local water and wastewater utilities have been under heightened security conditions and are evaluating security plans and measures. There are no federal standards or agreed upon industry practices within the water infrastructure sector to govern readiness, response to security incidents, and recovery. Efforts to develop protocols and tools are ongoing since the 2001 terrorist attacks. This report presents an overview of this large and diverse sector, describes security-related actions by the government and private sector since September 11, and discusses additional policy issues and responses, including congressional interest.

"Policymakers have been considering a number of initiatives, including enhanced physical security, better communication and coordination, and research. A key issue is how additional protections and resources directed at public and private sector priorities will be funded. In response, Congress has provided $794 million in appropriations for security at water infrastructure facilities (to assess and protectfederal facilities and support security assessment and risk reduction activities by nonfederal facilities) and passed a bill requiring drinking water utilities to conduct security vulnerability assessments (P.L. 107-188). When Congress created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002 (P.L. 107-297), it gave DHS responsibilities to coordinate information to secure the nation's critical infrastructure, including the water sector. Under Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the lead federal agency for protecting drinking water and wastewater utility systems.

"Recent congressional interest has focused on two legislative issues: (1) security of wastewater utilities, and (2) whether to include water utilities in chemical security regulations implemented by DHS. In the 109th Congress, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved legislation to encourage wastewater treatment works to conduct vulnerability assessments and develop site security plans(S. 2781), but there was no further action on this bill. Similar legislation has been introduced in the 110th Congress (S. 1968). Also in the 110th Congress, bills to extend DHS's Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Standards are being considered. One bill (H.R. 5533) would preserve an existing exemption for water utilities, while another (H.R. 5577) would include them in the scope of DHS security rules. Continuing attention to these issues is possible, along with interest in how the federal government coordinates its own activities and communicates policies and information to the water infrastructure sector."

"In reviewing various proposals to cover risk relating to natural or man-made catastrophes, the report focused on approaches to deal with natural disasters: H.R. 4366, the Homeowners' Insurance Protection Act of 2005; H.R. 846, the Homeowners' Insurance Availability Act of 2005 (HIAA); and tax deductible reserves.

"In addition, the authors looked at both the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA) and the extension of TRIA that was passed in 2005. That law, which provides a federal backstop for the commercial insurance industry in the event of a terrorist attack, will expire at the end of 2007 unless it is extended again.

"The study presents arguments advanced by advocates and critics of each of the proposals and assesses each in terms of potential effectiveness, analyzing the options but not endorsing any of the potential approaches." —Press release.

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Congress amended the Insurrection Act of 1807. The Act enables the President to deploy the military 'to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.' The amended Act expands the language of the original Act to include natural disasters, epidemics, or other serious public health emergencies, terrorist attacks or incidents, or other conditions. Opponents of the amendment, most notably all fifty governors, criticize the amendment as a presidential power grab aimed at suppressing the power of the states and increasing the role of the military in domestic affairs.

This paper argues that the amendment to the Insurrection Act does not affect the President's existing powers to deploy the military domestically. Instead, this paper argues that the amendment merely clarifies the situations that justify the use of the military to respond to domestic disorder. An analysis of the historical use of the Act and the Act's language indicates that justification for presidential action prior to the amendment focused on the extent, rather than the source of the domestic disorder. The changes made in October of 2006 provide explicit examples of situations that may lead to events of public disorder justifying the President's invocation of the Act's authority. In addition, political and historical limitations, along with limitations in the Act itself, will restrict presidential abuse of the power. Thus, the uproar over the recent changes to the Insurrection Act and the fears of martial law are unfounded."—Abstract.

"Hurricane Katrina not only devastated a large area of the nation's Gulf coast, it also raised fundamental questions about ways the nation can, and should, deal with the inevitable problems of economic risk and social responsibility. This volume gathers leading experts to examine lessons that Hurricane Katrina teaches us about better assessing, perceiving, and managing risks from future disasters.

"In the years ahead we will inevitably face more problems like those caused by Katrina, from fire, earthquake, or even a flu pandemic. America remains in the cross hairs of terrorists, while policy makers continue to grapple with important environmental and health risks. Each of these scenarios might, in itself, be relatively unlikely to occur. But it is statistically certain that we will confront such catastrophes, or perhaps one we have never imagined, and the nation and its citizenry must be prepared to act. That is the fundamental lesson of Katrina.

"The 20 contributors to this volume address questions of public and private roles in assessing, managing, and dealing with risk in American society and suggest strategies for moving ahead in rebuilding the Gulf coast."

"Just compensation is critical to post disaster recovery in the wake of a devastating flood, especially when prior shortcomings of the government might be partially to blame. Assessing the full extent of compensation given to private landowners may help for future disaster flood recovery and planning. Despite profound geographic, demographic, and legal differences between France, Louisiana, and California a comparison of their post-disaster compensation models proves useful to identify past, present, and future models of a similar problem of postflood redevelopment compensation outside of private insurance schemes.

"Inquiring into eminent domain concepts surrounding just compensation principles in France, Louisiana, and California provides a framework for addressing post-disaster homeowner compensation. France supplies a model that demonstrates strong flood disaster prevention and land use planning measures alongside a full recovery compensation scheme. In contrast, Louisiana and California do not have explicit disaster compensation frameworks. Existing Louisiana law offers an existing legal and moral framework that can be applied by the state entity currently deliberating on post-disaster compensation program. California, on the other hand, currently offers the most unforgiving compensation scheme, but also has the time to adopt tailored flood compensation and planning principles."—Abstract.

"RestoretheGulf.gov is the official federal portal for the Deepwater BP oil spill response and recovery. This site provides the public with information on the response, current operations, news and updates, how to file a claim and obtain other assistance, and links to federal, state and local partners."—About Us.

"A Unified Command has been established to manage response operations to the April 20, 2010 'Deepwater Horizon' incident. A Unified Command links the organizations responding to an incident and provides a forum for those organizations to make consensus decisions. This site is maintained by the Unified Command's Joint Information Center (JIC), which provides the public with reliable, timely information about the response."—About Us.

The official site for the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command began transitioning to www.RestoreTheGulf.gov in July 2010. 

"The manual was specifically written to give local grassroots organisations the knowledge and strategies necessary to protect children from sexual violence and sexual exploitation in the event of both natural and man made disasters and in emergency situations.

"We also hope is that it will be of use to larger organisations, international agencies, policy makers, funders and anyone else who is concerned with protecting children from this particularly damaging kind of abuse and violence."—Introduction.

"The National Laboratories were convened by the Department of Energy and tasked to begin looking at ways to plug the leak in the Gulf the week of April 26th."

"The Disasters Roundtable (DR), a unit of the Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS), facilitates and enhances the exchange of ideas among scientists, practitioners, and policy makers concerned with urgent and important issues related to natural, technological, and other disasters. Roundtable workshops are held three times a year in Washington, D.C. focused on a specific topic or issue selected by the Disasters Roundtable Steering Committee.

At the workshops, experts in the hazard and disaster field offer insight through presentations and discussion. The presentations and the dialogue that occur between invited speakers and attendees are documented in a written summary. Past workshops have furthered additional discussion on hazard science policy topics and provided insight on the nation's future research and applications needs." — About Us

"This Article analyzes how the government's blame of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) for its late response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster was misplaced. Part I starts with a brief history of the military's role in domestic law enforcement and chronicles how, throughout history, standing armies have crept into civilian law enforcement. It discusses how for centuries, governments have treated their standing armies as necessary evils - depending on the military for national defense while at the same time fearing its power to oppress if improperly unleashed. In fact, the encroachment of federal troops on the voting rights of the Reconstruction South was the impetus for the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) in 1878.

"Part II teases out the convoluted process of analyzing military action under the PCA. It lays out how courts interpret the statute as well as the constitutional, Congressional and common law exceptions to the PCA. Part III applies the PCA to the situation in New Orleans, concluding that the PCA was not implicated because the military's role was to provide food, water, medical care and transportation out of the city and not to enforce the law. This section also details the various sources of authority that would have permitted the use of the military in a law enforcement capacity in New Orleans immediately after Katrina.

"Lastly, the Conclusion discusses what the PCA means today and whether we still have a need for such a law. The author concludes that we do need a PCA-like law, but we need one that is more potent. We have traversed through a cycle of authority that gradually progresses from absolute civilian control of the military to virtual control of the military and then back again. We are on the upswing of this cycle, and we need a PCA with teeth in order to protect us from repeating history and from ending this chapter of increasing military authority in disaster."—Abstract.

"The aim of this report is to provide decision-makers with a systematic way of answering these questions. Focusing specifically on the economic aspects of adaptation, it outlines a fact-based risk management approach that national and local leaders can use to understand the impact of climate on their economies - and identify actions to minimize that impact at the lowest cost to society.

 The report is based on the initial findings of a study by the Economics of Climate Adaptation Working Group, a partnership between the Global Environment Facility, McKinsey & Company, Swiss Re, The Rockefeller Foundation, Climate Works Foundation, the European Commission, and Standard Chartered Bank." — Executive Summary

"The Emergency Information Infrastructure Project is a non-profit educational organization, dedicated to enhancing the practice of emergency management, and thereby public safety, through offering professional development opportunities to practitioners and other interested persons. The principal way we work to achieve this goal is through presentation in the 'Virtual Forum' of timely, disaster-related topics by experts in their fields, by means of Internet-based 'Live Chat' (text) technology. There is no charge to participants, and all are welcome."—Website.

Site includes transcripts and podcasts of discussions among experts on disaster response and prevention issues.

ESRI, a producer of geographic information system technology, has created a number of resources on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including

• an interactive social media map that allows users to add YouTube videos, pictures, and other resources,
• a timeline map showing the extent of the spill, and
• an economic impact map showing the percentage of economic activity from affected industries.

"[The] record suggests that we are doomed to a future in which increasingly complex organizations fail, causing unnecessary death and injury, large scale economic disruption, political haggling, and years of rebuilding. Hurricane Katrina exemplified this failure to learn from the past, and the odds are good that the future will provide yet more tragic examples of this syndrome. We may be doomed to repeat these failures, even though preventing disasters is cheaper than recovery. We may be doomed to this future—despite the fact that we know that technological failures virtually always occur within the context of management failures, and despite the growing body of literature that describes management concepts that could reduce large scale failure. But planning for disaster seems to challenge our organizational capacities.

"We are doomed—unless. This article deals with 'unless.' The investigation of the New Orleans levee failure in which all of us participated revealed that the destruction of New Orleans was a manmade disaster, caused by the organizational structures that designed, built, and maintained the New Orleans flood control system. Levees failed, not because of the unavailability of the information needed to build them properly, but because of organizational inability to act on that information. Our focus here, however, is not on what went wrong: it is on how to make things go better in the future."—Introduction.

"The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national public warning system that requires broadcasters, cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) providers and, direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service providers to provide the communications capability to the President to address the American public during a National emergency. The system also may be used by state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information such as AMBER alerts and weather information targeted to a specific area.

"The FCC, in conjunction with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service (NWS), implement EAS at the federal level. The President has sole responsibility for determining when the EAS will be activated at the national level, and has delegated this authority to the director of FEMA. FEMA is responsible for implementation of the national-level activation of EAS, tests, and exercises. The NWS develops emergency weather information to alert the public of imminent dangerous weather conditions.

"The FCC's role includes prescribing rules that establish technical standards for EAS, procedures for EAS participants to follow in the event EAS is activated, and EAS testing protocols. Additionally, the FCC ensures that EAS state and local plans developed by industry conform to the FCC EAS rules and regulations." — Website.

"One of the primary goals of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the prevention, or mitigation, of this country's losses from natural hazards. To achieve this goal, we as a nation need to ask what level of performance do we expect from our buildings during an event such as an earthquake. In order to answer this question, FEMA is exploring the possible development of "performance-based seismic design" criteria. Such criteria could be voluntarily used by this nation's engineers and designers to improve the performance of critical classes of buildings that are currently only designed to a "lifesafety" level to avoid collapse, but would infact probably still suffer significant damage in a design event.

"FEMA contracted with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) (contract number EMW-92-K-3955, Task 13) to solicit the input of the nation's leading seismic professionals in developing an action plan that could be used to develop performance- based seismic design criteria. This project and the resulting action plan have gone a long way in identifying key issues that will need to be addressed in this process.

"This action plan builds upon a similar effort that FEMA funded in 1993 with the Earthquake Engineering Research Center, now the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER). The end product of that study was a similar plan, "Performance Based Seismic Design of Buildings" (FEMA-283), published by FEMA in September 1996. The material in that plan had an emphasis on the research that would be required, and has in fact been used by PEER inthe last several years as the basis for their research work inthis arena. While this action plan does an excellent job of describing the requirements that would be needed to successfully develop performance based seismic design criteria, FEMA does has some concerns, such as the proposed budget, which exceeds what FEMA is capable of devoting within the recomended time frame. FEMA is planning to identify some of the key elements of the plan and to begin to address them through a series of projects under its Problem Focused Studies program. However, without additional specific funding for this plan, it will be very difficult to accomplish the entire plan. To avoid further delay, FEMA has decided to publish this document as a "final draft for informational purposes only. Publication of this document in no way obligates this or any other Federal agency to any portion of plan contained herein. The information and opinions contained in this document are solely those of EERI and the project participants and do not necessarily represent the views of FEMA.

"In closing, FEMA sincerely wishes to express its, gratitude to all who were involved in this project. The results of their hard work will play an important role as this country moves forward towards performance-based seismic design and reducing the losses suffered by this nation's citizens after the next earthquake."—Foreward.

"After viewing the destruction wrought by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in Washington State in May 1980, President Carter became concerned about the impacts of a similar event of low probability but high damage potential, namely a catastrophic earthquake in California, and the state of readiness to cope with the impacts of such an event.

"As a result of the President's concern, an ad hoc committee of the National Security Council was formed to conduct a government review of the consequences of, and preparation for such an event. In addition to the FEMA, the Committee included representatives from the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the United States Geological Survey of the Dept. of the Interior, the Dept. of Defense, the Dept. of Transportation, and the National Communications System, at the Federal level; State of California agencies and California local governments at the State and local levels; and consultants from the private sector." —Executive Summary.

"FEMA should be commended for formulating the "Federal Response Plan" after its experiences with Hurricane Hugo and Loma Prieta. The Plan provided the framework fo numerous Federal agencies' response to Hurricane Andrew. However, Andrew demonstrated that the Plan needs substantial refinements to deal with a disaster of such extraordinary magnitude, particularly in the first few days when broad assistance was so vitally needed but slow in arriving. Several such refinements come directly from lessons learned with Hugo and Loma Prieta, described in the FEMA report of May 1991 on this subject. That report specifically commented that the Federal Government may be the principal responder when a catastrophic disaster overwhelms the State and local governments' ability to respond. FEMA management failed to systematically follow up on the more important problem areas described in that report.

"A key lesson is the need to clarify or expand legal authority for Federal agencies to act quickly, instead of waiting for specific requests for aid from the States. In 1991 FEMA officials proposed legislation that would have somewhat expanded Federal authority, but they gave up when the proposal was not approved for submission to Congress. The weakness of the "Federal Response Plan" and Federal agencies' performance in south Florida are caused primarily by the perception of inadequate authority on such a fundamental issue involving its capability to perform promptly in a catastrophic disaster situation. This issue takes on even more importance in a situation such as Andrew, when many State and local officials could not identify their requirements for Federal assistance, further contributing to victims' suffering.

"We believe this unresolved question of authority would lead FEMA officials to approach the next catastrophic disaster largely in the same way they did Hurricane Andrew, with consequent delay in meeting victims' immediate needs. Mindful that the next hurricane season is but six months away, we present numerous findings and recommendations for improving the Federal response. ...."—Executive Summary.

"The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) grant programs present a critical opportunity to protect individuals and property from natural hazards while simultaneously reducing reliance on Federal disaster funds. The HMA programs provide pre-disaster mitigation grants annually to States, Territories, Tribes, and local communities. The statutory origins of the programs differ, but all share the common goal of reducing the loss of life and property due to natural hazards.

"The Pre-Disaster Mitigation (PDM) program is authorized by the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Assistance and Emergency Relief Act (Stafford Act) and focuses on mitigation project andplanning activities that address multiple natural hazards, although these activities may also address hazards caused by manmade events. The Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) program, Repetitive Flood Claims (RFC) program, and Severe Repetitive Loss (SRL) program are authorized by the National Flood Insurance Act (NFIA), and focus on reducing claims against the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

"For the current application cycles, FEMA's Mitigation Directorate is unifying the multi-hazard PDM program with the FMA, RFC, and SRL programs into a unified HMA program application cycle. The intent of this alignment is to enhance the quality and efficiency of grant awards on an allocation and competitive basis to State, Territory, Tribal, and local entities for worthwhile, cost-beneficial activities designed to reduce the risks of future damage in hazard-prone areas. Best practices from the programs will be identified and adopted as the standard for all programs throughout this unification process. In addition, a unified process achieves economies of scale and portfolio management for Federal, State, and local officials by allowing resources to be dedicated to program training and technical assistance as needed. At the same time, unification streamlines FEMA's program delivery and review processes, which offer new opportunities and additional resources to expand national outreach for all types of mitigation." —Introduction.

"Throughout this post-Katrina period, FEMA has remained dedicated to helping Louisiana families and communities recover. To date, in partnership with and in support of the state of Louisiana, we have provided more than $15.2 billion in assistance. We maintain our steadfast commitment to the resilient survivors of Louisiana as they continue along the path to full recovery.

"So, on the 5th anniversary of this unprecedented event, we can say that a lot has been accomplished, but we an also say that a lot remains to be done. FEMA is committed to being here for as long as it takes to fully recover, and we’re working to do so in a way that builds, sustains and improves south Louisiana’s capability to protect against future hazards."—Mike Karl, EMA Louisiana Recovery Office Interim Director, "Unprecedented Disaster, Unprecedented Recovery."

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Congress temporarily lifted one of the most puzzling limits in the tax Code: the cap that prevents an individual from claiming a charitable deduction greater than 50% of her income, even if she gives more than half her income to charity. Although scholars often criticize the cap in passing for creating unnecessary complexity, few have explored its theoretical underpinnings, and those who have appear hard-pressed to find a satisfactory justification.

"This Article fills that void by proposing two complementary explanations for the AGI limits, one grounded in economic theory and one in political philosophy. The economic explanation proceeds directly from the literature conceptualizing the charitable deduction as a way of overcoming market and government failure for various public goods by spurring non-profits to produce them. It suggests that the AGI limits reflect a bargain between individuals whose preferred public goods are fully funded by the government and those whose projects are only partially subsidized. The philosophical explanation is anchored by the idea of reciprocity inherent in liberal democratic theory. It argues that allowing some individuals to pay no taxes, even if supporting a 'good' cause, is tantamount to allowing them to opt out of a previously agreed-to scheme of cooperation and undermines the stability of our democratic society."—Abstract.

1. "To collect demographic information about laborers employed in the construction and related industries in New Orleans and its environs;
2. "To assess the needs and experiences of workers in the construction industry including job security, safety, fair pay, discrimination, and access to adequate housing and health care; and
3. "To study the overall impact of the changing workforce demographics in the Gulf Coast region."

"The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been designated the lead state agency for responding to potential impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill along Florida's shoreline. This website will serve as the primary location for updates and information on response actions and impacts to the state of Florida...

"Governor Charlie Crist has made Florida's preparation for possible landfall of the oil spill a top priority. Since Governor Crist's first flyover of the oil spill on Tuewsday, April 27, 2010, he has worked to ensure that Florida is vigilant to take every necessary action to protect the Sunshine State's beaches and the health and well-being of both residents and visitors." — About

"Over 700,000 people were displaced after Hurricane Katrina, including 330,000 families. This paper examines some of the potential jurisdictional and practical problems many of these displaced families will face in relation to divorce and child custody matters. It specifically focuses on Louisiana divorce laws and recent modifications to these laws, as well as the conflict of laws issue faced by spouses in covenant marriages when attempting to dissolve their marriages outside of the state. This paper also focuses on the jurisdictional questions that arise when parents attempt to either petition for or modify a preexisting custody decree after displacement. It will examine the implications of federal and uniform laws governing child custody jurisdiction in situations where one of the parents has been displaced outside of Louisiana due to emergency evacuations."—Abstract.

"As recent incidents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters have illustrated, the moral content of looting spans a wide continuum: At one end are predatory and exploitative acts that seem deserving of even greater punishment than ordinary acts of burglary and larceny. At the other end are cases of necessity, involving otherwise law-abiding citizens who, as a result of forces beyond their control, find themselves hungry and exposed to the elements. In between these two poles lies a wide range of conduct that often involves impoverished and alienated citizens living on the edges of society, encouraged to engage in lawlessness by powerful group dynamics and the apparent suspension of civil order.

"This article begins by examining the various meanings - both literal and metaphorical - of looting. It then considers the factors that make bad looting so bad, and good looting less so. With respect to the latter, it considers the possibility that: (1) the disruption in normal social order might leave defendants in a state of nature, outside the jurisdictional reach of the court; (2) the defendant's criminal acts were necessary to avoid some greater harm from occurring; and (3) the otherwise law-abiding offender, suffering from a combination of fright, fatigue, hunger, exposure, and disorientation, should be at least partially excused on the grounds that his acts were out of character.

"The article concludes by considering some of the practical implications of the foregoing analysis, including the suggestion by various commentators that the proper response to looters is to shoot them on sight. It argues that such a policy would be profoundly misguided, both because the criminal law should not tolerate the disproportionate use of deadly force in response to what is essentially a property crime, and because of the obvious difficulties of distinguishing between bad and good looting, particularly under the kinds of emergency conditions in which such acts are committed."—Abstract.

"The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) oil spill website, hosted by the four GOM Sea Grant programs, provides visitors with access to a wealth of data concerning the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Website content will be continually updated, and visitors should check back often for new and revised information."

"The series of recent large-scale catastrophes casts doubt on the ability of the private insurance and reinsurance markets alone to absorb losses resulting from large-scale disasters in the future. And 'mega-risks' are beyond the capacity of the insurance industry or even governments to insure and clearly call for privatepublic partnership and international co-operation.

"Preparing to deal effectively with the hugely complex threats of the 21st century and their financial consequences is a major challenge for decision makers in government and the private sector alike, and one that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency."—The issues at stake.

"On April 20, 2010, an explosion and fire occurred on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. This resulted in 11 worker fatalities, a massive oil release, and a national response effort in the Gulf of Mexico region by the federal and state governments as well as BP.

"Several issues for Congress have emerged as a result of the Deepwater Horizon incident. What lessons should be drawn from the incident? What technological and regulatory changesmay be needed to met risks peculiar to drilling in deeper water? How should Congress distribute costs associated with a catastrophic oil spill? What interventions may be necessary to ensure recovery of Gulf resources and amenities? What does the Deepwater Horizon incident imply for national energy policy, and the tradeoffs between energy needs, risks of deepwater drilling, and protection of natural resources and amenities?

"This report provides an overview of selected issues related to the Deepwater Horizon incident and is not intended to be comprehensive. It will be updated to reflect emerging issues." — Summary.

"In fall 2005, Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma devastated areas along much of the Gulf Coast, resulting in greater demand for food stamps by millions of Gulf Coast State residents and evacuees.

"During disasters, USDA delivers emergency food assistance in two ways. Initially, emergency food commodities are provided to shelters, to other mass feeding sites, and directly to households when normal commercial channels of food distribution may be disrupted. USDA also issues emergency food stamps through the Disaster Food Stamp Program (DFSP), an extension of the regular Food Stamp Program. Under the DFSP, eligibility requirements are temporarily relaxed so that benefits can be quickly provided to households that may not ordinarily qualify for food stamps but suddenly need food assistance.

"The Federal response to the disasters has received much attention; information about food stamp use will help provide a more complete picture of the use of public assistance both during and after the hurricanes. To provide this information, we examined the effect of the hurricanes on food stamp caseloads and benefits issued.

"One effect of the hurricanes was a dramatic spike in both Food Stamp Program caseloads and benefits issued. In November 2005, 29.7 million people received food stamps, the largest number ever to receive food stamps in a single month and about 4 million—or 15 percent—more than just 3 months earlier." —Report Summary

Links to report summary and full report in PDF format.

"Five years later, Hurricane Katrina remains the largest single loss event in the history of the global insurance industry, causing an estimated $41.1 billion in insured damage ($45.1 billion in 2009 dollars) and 1.7 million claims across six states. Louisiana and Mississippi were the hardest-hit states.

"This number does not include $16.1 billion in losses from flooding insured by the national flood insurance program (nfip), or the $2 billion to $3 billion of insured damages to offshore energy facilities.

"Damage from Hurricane Katrina shattered the previous record for a natural catastrophe event set in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew caused $15.5 billion in insured losses at the time it occurred ($22.2 billion in 2009 dollars), with 790,000 claims in three states."—Introduction.

"The vulnerability of California's Delta region to massive flooding stands as one of the state's most urgent policy issues. One of the state's few tools in place to curb urbanization in the Delta is the Delta Protection Act. Adopted in 1992, the Act created the Delta Protection Commission as the regulatory body charged with overseeing development in the Delta. Reflecting a spirit of political compromise, however, the Act limits the jurisdiction of the Commission to the Delta's primary zone while development in the secondary zone goes unregulated. The Delta Protection Commission was called into action for the first time in the fall of 2006 when the Yolo County Board of Supervisors approved a plan for residential development on land presumed to be within the primary zone. In February of 2007 the Commission voted to officially reject the development as a violation of the Delta Protection Act. The primary basis for the Commission's decision was that the Old Sugar Mill Project would 'expose the public to increased flood hazards.' The Commission's decision is, however, appealable in court, and, reflecting the Commission's grossly insufficient regulatory authority, it is uncertain whether the decision will withstand a legal challenge.

"Even if the Delta Protection Commission's decision is ultimately upheld in court, however, the Clarksburg situation demonstrates the irrationality, and unacceptability, of California's Delta land-use regulatory scheme. At present, developments that pose a clear risk to public safety and the long run health of both the Delta and state economy go unchallenged simply because certain land is designated as the secondary zone and, thus, falls within the exclusive jurisdiction of local governments. In order to alleviate this untenable situation California must create a dominant regulatory body with the authority to strictly oversee land-use throughout the Delta region."—Abstract.

"This study examines some key issues about information support to policymakers that have arisen in the information age. The challenge of providing the right information to the right people has been compounded by the challenge of terrorism and shifts in governments' priorities and in governmental organization that deal with various threats to national and human security. This problem set is not unique to the United States, and the study looks at the European Union and selected EU member states as an important point of comparison, and as a critical partner for information sharing and problem solving.

"The Stimson Center, in collaboration with the Swedish Emergency Management Agency (SEMA)and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, embarked on a year-long exploration of three distinct information cultures ??? terrorism, public health, and natural hazards ??? to illuminate problems within and between those distinct expert communities in providing information to key decision-makers and crisis managers. We are grateful to SEMA and to DHS for their financial support, and for their expert participation in a series of workshops and conversations that contributed to this report. Several dozen people of diverse expertise, in government and out, agreed to be interviewed for this study, and we are indebted to them for the insights and information they provided.

"The Stimson team included: Julie Fischer, Senior Associate and director of our work on global health security, Jesper Gronvall, former representative of the Swedish Institute for International Affairs resident at Stimson, Aditi Hate, Research Associate, Rebecca Bornstein, Scoville Fellow, summer interns Amanda Greenland and Anita Ravishankar, and Peter Roman, former Senior Associate responsible for homeland security analysis." —Preface.

"Recent events such as Hurricane Katrina and the global SARS outbreak underscore the importance of having public health and medical systems that are prepared to increase surge capacity in a variety of emergency scenarios. A core component to increasing surge capacity is the availability of skilled health professionals to supplement the existing health workforce.

"This article examines the legal context volunteer health professional find themselves in during public health emergencies and disasters. In addition, the article makes several recommendations about how to refine the law to increase the availability of volunteer health professionals during public health emergencies and disasters. First, states should incorporate advance registration systems and protections for volunteers into laws that authorize emergency preparedness and response efforts. These laws should explicitly define the powers of state government during emergencies and clarify the legal provisions applicable to VHPs and the entities or organizations that may rely on them. Second, a floor of legal protections for volunteers is essential to achieve a minimum level of uniformity among the states and facilitate multi-jurisdictional cooperation in emergency response. Third, the scope and breadth of state based volunteer registries must be expanded to ensure comprehensive and coordinated emergency response efforts among states. Fourth, laws must ensure balanced civil liability protections for VHPs and their host entities by creating responsible immunity protections and alternative mechanism to compensate injured patients. Fifth, states are encouraged to enact laws and regulations providing for license portability during emergencies. Sixth, VHPs should be vested with workers' compensation protections for injuries, disabilities, or deaths experienced while carrying out their duties. Finally, state and federal laws should confer robust privacy protections on volunteer registries, implement fair information practices to allow VHPs and patients to access and verify registry data, and simultaneously ensure responsible access to and use of registry information to mount an effective response." —Abstract.

"The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council (EVOSTC) is one of ARLIS's eight Founding Partners and has entrusted ARLIS with its extensive collection of materials on the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS). Many of the items in this collection are unique and available only at ARLIS...

"This guide provides links to numerous full-text publications and many more are available through the ARLIS catalog at www.arlis.org."

"The physical security of nuclear power plants and their vulnerability to deliberate acts of terrorism was elevated to a national security concern following the events of September 11, 2001.

"Title VI of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 regarding nuclear security amended the Atomic Energy Act with the addition of new provisions for security evaluations and rulemaking to revise the 'Design Basis Threat.' The act included provisions for fingerprinting and criminal background checks of security personnel, their use of firearms, and the unauthorized introduction of dangerous weapons. The designation of facilities subject to enforcement of penalties for sabotage expanded to include treatment and disposal facilities.

"As part of security response evaluations, the act requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to conduct 'force-on-force' security exercises at nuclear power plants at least once every three years, and revise the 'design-basis threat' to consider a wider variety of potential attacks.

"The NRC has strengthened its regulations on nuclear power plant security, but critics contend that implementation by the industry has been too slow and that further measures are needed. Vulnerability to a deliberate aircraft crash remains an outstanding issue, as the latest NRC rulemaking addresses only newly designed plants. Shortcomings in the performance of security contractors has drawn the attention of Congress.

"This report will be updated as events warrant."—Summary.

"This Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza further clarifies the roles and responsibilities of governmental and non-governmental entities, including Federal, State, local, and tribal authorities and regional, national, and international stakeholders, and provides preparedness guidance for all segments of society. The Plan addresses the following topics:

• U.S. Government Planning and Response
• International Efforts and Transportation and Borders
• Protecting Human Health
• Protecting Animal Health
• Law Enforcement, Public Safety, and Security
• Institutional Considerations"

"Many assume that the only viable option for emergency response and recovery from a natural disaster is one that is centrally directed. However, highlighted by the poor response from the federal government and the comparatively effective response from private retailers and the Coast Guard after Hurricane Katrina, this assumption seems to be faulty. Big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart were extraordinarily successful in providing help to damaged communities in the days, weeks, and months after the storm. This Policy Comment provides a framework for understanding why private retailers and the Coast Guard mounted an effective response in the Gulf Coast region. Using this framework provides four clear policy recommendations:

"1. Give the private sector as much freedom as possible to provide resources for relief and recovery efforts and ensure that its role is officially recognized as part of disaster protocols. 2. Decentralize government relief to local governments and non-governmental organizations and provide that relief in the form of cash or broadly defined vouchers. 3. Move the Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 4. Reform 'Good Samaritan' laws so that private-sector actors are clearly protected when they make good faith efforts to help.

"If disaster situations are to be better handled in the future, it is important that institutions are in place so that actors have the appropriate knowledge to act and incentives to behave in ways that benefit others. The framework and recommendations provided in this paper help to provide a good understanding of the appropriate institutions."—Executive Summary.

"Access to potential oil and gas resources under the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) continue to be controversial. Moratoria on leasing and development in certain areas were established by Congress (beginning in 1981) and by the President (beginning in 1990). These moratoria were largely eliminated in 2008 and 2009, although a few areas remain legislatively off limits to leasing. The 111th Congress may be unlikely to reinstate broad leasing moratoria, but some members have expressed interest in protecting areas (e.g., the Georges Bank or Northern California) or establishing protective coastal buffers. Pressure to expand oil and gas supplies and protect coastal environments and ecommunities will likely lead Congress and the Administration to consider carefully which areas to keep open to leasing and which to protect from development...

"Consideration of offshore development for any purpose may raise concerns over the protection of the marine and coastal environment. Historical events associated with offshore oil production, such as the large oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA, in 1969, cause both opponents and prponents of offshore development to consider the risks and to weigh those risks against the economic and social benefits of the development. However, both technology and regulatory oversight have improved since that event. But the recent oil spill that occurred on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico has brough increased attention to those offshore drilling risks." — Summary.

"Public health law has been a quintessentially public law field, centered around a system of administrative agencies. In some respects, the field is moving even closer to the core of governmental functions. Since September 11, the 2001 anthrax attacks and Hurricane Katrina, the conceptual framework of emergency preparedness and response has subsumed ever larger segments of public health policymaking. Emergency planning has become an important discourse of governance, one which reveals a great deal about the operations of state power.

"In this article, I identify three approaches to governance embedded in today's public health law and policy. The first and most traditional approach to governance is that of dominant state authority. What is notable is how this approach is being strengthened by a trend toward greater centralization and hierarchy in infectious disease control, pushing public health into a tighter command and control structure. I describe how this framing process has the effect of melding population health concerns and the security state, as well as insinuating a discourse of emergency response into non-emergency policy-making.

"The second governance model in the public health field is the public-private administrative model. Although public-private models for administrative governance are relatively new to public health compared to many other fields, calls for partnerships with the private sector for the purpose of achieving population health goals are growing. Increasingly, private sector entities are implicated in the state's matrix of collaborative public health institutions.

"The third governance construct is based on the insight from governmentality theory that the state already permeates the private sector even without formal authority; power flows back and forth between public and private entities through a multiplicity of channels and technologies. New federal proposals for 'modern quarantine' provide an example. 'Modern quarantine' policies would depend on the public's instinct to voluntarily sequester themselves in a pandemic, thus utilizing indirect and less coercive methods to control the spread of infectious disease. However, this proposal fails to engage with the full dimensions of the public sector role that would be necessary to enable people to remain at home for three months or more. It cannot succeed without mandates and incentives emanating from the state, a reality which official policy documents have elided."

"From this analysis we can learn a great deal about both current directions in public health policy and about the utility and limitations of new governance theory. The three governance trends taken together exemplify a paradox fundamental to contemporary political debates: how the same apparatus can be intensifying as a security state while at the same time deploying new governance and privatization initiatives. The concept of modern quarantine demonstrates that serious complications lurk beneath the surface when policymakers engage in shallow invocations of new regulatory rhetoric."—Abstract.

• Integration of programme, resource management and coordination, and
• Streamlining and standardization of operational, administrative and financial practices related to disaster reduction and response."

"IBHS puts forth key fndings and recommendations for reducing future property losses in all hurricane-exposed areas. The three key fndings and recommendations are based on both post-Ike IBHS feld research on the Bolivar Peninsula and a thorough review of building code requirements – and laid out in much more detail in the full research report.

A Texas-specifc hurricane retroft guide based on the research fndings following Hurricane Ike can be found in this report. Geographically specifc hurricane retroft solutions for property owners and residents in other states along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts are in development and will be published by IBHS in 2010." — Executive Summary

"The single largest loss in the history of the insurance industry occurred two years ago this month when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, causing $40.6 billion in insured damage. Nearly two years later, the overwhelming majority of claims have been settled.

"Insurance companies have paid an estimated $40.6 billion to policyholders on 1.7 million claims for damage to homes, businesses and vehicles in six states. By contrast, Hurricane Andrew, the previous record holder, resulted in $15.5 billion in losses in 1992 ($22.2 billion in 2006 dollars) and 790,000 claims."—Press Release

"The word 'catastrophe' is used to signify a brutal event bringing large-scale death and destruction. In that sense, every armed conflict, every natural or technological disaster is a catastrophe. The present issue of the Review looks in particular at the threat of a nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical (NRBC) event. It further discusses the chance of mitigating a catastrophic event by developing emergency preparedness plans and the appropriate response capacity. As local capacities may often be insufficient to deal with a major crisis, international assistance is frequently required. As for NRBC weapons it is especially important to stimulate discussion on how governments can, perhaps together, counter these threats while they still remain hypothetical."—Description.

Contains links to various articles in the volume.

"This paper examines the human and organizational failures that have plagued the design and construction of the new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, drawing comparisons to the failures of the New Orleans Flood Defense System before and during Hurricane Katrina. It also suggests what lessons can be learned from the successes of 'high reliability organizations,' so that more integrity and reliability can be built into the leadership and decision-making processes of future projects of this magnitude."

"As a policy maker, you may be responsible for establishing the policy framework for the entire reconstruction process or for setting reconstruction policy in only one sector. The handbook is emphatic about the importance of establishing a policy to guide reconstruction. Effective reconstruction is set in motion only after the policy maker has evaluated his or her alternatives, conferred with stakeholders, and established the framework and the rules for reconstruction.

"As international experience—and the examples in the handbook—clearly demonstrate, reconstruction policy improves both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the reconstruction process. In addition to providing advice on the content of such a policy, the handbook describes mechanisms for managing communications with stakeholders about the policy, for improving the consistency of the policy, and for monitoring the policy’s implementation and outcomes. The handbook does not tell you exactly what to do, but it should greatly improve the likelihood that the reconstruction policy that is established leads to good outcomes."—A Note to the Policy Maker: Background.

Access to this publication requires a license with World Bank's e-Library. The file is a 26.4MB PDF.

"Thousands of immigrants were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. However, most reports, while critical of the governmental response to the hurricane, failed to even mention, much less criticize, the widespread indifference to the plight of the many noncitizens displaced by the mass disaster.

"The general public did not look sympathetically upon immigrants. Government's failure to provide relief failed to generate much of a public response, much less trigger any general expression of outrage. The denial of disaster relief to noncitizens, as well as aggressive enforcement of the immigration laws in the wake of the hurricane, was consistent with the times, which were filled with calls for increased immigration enforcement and the popular perception that immigrants ? especially undocumented ones ? constituted a serious social problem that must be addressed.

"Part I of this Article summarizes the context surrounding the Hurricane Katrina disaster and how the stage was set for a racially-charged debate over the government's actions in response to the disaster as well as the mistreatment of immigrants. Part II critically analyzes how government harshly treated immigrants in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and how political failure within administrative agencies contributed to this treatment, just as it has throughout U.S. history. This structural flaw further helps explain why we know so little about the silent suffering of immigrants in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and, more generally, in American social life. It also suggests deep problems with the lack of political accountability of the immigration bureaucracy to noncitizens.

"As it turns out, Hurricane Katrina is symptomatic of a more general problem in the governance of the United States. A shadow population of millions of undocumented immigrants who are abused and exploited, live in the United States and lack any formal input into the political process. They, along with many lawful immigrants, hold second class status in U.S. social life and, more specifically, are part of a low wage caste of color. Although more diluted than the old racial caste in place in the days of Jim Crow, it is a racial caste no less, marked by a subordinated status and subject to exploitation. To make matters worse, the democratic problem identified in this article is not limited to the immigration bureaucracy, but is a more general problem of U.S. government." —Abstract.

"The objective of the MMS bonding program is to ensure that all entities performing activities under the jurisdiction of the MMS provide or demonstrate adequate financial resources to protect the U.S. Government from incurring any financial loss. Each lease in the GOM region is reviewed to ensure the working interest owners have adequate financial coverage to provide for the performance of all lease obligations when the designated operator and/or the lessees cannot fulfill their requirements on rent, royalties, environmental damage, cleanup and restoration activities, abandonment and site clearance, and other lease obligations...

"The purpose of this report is to update the supplemental bond formula in a risk-adjusted manner to more accurately represent the cost and government exposure associated with decommissioning activities."—Executive Summary

"Communities facing a substantial risk of natural disaster require individual landowner cooperation with detailed building codes to ensure safety. Beyond increasing public expenditures on enforcement action, I propose that limitations on personal property ownership through increases in minimum parcel sizes and restrictive covenants can also facilitate individual compliance with regulation. Deployment of such solutions in existing residential property will require substantial use of eminent domain and political will, most likely available in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster."—Abstract.

"This paper describes how America's National Flood Insurance Program came into existence and seeks to answer the question of why private flood insurance never developed in the United States on a significant scale. It consists of three sections. The first section attempts to provide a brief theoretical framework for thinking about flood insurance. It describes what flood insurance does and presents a theory as to how it ought to work. The second section provides the early history of the flood insurance program. It outlines how the federal government first took on the responsibility of protecting the nation from flooding and how Congress failed in its first effort to offer federal flood insurance. The third section explains how America got the system of flood insurance that it has today. It explains how the Tennessee Valley Authority, U.S. Geological Survey, and a variety of local governments gathered enough risk data to make federal flood insurance palatable to Congress, how Congress implemented a program, and then stripped it of its risk-based character.

The paper reaches a simple conclusion: Flood insurance, in its current form, did not emerge as a result of market failure. While some factors, including the role of state regulation, remain undetermined, the current situation represents an example of what economists call 'government failure.'"—Executive Summary.

"Much of the risk perception literature relies on the important but unstated assumption that manipulating public opinion to conform to scientific assessments of risk could help the public and, in turn, policymakers make better decisions about whether and how to regulate. This paper argues that the assumption fails in the context of certain 'multilayered' risks, or risks that pose tiered policy choices—not just whether to regulate in the first instance, but how to respond to derivative risks arising from the first set of regulatory changes. Examining the debate about the role of nuclear power in the United States' approach to climate change, the paper observes that first- and second-tier risks often differ in character, or require different types of regulatory solution (market-based versus command-and-control). Due to these variations, the public may hold starkly different views about regulation of each tier, and those views may be differently 'sticky'—that is, differently susceptible to persuasion.

"In the context of the nuclear power debate, this tiering of opinion has perverse implications. The first-tier risks of nuclear power are those associated with individual reactors, including the risks of accident or terrorist attack; the second-tier risks are those associated with mining, transport, processing, storage, and disposal of radioactive materials. Recent work asserts that despite entrenched public fear of nuclear power, it may be possible to induce people to support construction of low-emissions reactors as a strategy for mitigating climate change. But even if policymakers could employ the risk education strategies discussed in the literature to shift public opinion in favor of economic incentives for nuclear reactor development, there is no reason to think such strategies would be equally effective at changing attitudes toward second-tier risks and the command-and-control regulations necessary to address them. To the contrary, many people would likely continue to oppose certain types of government action on these latter problems, even assuming the complete success of the hypothesized first-tier education strategy. As a result, the United States could find itself with a thriving nuclear power sector, but without the political will to address the grave collateral risks.

"These observations lead to two conclusions, one related to the nuclear power example, and one to risk regulation more broadly. First, differently sticky public attitudes toward first- and second-tier nuclear risks and their regulatory solutions may defeat any effort to respond to climate change by significantly and safely increasing U.S. reliance on nuclear power. Second, efforts to change public risk perceptions may not advance a regulatory agenda, and may even prove counterproductive. Specifically, where multiple risk layers exist, a successful first-tier education effort and consequent policy changes could create or expose second-tier risks that defy regulatory solution, leaving policymakers stranded at the abrupt and unexpected end of a half-built bridge. Depending on the gravity of the second-tier risks, this regulatory dead end could be one that neither policymakers nor the public would have chosen ex ante."—Abstract.

"The 13th Amendment ban on involuntary servitude has new relevance as the U.S. grapples with national emergencies such as catastrophic hurricanes, flu pandemics, and terrorism. This Article considers work refusal and coerced work performance in life-threatening employment contexts. Overwhelmed by fear, hundreds of police officers and health care workers abandoned their jobs during Hurricane Katrina. Postal clerks worked against their will without masks in facilities with anthrax. A report by Congress worries that avian flu will cause sick and frightened medical personnel to stay away from work, thus jeopardizing a coherent response to a crisis.

"How far can the U.S. go in forcing reluctant civilians to perform essential jobs during a national emergency? I explore solutions to this question by hypothesizing a large release of radiation - whether by terror attack, or catastrophic accident, or major earthquake - in a vital Pacific port. These ports have a history of work stoppages that disrupt the nation's economy. I examine federal government responses if dock workers refused assignments until conditions were safe: (1) The President could declare a national emergency labor dispute under the Taft-Hartley Act, and seek an 80-day back-to-work injunction. (2) Congress could re-enact Section 8 of the War Labor Disputes Act, making it unlawful for dock workers to discontinue production for 30 days and subjecting violators to coercive damages. (3) The president could issue strong executive orders, backed by imprisonment, that regulate employment in ports.

"At the heart of my analysis, I ask: Would any of these responses violate the Thirteenth Amendment ban on involuntary servitude? Congress and the judiciary have broadened this law, and its enforcement counterpart in 18 U.S.C. ? 1584, beyond the abolition of African slave-holding. The Supreme Court in Kozminski defined involuntary servitude as forcing a person to work by physical or legal coercion.

"But the Supreme Court created 13th Amendment exceptions for transportation work. Robertson upholds a law that bars merchant seamen from quitting work, and imprisons deserters. Butler permits states to conscript citizens to work on highways, on pain of imprisonment. Dock work is similar because ports integrate ships and trucks in a transportation hub. Courts now apply these precedents to new compulsory activities, such as mandatory public service for graduation. Moreover, Kozminski reaffirmed Robertson and Butler as precedents.

"Thus, the Constitution would be unlikely to shield dock workers from involuntary labor. This has troubling implications for employees who have recently worked in national emergencies, and may do so again. Employees who work to alleviate avian flu or other catastrophic health threats are also at risk for compulsory labor that exposes them to extraordinary hazards.

"I conclude with a legislative proposal to strengthen individual rights. As my research shows, courts that are presented with national emergency disputes rarely side with the individual who stands in the way of the public's welfare. Without a more balanced labor policy to address emerging crises, the nation may realize belatedly that when we allow fundamental freedoms to be sacrificed in the name of real or perceived emergency, we invariably come to regret it." —Abstract.

"Section 502 of the Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA) allows employees to stop working if they face 'abnormally dangerous conditions,' and a rule under the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act creates an employee right to refuse work because of 'apprehension of death or injury.' Using a hypothetical scenario, I show that neither law would assist emergency workers who lack protective gear while responding to a terror attack.

"I propose an NLRB rule to strengthen Section 502, a 1947 law that is dormant but appropriate for these abnormal workplace dangers. Although part of my proposal draws on the experiences of 9/11, it is mainly founded on fundamental changes in job duties and government employment regulations that recognize a permanent threat to domestic security. The growing list of affected occupations includes dockworkers and doctors, subway and airport workers, power plant and postal employees, and more. However, my proposal excludes police, firefighters, and most paramedics. They perform immediate lifesaving services, and in any event, are excluded from the NLRB's jurisdiction because they are public employees.

"My proposal draws from the fruitless experience of appellate court decisions on Section 502. This caselaw is conflicted because courts disagree as to whether an employee must present proof in fact of an extreme risk, or be motivated by good faith belief. My proposal is also based on the intent of the drafters of Section 502. The two sponsors of this law were Republican senators who strongly opposed union interests. However, when proposing this law in the midst of enacting strike controls, they said 'it would be very unfair and very unjust to employees in any industry to penalize them, if, because of abnormal or unusually dangerous conditions, they should refrain from working.'

"Using evidence from recent GAO reports and other studies, I show that new types of emergency workers are poorly trained and equipped. For the few who train for a cataclysmic attack, their simulations are unrealistic. These employees— who, in their routine jobs do little or no life-threatening work— are not trained for their own fear and panic. Thus, there is too little attention to the possibility that these essential workers will refuse orders when their lives are endangered.

"By breathing life into Section 502, the NLRB would join the large circle of federal and state agencies that are currently immersed in this emergency planning. The purpose of my Article is not to spare a few careers that might otherwise be lost in a poor response to an attack. If these newly designated or de facto emergency workers are not extended a work refusal right, their employers will continue to be lax in improving protective equipment, communication systems, bio-terror inoculations, and work procedures. In the final analysis, proper training and protection of these new emergency workers is essential to deter, prevent, respond to, and mitigate an attack." —Abstract.

"The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is an agreement among member states to provide assistance after disasters overwhelm a state's capacity to manage consequences. The compact, initiated by the states and coordinated by the National Emergency Management Association, provides a structure for requesting emergency assistance from party states. In 1996 Congress approved EMAC as an interstate compact (P.L. 104-321). EMAC also resolves some, but not all, potential legal and administrative obstacles that may hinder such assistance at the state level. EMAC also enhances state preparedness for terrorist attacks by ensuring the availability of resources for fast response and facilitating multi-state cooperation in training activities and preparedness exercises.

"In June of 2008, a bill to reform mutual aid agreements for the National Capital Region (P.L. 110-250) was enacted to expand the types of organizations and agencies in the region that are authorized to enter into agreements and ease the requirements for agents and volunteers to respond to an incident. Legislation in the 110th Congress (S. 1452) would require EMAC to ensure that licensed mental health professionals with expertise in treating vulnerable populations are included in the leadership of the National Disaster Medical System and are available for deployment with Disaster Medical Assistance Teams.

"This report will be updated as events warrant. This report is an update based upon a previous report written by Keith Bea, Specialist in American National Government."-Summary.

"This paper will review the federal, state, and local response to date as it relates to the important goal of creating a better New Orleans. This paper does not attempt to review every decision made on every aspect of the recovery, but instead tries to highlight areas of priority.

"The paper will begin with a quick overview of the federal, state, and local roles to date on post-Katrina recovery.

"It will then evaluate how well the overall recovery response has performed in meeting the three goals of a creating a more inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous New Orleans. In each of these goals, the paper reviews pre-Katrina conditions in New Orleans and puts forth a vision for the future. It then highlights those areas of meaningful progress at the federal, state, and local levels in support of those goals and closes with an action plan to further the recovery progress."—Introduction.

"This report provides a legal analysis of the eligibility of an influenza pandemic (flu pandemic) to be declared by the President as a major disaster under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. In 1997, the discovery of a virulent H5N1 strain of avian influenza (bird flu) raised the possibility of a flu pandemic occurring in the United States. In such an event, the Stafford Act could provide authority for federal assistance. Although it is widely agreed that emergency assistance under the Stafford Act could be provided by the President in the event of a flu pandemic, questions remain as to whether major disaster assistance would be available. An analysis of the Stafford Act suggests that this issue was not addressed by Congress when it drafted the current definition of a major disaster, and that neither inclusion nor exclusion of flu pandemics from major disaster assistance is explicitly required by the current statutory language.

"In the 109th Congress, ? 210 of S. 3721 would have made any outbreak of infectious disease explicitly eligible for major disaster assistance, but it was not enacted."—Summary.

Also available through Hein Online at:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/tenn74&id=1&size=2&collection=journals&index=journals/tenn#471

"Although Hurricane Katrina altered our national dialogue about many issues, few scholars have addressed whether the storm changed thinking about fundamental property relationships. This article fills that void in two ways. First, it creates a theoretical framework for understanding property law in the context of events producing radically changed circumstances. It does this by defining these events, exploring the mismatch between property law's traditional focus on stability and environments of radical change, creating a taxonomy of property relationships tailored for this exploration, describing typical problems confronted after an event of radical change, and finally developing a set of normative criteria to evaluate the resiliency of property regimes.

"The second part of the article focuses on two common property relationships - between landlord and tenant and mortgagor and mortgagee - and examines how their default rules, voluntary private ordering, and market practices have fared under the pressure of Hurricane Katrina. This part also analyzes how another kind of property relationship - between a city (New Orleans) and its citizens - has weathered the radical change created by Katrina and how a series of federally funded and state administered programs have fared in restoring housing - a crucial common resource and public good - in the post-Katrina environment.

"The article concludes by suggesting that longer term, more indefinite property relationships characterized by private ordering, risk spreading, setting aside exogenous resources and mutual accommodation - commercial lease and mortgage relationships to be specific - show more resiliency than shorter term and more finite relationships where default rules make exit easy for some parties (residential landlords) but re-entry difficult for others (residential tenants). The article also demonstrates how government housing recovery programs can be assessed using the normative criteria developed in Part I and what policy makers can learn from traditional private property regimes facing events of radical change." —Abstract.

"The article is a critique of the U.S. government's response to regional recovery following Hurricane Katrina, coupled with an argument that policies based on international standards would better serve the hurricane-stricken area. The author contends that part of the problem is that the legal framework for disaster relief, the federal Stafford Act, is insufficient for shaping recovery for catastrophic humanitarian crises that overwhelm state and local governments. Because the Act calls only for discretionary, intermittent federal efforts, and shields such efforts with broad legal immunity, it is a prescription for the sluggish and ineffective governmental action that has hamstrung the Gulf region's recovery.

"The author maintains that what is needed is a comprehensive recovery program akin to the post World War II Marshall Plan. International standards for humanitarian responses to disaster, specifically the United Nations Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, serve as a policy framework for such a program. The Principles allow for recognition that a crisis on the scale of Katrina calls for a more robust, centralized, federally-led response that addresses the scope of the problem and the interdependency of its many facets.

"The article has five parts. First is an analysis of the situation in the region, focusing on the New Orleans area. Here the author identifies three categories of problems - the problem of return and rebuilding, focusing on private property and civic infrastructure; the problem of security, focusing on flood protection, levees, and wetlands; and the problem of government, focusing on inefficiency, incompetence and inadequate resource allocation.

"The article's second part analyzes the problem in the law. The Stafford Act is reviewed and judicial criticisms discussed. Part three of the article reviews the specific provisions of the Guiding Principles that apply to the Gulf Coast. The author considers the legal status of the Principles, concluding that while certain of the principles may be evolving into customary international law, they are not legally binding but rather intended as a general policy framework.

"In the fourth part of the article, the author recommends the following sixteen point "Marshall Plan for the Gulf" based on the Principles: 1. The federal government will assume primary responsibility for an integrated recovery effort. 2. All persons displaced or injured by the disaster have recovery rights. 3. Displaced persons willing to return have a right to return and their displacement will end as soon as possible. 4. Living conditions will be established that are materially sufficient to allow persons to return and remain. 5. The government will assist persons whose homes are recoverable to repair and rebuild, and must ensure access to decent and affordable housing. 6. Comprehensive, reliable flood protection measures will be taken, including strengthened levees and coastal wetlands. 7. Ineffective bureaucracies will be replaced by streamlined, efficient, effective and easily understood administrative processes for relief and recovery. 8. The military will be deployed for debris removal and rebuilding. 9. Personal property and possessions will be protected and disaster victims will be reasonably compensated for losses. 10. Gulf Coast residents will have access to health care. 11. The government will reopen schools and take other measures to ensure education for all children in stricken communities. 12. The government will take steps to increase economic opportunities in stricken areas, such as partnerships, incentives and assistance for businesses which reopen or locate in the region. 13. The right of evacuees to participate in politics and civic life must be ensured. 14. Storm victims will be included in recovery planning. 15. Anti-discrimination measures will be enforced to ensure that the disaster and recovery do not have a discriminatory effect. 16. The special needs of at risk groups will be met.

"In the fifth part of the article, the author posits that U.S. adoption of the Principles as the basis for international disaster recovery efforts forms a moral and political basis for their domestic application in the Gulf. This is demonstrated by formal U.S. policy promoting the Principles as well as actual U.S. implementation of the Principles in Iraq and in response to the 2004 tsunamis." —Abstract.

"Cyclone Nargis struck the coast of Burma in the evening of May 2, 2008 and cut a path of destruction across the southern portion of the country. The storm left in its wake at least 22,000 dead, 41,000 more missing, and extensive damage to the nation's premier agricultural areas. Some have speculated that the final number of dead could reach 100,000. Vital infrastructure was destroyed by the storm, severely limiting the ability to assess the loss of life and provide assistance to the survivors. In addition, much of Burma's most productive agricultural land has been severely damaged; some experts expect that it will take up to two years for Burma's production of rice, seafood, pork and poultry to recover, and that the nation may facechronic food shortages and the need for international assistance for many months.

"Burma's ruling military junta quickly faced both domestic and international criticism for its response to Cyclone Nargis, including accusations that it failed to provide adequate warning, its slow emergency response, and its reluctance to allow international relief workers into the country. The United States has offered $3.25 million in relief aid, and is willing to send in relief teams, if they can secure the necessary visas from the junta.

"Even before Cyclone Nargis struck, the junta was already facing a highly controversial referendum on a proposed constitution scheduled for May 10, 2008 that could shape U.S. and other countries' policies toward Burma. As a consequence, the evolution and implications of the humanitarian crisis are inextricably linked to Burma's political situation and its relations with the international community. In a widely criticized move, although the military junta decided to postpone the vote for two weeks in some of the more damaged areas of Burma, it indicates it still intends to hold the constitutional referendum in most of Burma on May 10, 2008. Critics have called for the cancellation or postponement of the vote for all of Burma.

"In addition, some experts are speculating that Cyclone Nargis may precipitate major political change in Burma, including the destabilization of Burma's military regime. The junta was already under domestic and international pressure to cancel the constitutional referendum. Local dissatisfaction with the speed and quality of the junta's provision of emergency assistance may heighten domestic opposition to the junta and its proposed constitution. Also, rising food prices and food shortages may feed popular discontent, much like fuel price increases led to protests in Burma of September 2007.

"This report examines the scope of and response to the disaster, as well as its links to Burma's political situation and U.S. policy.

"The report will be updates as circumstances warrant." — Summary.

"Southern California is at high risk for a major natural disaster. Yet, few assessments have been made to discover how communities with large populations of Limited English Proficient (LEP) immigrants would fare in such an event. It has also not been established whether LEP immigrants who may be poor and have low levels of education have the information necessary to prepare for and survive a disaster, or whether the social networks, formats, and language in which they can successfully receive and respond to emergency information are in place.

"To address these issues, examine past efforts, and build policy recommendations for the future, the Tom?s Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California (APALC) undertook a joint project that examined several LEP immigrant communities in Southern California. After conducting interviews with emergency service personnel, both in local governments and in nonprofit organizations, and holding focus groups with LEP community members in their native languages, we are able to provide the following findings about this important issue." —Executive Summary.

"Federalism impedes the government's ability to plan for and respond to emergencies. Emergencies often transcend federalist divisions of power and responsibility, rendering unclear which level of government should respond. Though many emergencies require a coordinated response by local, state, and national government, getting different levels of government to work together in times of crises is difficult. Even when states and localities call for outside assistance, they resist undue federal interference in their affairs; a national government that lacks experience working with local actors on the ground can find it difficult to implement relief programs.

"Hurricane Katrina, causing extensive damage in the Gulf Coast region in August of 2005, vividly illustrated how federalism undermines an effective response to emergencies - with deadly results. Despite years of emergency planning in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and ample warning in the days preceding Hurricane Katrina that it would cause widespread destruction, no government - national, state or local - adequately prepared vulnerable communities. After Katrina struck, the governmental response was inept. Local governments in New Orleans and other towns were overwhelmed, unable even to communicate with their personnel on the scene. State governments found their resources stretched to breaking point. The national government, cautious about appearing too proactive, delayed its response until specifically asked to help. Federal and state personnel, unaccustomed to working together, mounted independent responses to the hurricane's aftermath and operated without the benefits of a single command structure. State officials rebuffed federal requests to assume overall control of the response efforts. While people perished, officials argued about who was actually in charge.

"Future emergencies - an unwarned detonation of a crude nuclear device in an American city, for instance - could easily dwarf Katrina's impact. Given the widely-recognized failures of the government's response to Katrina and the urgent need for reform, some federal officials have proposed a dramatic solution: in a future emergency, rather than try to work with state and local response personnel, the federal government should simply deploy the military to take over the relief effort. Over opposition from every state governor, in October 2006, Congress passed a bill giving the President authority to deploy military forces to states and localities following a natural disaster or other emergency where specified federal interests are put at risk. Though this new law is not a wholesale authorization to use military resources in times of emergencies, critics contend that any domestic deployment of soldiers undermines civil liberties.

"This Article proposes an alternative solution to the problems federalism presents in times of emergencies. The proposal, which I call emergency commandeering, is based on some provisions of the Constitution that are today largely forgotten but that were used regularly in earlier years of the nation. Under my proposal, when the federal government responds to certain kinds of emergencies, it can call into periods of mandatory federal service the emergency response personnel of the state in which the emergency occurs and, if necessary, emergency response personnel from other states. During emergencies, these state employees - police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, urban search and rescue teams, and public health specialists - would serve with compensation under the command of the President as Commander in Chief. Emergency commandeering allows the national government to mount an effective response, one that draws upon the skills and experiences of state and local personnel, without the hindrance of multiple command structures or other forms of state and local resistance. The Article sets out in detail how emergency commandeering would operate. It also shows why emergency commandeering is authorized by the Constitution, consistent with federalism, and, compared to the alternative of sending the military into our streets, good also for democracy." —Abstract.

"The amount of assistance provided through presidential disaster declarations has exceeded $100 billion. Often, in recent years, Congress has enacted supplemental appropriations legislation to cover unanticipated costs. While the amounts spent by the federal government on different programs may be reported, and the progress of the recovery can be observed, much less is known about the process that initiates all of this activity. Yet, it is a process that has resulted in an average of more than one disaster declaration a week over the last decade.

"The disaster declaration procedure is foremost a process that preserves the discretion of the governor to request assistance and the President to decide to grant, or not to grant, supplemental help. The process employs some measurable criteria in two broad areas: Individual Assistance that aids families and individuals and Public Assistance that is mainly for repairs to infrastructure. The criteria, however, also considers many other factors, in each category of assistance, that help decision makers assess the impact of an event on communities and states."—Summary.

"As the United States sees more and more property damage result from domestic disasters it quickly becomes apparent that the insurance industry as it exists cannot provide sufficient economic relief from natural disasters. This paper begins with a brief overview of the problem that Katrina has left the Gulf Coast and as a result the rest of the nation. Subsequently Katrina will be compared to other natural catastrophes in terms of economic issues.

"The second main portion of this article discusses the problem of catastrophe insurance. Two possibilities for reform are discussed. These are (1) a change to the tax structure that inhibits insurance companies from maintaining the large cash reserves required for catastrophe coverage and (2) a reformation of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP)."—Abstract.

"The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is the worst spill in U.S. history. It has major environmental and economic effects. It also has the potential to affect human health. Many people have concerns, including:

• Response workers
• Coastal residents
• Visitors to the area
• People who like seafood 

"While insurers' dominant response to rising catastrophe losses has been to withdraw from at-risk areas and raise prices, both of these reactions have limited potential and could ultimately lead to a shrinking business and a backlash from consumers, investors, and regulators. Insurers themselves acknowledge that a more proactive approach is needed....

"With this in mind, a vanguard of insurers have begun to take concrete actions that generate well earned profits while maintaining insurability and protecting their customers from extreme weatherrelated losses, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these strategies are already in practice, providing benefits and savings for insurers and their customers. We identified 190 real-world examples, provided by 104 insurers, brokers, and insurance organizations from 16 countries employing one or more of these methods. More than half of the examples come from U.S. companies. In addition to offering new products and services, these insurers are leading by example with in-house energy management programs, investments in the clean-technology sector, and climate change disclosures. They are also participating in the process of enhancing scientific understanding of climate change's impacts, building public awareness, and participating in the public policy process. Insofar as these strategies are profitable for insurers, they represent 'no-regrets' opportunities irrespective of their climate-related benefits."—Executive Summary

"The Stafford Act establishes two incident levels—emergencies and major disasters. Emergencies tend to be smaller events where a limited federal role will suffice. Major disasters are larger events—but this can run the gamut from a blizzard in Buffalo to a major earthquake in southern California that affects millions. In other words, no distinction, and no special response, is provided in the Stafford Act following catastrophes such as major earthquakes and hurricanes. The Stafford Act should be amended to establish a response level for catastrophic events.

"The Stafford Act does not adequately recognize 21st century threats. For example, the definition of a major disaster does not cover chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks or accidents. The act should further be amended to encompass 21st century threats.

"This report does not focus on the performance of government agencies immediately following a disaster—these have been well documented by others. Rather, this report focuses on the federal role in the long-term recovery and rebuilding process following catastrophes, and what can be done to improve the effectiveness of the federal government in aiding these efforts."—Executive Summary.

"The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform and the resulting discharge of millions of gallons of crude oil into the sea demonstrated graphically the challenge of environmental protection in the ocean waters shared by Cuba and the United States...

"While Washington is working to prevent future disasters in U.S. waters like the Deepwater Horizon, its current policies foreclose the ability to respond effectively to future oil disasters—whether that disaster is caused by companies at work in Cuban waters, or is the result of companies operating in U.S. waters." — Introduction.

"Academic work extolling the merits of the "rule of law" both domestically and internationally abounds today, yet the meanings of the phrase itself seem to proliferate. Two of the most prominent contexts in which rule of law rhetoric appears are those of economic development and states of emergency. In the area of private law, dissemination of the rule of law across the globe and, in particular, among emerging market countries is often deemed a prerequisite for enhancing economic development, partly because it ensures that foreign investments will not be summarily expropriated and that contractual rights will not be frustrated by governmental interference. Much of public law scholarship has, in turn, examined whether and in what form the rule of law, which is often seen as a basic requirement for a liberal political order, can be retained during times of emergency.

"While the economic development and state of emergency contexts for rule of law discussions appear quite distinct, they do converge in at least one situation, that of economic emergency. Paradigmatic cases of economic emergency include the Great Depression, the Argentine fiscal crisis of 2001, and the East Asian currency crisis of the late 1990s. Arguably more marginal instances might comprehend the economic consequences of Hurricane Katrina, the economic dimensions of a potential bird flu pandemic, or the threatened financial chaos of the Y2K computer crisis. Either the economic development or emergency-oriented approach to the rule of law could lead to the conclusion that none of these situations justify abrogation of core rule of law values - but this, of course, puts aside the question of which values do lie at the center of the rule of law.

"This Article contends that, in the United States context, the rule of law should be conceived flexibly enough to permit governmental intervention that may temporarily disrupt the economic but not personal liberty or political participation rights of individuals during these situations of economic emergency. Without addressing whether and to what extent the government should interfere in the economic sphere, this Article argues that several justifications based in the democratic vision underlying our constitutional system warrant treating the suspension of economic rights differently from the suspension of rights such as those of habeas corpus or the vote." —Abstract.

"EMAC, the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, is a congressionally ratified organization that provides form and structure to interstate mutual aid. Through EMAC, a disaster impacted state can request and receive assistance from other member states quickly and efficiently, resolving two key issues upfront: liability and reimbursement. The EMAC mutual aid agreement and partnership between the member states exist because from hurricanes to earthquakes, wildfires to toxic waste spills, and terrorist attacks to biological and chemical incidents, all states share a common enemy: the threat of disaster.

"EMAC is the first national disaster-relief compact since the Civil Defense and Disaster Compact of 1950 to be ratified by Congress. The strength of EMAC and the quality that distinguishes it from other plans and compacts lies in its governance structure, its relationship with federal organizations, states, counties, territories, & regions, and the ability to move just about any resource one state has to assist another state, including medical resources."—What is EMAC?

Overview of information related to:

• What will happen to a hurricane that runs through this oil slick?
• What will the hurricane do to the oil slick in the Gulf?
• Will the oil slick help or hurt a storm from developing in the Gulf?
• Will the hurricane pull up the oil that is below the surface of the Gulf?
• Have we had experience in the past with hurricanes and oil spills?
• Will there be oil in the rain related to a hurricane?

The official site of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, formed to provide recommendations on the prevention of future spills from offshore drilling. The Commission consists of seven members, appointed by President Obama: Senator Bob Graham, William K. Reilly, Frances G. Beinecke, Donald Boesch, Terry D. Garcia, Dr. Cherry A. Murray, and Frances Ulmer. See the White House press release for more details on the establishment of the Commission.

Public comments can be submitted via this site.

"As of May 28, 2010, the National Park Service has two incident management teams deployed to respond to potential oil impacts in the Gulf. Additionally, National Park Service employees are supporting the response both at the scene of the oil spill and from across the country as subject matter experts and by providing technical information.

The National Park Service is focused on human safety and resource protection in eight national parks in the Gulf area. These parks are working to assess resources, collect baseline data, coordinate boom plcements, plan for responsible cleanup, install barriers for shore bird and turtle nest protection (during cleanup), and plan for potential park closures, if necessary." — What We're Doing.

"Two years after Hurricane Katrina much has become clear. We know that the devastation in New Orleans and surrounding areas was less a natural than a man-made disaster. Katrina's surge into New Orleans was the direct result of poorly constructed levees, an ill-conceived navigation channel, and the destruction of millions of acres of coastal wetlands. Furthermore, the storm's intensity itself was fueled by unusually warm waters in the tropical Atlantic due, in part, to global warming pollution.

"How have Congress and the Administration responded to these lessons of Katrina and addressed the chief causes of its tragic aftermath? A report card is due on the federal government's response to global warming, reforming the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and restoring the wetlands along the Gulf Coast that act as a natural buffer to storms."

"How well have federal, state, and local institutions responded to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita?

All of the Institute’s research, papers, and reports are made available for public use on the Institute’s Web site (www.rockinst.org). Also, the Institute regularly conducts Public Policy Forums, during which invited experts and panelists deliver presentations on critical and topical public policy issues. Guest speakers include top elected and appointed leaders from New York and other states, as well as academic experts. Through its Web site (www.rockinst.org) the Institute makes audio of our forums available so that those unable to attend in person can listen. Finally, the Institute publishes books on various public policy issues through the Rockefeller Institute Press, including New York State Government: Second Edition, the leading text on the subject for students, government officials, and citizens. The Rockefeller Institute also each year publishes the New York State Statistical Yearbook, containing a vast array of data about the state of New York." — Frequently Asked Questions 

Report from a workshop held September 28 and 29, 2006.

"California depends on a complex system of engineering structures—dams, aqueducts, and levees—for both its water supply and flood protection. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta system is the hub for California's water supply as well, providing water for twenty-three million Californians and three million acres of agricultural land, and sustaining a $400 billion economy; it is also a unique environmental asset. Because of an aging and deteriorating levee system, the city of Sacramento itself faces a greater risk of flooding than any other major city in the United States, including New Orleans. In addition, substantial seismic risks in Northern California threaten both the water supply infrastructure in the Delta and the levees that protect valuable agricultural and, increasingly, urban property throughout the Central Valley....

"The goal is not merely to develop improved scientific knowledge for its own sake, but to deliver usable and timely information to the officials who are charged with making critical decisions about the Delta. Fulfilling this goal requires the development of a new institutional structure in which policymakers and scientists can interact, so as to ensure that the scientists are asking the right questions and the policymakers are getting the most reliable and objective research findings. The Workshop participants strongly suggested that a consortium approach is needed to engage, provide products to and get feedback from policy and decision makers. What is required is an umbrella that supports the broad set of technical and policy-relevant disciplines that need to be applied. We strongly urge the creation of such an institutional structure by the State of California."—Executive Summary.

"This is the ninth publication that the Minerals Management Service has released chronicling deepwater exploration, development, and production activities in the Gulf of Mexico. For this report deep water is considered to be water depths of 1,000 feet (305 meters) or greater...

"The Minerals Management Service is a responsible steward of U.S. offshore resources by ensuring the receipt of fair market value for the sale of leases, encouraging conservation, evaluating and approving new technology, and regulating drilling and production." — Preface.

"America builds on the edge of disaster prone areas: on moveable barrier islands, fragile coastal ecosystems, shorelines subject to inundation, and next to flammable forests. Ferocious storm events focus local and national attention in the tragic moment and during short-term recovery efforts; then, too often, we return to business as usual, continuing to build and rebuild on the edge. 'Losing Ground' provides effective perspectives and prescriptions for longer-term disaster mitigation planning and action. Authors from a variety of disciplines (including law, history, geography, environmental science, and urban planning) review past policies and practices, the lessons learned from previous disasters, current approaches to disaster planning and recovery, an assessment of the proper roles and responsibilities of various levels of government in the federal system, new legal and technological tools, and a review of innovations in disaster mitigation.

"Oliver A. Houck, a renowned professor of law from Tulane University, provides a preface from the perspective of a post-Katrina New Orleans: 'Perhaps, the most striking aspect of the post-Katrina Gulf Coast, from Alabama to Texas, is the rush to rebuild in exactly the same places, a few feet back, a few feet higher, more high priced investment than ever before. Two lane bridges are replaced by six lane bridges. Modest beach homes are replaced by condominiums. The hurricane has led to a construction boom. As the Gross National Product measures these things, the hurricanes were a huge success. What is wrong with this picture?.' "—Publisher's Description.

"The first essay, 'Keys to Effectively Partner in Temporary Networks,' by Ross O’brien, examines the roles of nongovernmental organizations in large-scale emergencies. He interviewed aid workers who participated in the response to the Asian Tsunami in 2004 and leaders in nonprofit organizations involved in the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He observed a series of characteristics that helps explain why some aid organizations were more effective emergency responders. Organizations that display these characteristics are more capable of creating and using temporary networks to address a specific emergency event. He offers advice on what both nonprofit and public managers might do to prepare for such networks in advance.

Separately, but similarly, Dr. Richard Callahan and his colleagues Dr. Dan Haverty and Dr. Ross Clayton examine in the second essay, 'Emergency Management Networks in California,' how the State of California has developed a series of emergency response networks and specific tools for preparing and responding to emergencies, whether the emergencies are forest fires, homeland security events, or public health episodes. California has one of the most developed set of emergency response networks in the country, in part from its history with disasters dating back to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. a number of innovations, such as the Incident Command System, were developed by California and are now used nationally.

Together, these two essays provide useful insights for both nonprofit and public managers in preparing for potential future disasters. We hope this report will help them be more prepared." — Foreword

"The Oil Spill Academic Task Force (OSATF) is a consortium of scientists and scholars from institutions in the State University System as well as from four of Florida's private universities working in collaboration with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The OSATF brings together expertise and resources to assist the state of Florida and the Gulf region in preparing for and responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

"Major activities of the OSTAF include:

• Coordination of activities with state and other academic resources in Florida's institutions of higher learning
• Serving as a clearing house of information on faculty research expertise and capabilities for local, state and federal agencies
• Providing a communication conduit for researchers within the task force and throughout the region.
  

This website is designed to provide information on the academic task force, and links to partners and other resources." — OSATF Home Page.

"During the balance of 2006 and early 2007, the Memorial staff invested hundreds of hours in studying the rebuilding process after other incidents, both man-made and natural disasters. In addition, we hosted a second Collective Reflection. The study included New York City after the World Trade Center terrorist attack, Hurricanes Hugo in Charleston (SC) and Andrew in Homestead (FL) and Miami (FL), earthquakes in Northridge (CA) and Kobe (Japan), floods in Des Moines (IA), and, finally, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans (LA).

"What has resulted is a collection of documents covering Municipality, Business, General Public, Non-Government Response Organizations, Faith Community, Media, and Memorializing, with some assistance for resources regarding Preparedness. During 2007, the materials were reviewed by cities and organizations in multiple states that had experienced disasters and the challenges of rebuilding and healing.

"During the research, we learned that the concept of best practices may vary with the circumstances. Thus, we have identified some universals ? needs that appear to hold true regardless of the circumstances of either the source of the incident or the magnitude. Beyond these universals, the value or need of the materials may depend on the type, magnitude and circumstance of the incident and community resources."—Website.

"Hurricane Katrina, the largest disaster in the history of the United States, caused widespread property destruction throughout the Gulf Coast, but particularly in the city of New Orleans. Although the storm created an environment which facilitated increased mortgage defaults in the area, the Article analyzes data from the Orleans Parish Recorder of Mortgages Office and from the Orleans Parish Civil District Court and concludes that foreclosure filing rates in the year after Katrina in fact decreased significantly from the rates for the corresponding period in the year prior to the storm. This result is contrary to what would normally be expected in a usual mortgage lending market, where an increase in the rate of mortgage default would lead to an increase in the rate of foreclosure.

"The Article evaluates in detail the legal and market responses to mortgage default after the storm that contributed to the reduction in foreclosure actions in Orleans Parish in the year after Katrina. Secondary mortgage market initiatives provided the principal means for mortgage relief, because Louisiana debtors received little in the way of formal legal relief. Even though secondary market responses were successful in protecting mortgage debtors after Katrina, their limitations in scope make them inadequate to address the years of financial distress that might likely follow any disaster of the magnitude of Katrina. Thus, while the Katrina experience demonstrates that secondary market interventions can effectively reduce debtor distress after a major disaster, such interventions should not been seen as a substitute for more traditional legal responses to address mortgage debtor distress after disasters or other economic crises." —Abstract.

"Many Mississippi homeowners who suffered property damage in Hurricane Katrina had insurance policies containing exclusions that denied recovery for damage caused by water. The Attorney General of Mississippi filed suit in response, attempting to declare these water damage exclusions void as against public policy. This paper examines the merits of the suit, addressing the central legal and economic reasons why the suit will likely be unsuccessful. The paper then proposes prescriptive measures, including changes to the National Flood Insurance Program and possible implementation of a federal comprehensive natural disaster insurance program, which may facilitate more efficient and widespread flood insurance coverage in the future."—Abstract.

"One year ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, elected officials at all levels pledged bold new action and committed to righting inequities as devastated communities rebuilt—better, safer, with more access to opportunity than before. However, despite their pledges that the most vulnerable citizens would get the help they needed to reclaim their lives and livelihoods, lawmakers have lacked the political will to turn their rhetoric into action.

"This examination of three communities emblematic of long-standing poverty and exclusion—the urban neighborhoods of East Biloxi, Mississippi, and the rural communities of Vermilion and Plaquemines parishes in Louisiana—reveals that government neglect at all levels extends beyond the well-publicized failures in New Orleans to encompass an entire region in distress."—Executive Summary.

"This mega-hurricane created important opportunities to assess the ways in which federal, state and local officials, business leaders and community leaders are prepared to respond to natural catastrophes every time an event occurs. The property casualty insurance industry was able to receive valuable takeaways from Katrina so that human
and property losses may be reduced and insurance operations and disaster recovery efforts can be enhanced in the future.

This report addresses the insurance-related lessons learned from Katrina and improvements since the August 2005
crisis. Major lessons include the following:

• Promote greater awareness of the importance of loss mitigation.
• Minimize business disruptions and have a more flexible disaster recovery plan.
• Use more advanced technologies to improve customer communications and service.
• Educate the public on the need for flood insurance.
• Continue developing and using more sophisticated catastrophe models."; — Lessons Learned: A Property Casualty Insurance Perspective

"This paper addresses the complex institutional structure in the United States for dealing with victim compensation in cases of catastrophic loss. It will appear as a chapter in a multinational study that compares the institutional frameworks adopted by Western European nations and the United States.

"Part I of the paper focuses on catastrophic loss triggered by potentially responsible human agencies, and as a consequence, discussion of tort law is central. But what of situations where no human agency can be charged with responsibility for catastrophic harm? In these cases there is no recourse to tort in most instances, and victims of catastrophic loss ordinarily must rely exclusively on private insurance coverage, or, when available, on public insurance systems. The latter can be parsed into two separate categories: social welfare schemes (discussed in section II of this paper), such as government disability and unemployment insurance legislation, which are available to all claimants meeting general eligibility requirements - without reference to the source of the harm that has occurred. And, legislative no-fault or insurance schemes that have been established with designated types of catastrophic loss in mind. This second category of social welfare legislation is discussed, along with a description of private insurance coverage, in section IV - after examining the government agency whose work is devoted exclusively to disaster relief (in section III, on the Federal Emergency Management Agency).

"Section V of the paper serves as a reprise on the somewhat patchwork design of the U.S. system by isolating for special consideration three case studies of particularly salient disaster events that illustrate the range of approaches discussed earlier: First, the terrorist acts of September 11, and, in particular, the legislative no-fault compensation scheme that was enacted to compensate the personal injury victims; second, Hurricane Andrew, which initiated a mixed private/public insurance scheme in Florida and recast FEMA's approach to disaster relief; and third, commercial airline crashes, as a category, which invoke tort as the principal source of disaster relief compensation.

"A concluding section VI of the paper returns to a more general overview of the system, offering a brief final commentary on fairness and efficacy considerations."—Abstract.

"The law of oil spill liability is a patchwork, built from relatively ancient traditions of maritime law but with a major overlay of modern statutes. It is a mixture of civil liability (at both the federal and state level) and criminal regimes. Different climants with varying types of damage claims are treated differently. While liability is the primary method of preventing spills, significant regulations exist as well, and these regulations influence the liability rules in turn. This complexity is the result of an uneasey compromise between industry interests and legislators motivated by damages from spills. Historically, this compromise has shifted in response to major spills, and is likely to do so again in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill."—Introduction.

"The 1997 flood on the Red River was one of the worst natural disasters in recent history for many people and communities in the Red River of the North Basin. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), one of the principal Federal agencies responsible for the collection and interpretation of water-resources data, works with other Federal, State, local, tribal, and academic entities to ensure that accurate and timely data are available for making decisions regarding public welfare and property during natural disasters and to increase public awareness of the hazards that occur with such disasters."

This web page links to a 209MB PDF full-color poster depicting images and data regarding the April 1997 flood in North Dakota.

"The effects of Katrina on children were particularly devastating. Following the disaster, 37 percent of displaced Louisiana children experienced clinically-diagnosed depression, anxiety, or behavior disorder even two years after the event, according to a study by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Roughly 1,300 children were still reported as missing a full two and a half months after Hurricane Katrina and in some cases it took up to six months to reunite children with their families.

To help reverse this situation, Save the Children's U.S. Programs has advocated that states adopt basic safety standards that would reduce the amount of time children are separated from their parents and minimize their risk of physical and emotional harm during and after a disaster.

This summer, Save the Children released a new report, The Disaster Decade: Lessons Unlearned for the United States, that reviewed four minimum standards in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The report found that only seven states—Arkansas, Maryland, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Alabama and Vermont—are meeting these four key standards necessary to safeguard children. Louisiana, despite being the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, met zero out of the four standards." —savethechildren.org

"Unfortunately, Attorney General Hood's colorful observation has proven untrue. Hurricane Katrina's direct physical toll has been estimated to exceed $200 billion, only a fraction of which is recoverable under existing insurance law. As many policyholders and citizens have realized, insurance is something we tend to think about only after a disaster. Indeed, this oversight is a central explanation for why the system for allocating flood losses in the United States has failed.

"Now that Katrina's waters have receded, it is time to reconcile insurance law and policy to reality: Catastrophic losses create interdependencies among public and private actors that must be managed rather than avoided. Our current systems for preventing, mitigating, and allocating these losses are fractured, diffuse, and maddeningly counterproductive. No single actor is vested with both the incentive and the power to manage this risk effectively.

"As with healthcare, the system for allocating catastrophic loss is characterized primarily by the evasion of responsibility at all levels: private, commercial, and governmental. The result (as in healthcare) has been dysfunction. Before Katrina's seemingly indelible memories recede - as they are destined to - it is time to recalibrate the relationship between government and the private market.

"This Article focuses on the two insurance systems that inadequately govern the distribution of flood risk: The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the private market for property insurance. There have been a number of studies detailing the structure and limits of these systems. However, scant attention has been directed toward the role that insurance law plays in driving the systems toward failure. What follows is a synthesis of insurance law, economics, and regulatory criticism, leading to the ineluctable conclusion that these two systems rest on a foundation of sand.

"I propose a market-based alternative that draws on the comparative advantages each system offers. To the information-generating of the marketplace, we may add a more precisely targeted governmental role in subsidizing some policyholders and reinsuring others. There are inevitable tradeoffs, and my proposal has a number of drawbacks - only some of which can be guessed at here. But the alternative is a system that has proven itself unable to cope adequately with the predictable losses of a bad year, let alone the greatest natural disaster in American history." —Abstract.

"The awareness of federal, state and local governments of the potential for levees in New Orleans to fail and decimate poor neighborhoods of the city was widely reported following the hurricane Katrina disaster. Demographics in the areas likely to incur the most severe damage were known to be neighborhoods of predominately poor, black residents. In addition to understanding the likely geographical impact of the impending disaster, the federal government was aware of the extensive social science and legal challenges detailing the likelihood of minority citizens to experience the worst consequences and slowest recovery from natural disasters. Studies dating back to the 1950s and numerous reports of the Red Cross support this conclusion. FEMA itself was sued in federal court for its inadequate response to marginalized communities during hurricane Andrew in 1992. While the federal government may not be held legally responsible for its discretionary policies within the disaster relief context, the horror of hurricane Katrina surely calls for a long overdue re-thinking of the federal approach to assisting marginalized communities in disaster recovery. Social science, the practical problems raised within legal challenges, as well as successful strategies from other disasters and even within the Katrina tragedy offer numerous opportunities for such reform."—Abstract.

"In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, incarcerated New Orleanians suffered in ways that far exceeded initial understandings of the scope of the storm. New Orleans's criminal justice system was utterly debilitated by the storm, with courts closed, judges and attorneys evacuated, and evidence underwater and destroyed. The many thousands who had been imprisoned in New Orleans prior to the storm were transferred throughout the state, their contact with family, friends and attorneys severed.

Additionally, in the days and weeks following the storm, erroneous reports suggested that New Orleans had devolved into lawlessness. This reporting triggered an unwarranted amount of the general relief effort to be focused on law enforcement, and hundreds of arrests were made despite the fact that courts were still closed and attorneys still absent. The cumulative result of mass incarceration and judicial debilitation was widespread denial of fundamental constitutional and due process rights, including, notably, the essential right to challenge the legality of one's imprisonment through a writ of habeas corpus. For those who suffered so greatly as a result, possible remedies such as pardon and criminal record expungement should be explored and thoughtfully considered."—Abstract.

"The purpose of this memorandum is to report the results of our review regarding FEMA's mission assignments to federal departments and agencies to provide volunteers in response to the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. Our objective was to determine whether the volunteer service program was managed efficiently and effectively. We and other Inspectors General from the participating agencies conducted interviews of agency points of contact (POCs) and volunteers....

"The volunteer service program was initiated in a short time frame and with limited prior experience or planning, but was generally implemented efficiently and effectively, and provided needed resources to assist with relief efforts. Volunteers overwhelmingly cited their service as particularly rewarding. However, POCs and volunteers identified several areas that need to be addressed prior to the next hurricane season to improve the efficacy of the volunteer service program."—

Coverage of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill aggregated from a variety of sources including: news media sources, government sources, congressional hearings, commercial sources, research and experts, mapping and infographics, and additional sources.

"Marking two years since Hurricane Katrina's landfall, the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) released a new report on August 29 that updates the status of displaced students and reviews the federal government's efforts to address the hurricane-related education challenges in the Gulf Coast.

"The report is rich with data and detail about the condition of children and the systems of education on which students are now relying to prepare them for life and work."

"The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) welcomes this report as a concrete response to its call for work to promote understanding that: protection of vital ecosystem services is fundamental to reducing vulnerability to disasters and strengthening community resilience.

"Although there is a growing recognition that natural habitats can help to mitigate disasters caused by vulnerability to hazards, we still have a great deal to learn about how to maximise the potential benefits and about what this means in terms of landscape-scale management approaches. Clear evidence linking habitat degradation to a series of so-called 'natural' disasters have added urgency to the need for further research and monitoring efforts. These problems are likely to increase as a result of the disturbance caused by climate change. Research shows that the poorest members of society consistently fare worst when disaster strikes.

"At the same time, natural ecosystems continue to be degraded at an alarming rate, so that in many countries we can no longer assume they exist in good enough condition to provide the environmental services upon which many people depend. In response, governments and local communities are setting aside and where necessary restoring natural habitats deliberately for their protective role. Although protected areas such as national parks and nature reserves are primarily designed to conserve biodiversity, most also supply important environmental services, including disaster mitigation. Whilst this is understood and acted upon by many protected area managers, it has never been systematically assessed and the current report makes a first attempt to provide a global overview.

"By focusing the case studies on major disasters in the new millennium, the authors have deliberately chosen a fairly narrow data set rather than choosing 'best case' examples. They have found cases where protected areas clearly play a major role in disaster mitigation and cases where the links are not so clear cut or where changes in management approaches within protected areas are needed. One clear result of this study is a need for specialists in disaster risk reduction, environmental management and protected areas to work together far more closely than they have in the past. There is already much that could be done through better collaboration to increase the role of natural habitats in disaster mitigation and these opportunities will continue to increase as we learn more. We call on both communities to develop talks and to take the necessary steps to ensure that natural safety measures are maintained and enhanced."—Foreword.

"Nuclear bombs in suitcases, anthrax bacilli in ventilators, tsunamis and meteors, avian flu, scorchingly hot temperatures: nightmares that were once the plot of Hollywood movies are now frighteningly real possibilities. How can we steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction?

"Cass Sunstein explores these and other worst-case scenarios and how we might best prevent them in this vivid, illuminating, and highly original analysis. Singling out the problems of terrorism and climate change, Sunstein explores our susceptibility to two opposite and unhelpful reactions: panic and utter neglect. He shows how private individuals and public officials might best respond to low-probability risks of disaster--emphasizing the need to know what we will lose from precautions as well as from inaction. Finally, he offers an understanding of the uses and limits of cost-benefit analysis, especially when current generations are imposing risks on future generations.

"Throughout, Sunstein uses climate change as a defining case, because it dramatically illustrates the underlying principles. But he also discusses terrorism, depletion of the ozone layer, genetic modification of food, hurricanes, and worst-case scenarios faced in our ordinary lives. Sunstein concludes that if we can avoid the twin dangers of over-reaction and apathy, we will be able to ameliorate if not avoid future catastrophes, retaining our sanity as well as scarce resources that can be devoted to more constructive ends." —Publisher's Description.

"Losses from hurricane catastrophes have accelerated in recent years, with seven of the top nine hurricanes ranked by insured losses occurring during 2004 and 2005. Hurricane losses have affected the availability of insurance in coastal states and contributed to enormous growth in state residual wind markets. Of particular policy concern is the possibility that homeowners, businesses and insurance companies are not investing in the efficient amount of mitigation to reduce hurricane losses.

"This paper examines some of the potential barriers to the adoption of efficient mitigation and reviews specific state insurance regulation and legislation that impedes and encourages mitigation. Premium discounts and hurricane deductibles, which are waived if property owners invest in mitigation, provide incentives for mitigation, but mitigation discounts mandated by legislators potentially could represent disguised insurance subsidies. Irrationalities in decision-making such as low-probability event bias, myopia, and inertia might make it difficult for insurers to convince property owners to invest in mitigation. But this is not different in type from the problem entrepreneurs face in general in making consumers aware of the value of products. Restrictions on contractual mechanisms insurance companies can use to encourage mitigation, like requiring mitigation as a condition for renewal of coverage or funding mitigation after a disaster through long term loans or contracts, could prevent insurers from using effective incentives for mitigation, and could reduce the supply of insurance in coastal areas."—Abstract.

"This report provides a brief overview of selected legal issues including emergency measures, civil rights, liability issues, and employment issues.

There are a number of emergency measures which may help to contain or ameliorate an infectious disease outbreak. The Public Health Service Act, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the National Emergencies Act, and the Stafford Act contain authorities that allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services or the President to take certain actions during emergencies or disasters. While the primary authority for quarantine and isolation in the United States resides at the state level, the federal government has jurisdiction over interstate and border quarantine. The federal government also issues recommendations regarding such activities as school closures and vaccination programs. States and local governments have the authority to initiate emergency measures such as mandatory vaccination orders and certain nonpharmaceutical interventions such as school closures, which may lessen the spread of an infectious disease. The International Health Regulations adopted by the WHO in 2005 provide a framework for international cooperation against infectious disease threats." — Introduction

"Hurricane Katrina is a warning for the United States not only about disaster response but also about planning for a healthy and productive energy economy. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed into law only months before Katrina, continues a policy that has dominated our energy thinking for over a century. Neither the United States nor the world can continue on a path of increased fossil fuel burning without acknowledging the long-term, global, difficult to manage, and complex to understand consequences of climate change. This article advocates a significant energy transition away from that path to become less dependent on fossil fuels and more dependent on cleaner renewable and alternative fuels. An alternative energy policy has been developing over the last three decades that is based on the assumption that energy production has a direct impact on the quality of the environment, on national security, and on global relations, as well as on a healthy pro-growth economy. Katrina presents an opportunity to reevaluate the traditional policy and to engage in a transition to this new "smart" energy policy for a strong economic future." —Abstract.

"This report finds that on some measures, significant progress has been made in the nation's preparedness. There are important areas, however, where continued, concerted action is needed. From assuring an adequate stockpile of pandemic influenza countermeasures to having a public health workforce large enough and trained enough to respond to an emergency, federal and state policies still fall short of their stated goals.

"Almost half the states do not provide sufficient legal protection from liability for health care volunteers who respond to the nation's call for assistance in an emergency. In many other areas, a lack of transparency makes it hard for the American people and their elected representatives to know whether their government is protecting them. The variation in preparedness among the states, while not as great as in past years, does mean that where one lives still determines how well one is protected. Until all states measure up, the United States is not safe.

"Over the course of July and early August 2010, Pakistan experienced the worst monsoon-related floods in living memory. Heavy rainfall, flash floods and riverine floods have devastated large parts of Pakistan since the arrival of seasonal monsoon rains on 22 July. Assessments of losses and damages are ongoing, but estimates place the number of affected people at more than 14 million. Over 1,200 people have died, and at least 288,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. . . .

"The Government, especially deploying the Armed Forces' logistical capacity, has led the response to the disaster with the deployment of preparedness, rescue and relief actions. Hundreds of thousands have been rescued or preventively evacuated from riverine areas. In light of the devastation caused by the floods and the ongoing threat to lives and livelihoods, the Government (through its National Disaster Management Authority) requested the United Nations agencies and the humanitarian community to prepare an initial floods emergency response plan."—Executive Summary.

"Hurricane Katrina made Gulf Coast landfall on August 29, 2005, and changed what we thought we knew about hurricanes and the Southeast Louisiana hurricane protection system. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers commissioned an independent team of more than 150 international and national experts from more than 50 different government organizations, universities, and private industry soon after Hurricane Katrina to analyze how the system performed during the hurricane. This team is 'IPET,' the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force.

"This site is designed to share what we have learned about hurricane risks in the Greater New Orleans area with you, so that you can make risk-informed decisions about your future. IPET has developed a state-of-the-art prototype risk assessment model to characterize current annual flood risk in the area. This prototype version of the risk assessment has been used to develop the Google Earth maps that are described below. The risk assessment method will continue to be improved upon and will be used in the near future to determine the risk associated with the hurricane protection system at its 100-year elevation level and, in the longer-term, as part of Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration study, known as LaCPR."—Welcome.

The site includes v.VIII of the IPET report, dealing with risk and reliability.

• Volume I: Executive Summary and Overview ? Summary of findings and lessons learned. Overview of performance evaluation activities and reports.
• Volume II: Geodetic Vertical and Water Level Datums ? Update of geodetic and water level references for the region and determining accurate elevations for all critical structures.
• Volume III: The Hurricane Protection System ? Documentation of the character of the hurricane protection system, including the design assumptions and criteria, as built and maintained condition.
• Volume IV: The Storm ? Determining the surge and wave environments created by Katrina and the time history and nature of the forces experienced by protection structures during the storm.
• Volume V: The Performance ? Levees and Floodwalls ? Understanding the behavior of individual damaged structures and development of criteria for evaluation of undamaged sections. Providing input to repairs and ongoing design and planning efforts.
• Volume VI: The Performance ? Interior Drainage and Pumping ? Understanding the performance of the interior drainage and pumping systems with regard to extent and duration of flooding. Examination of scenarios to understand system-wide performance.
• Volume VII: The Consequences ? Determination of the economic, human safety and health, environmental, and social and cultural losses due to Katrina. Examination of scenarios to understand implications of losses and possible recovery paths on future risk.
• Volume VIII: Risk and Reliability ? Determination of the inherent risk for all parts of the system prior to and following Katrina. Provision of capability for risk-based decision support for continuing improvement and development of hurricane protection.
• Volume IX: Supporting Appendices ? Documentation of information resources and management, program management, and communications."

"After completing its notification of levee owners, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today released the locations of the levee units nationwide with unacceptable maintenance inspection ratings.

"An unacceptable maintenance rating means a levee has one or more deficient conditions that can reasonably be foreseen to prevent the project from functioning as designed. Examples of maintenance deficiencies include: animal burrows, erosion, tree growth, movement of floodwalls or faulty culvert conditions."

"The devastating hurricanes of 2005 had a two-fold impact on DOI. First, DOI was called upon to assist in the federal relief efforts under the National Response Plan (NRP). Second, DOI's bureaus were greatly affected by the disasters. DOI sustained significant damage to 12 parks and preserves, 86 refuges, 68 water monitoring gauges, and the Mineral Management Service's (MMS) Gulf of Mexico Regional Office. As of September 30, 2006, DOI spent approximately $104 million on hurricane relief and recovery. This included approximately $61 million for NRP activities and $43 million to respond to and address internal damage.

"We are pleased to report that overall, the bureaus effectively managed their 2005 hurricane-related expenditures. Given the magnitude of the damage sustained to the Gulf Coast and DOI facilities, the issues we identified through our expenditure testing were relatively insignificant, and the bureaus performed well."—Earl E. Devaney, Inspector General.

"On March 24, 1989 the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil across 1,300 miles of coastline - a catastrophic event that lead to one of the most thorough examinations of the effects of oil on the environment. While the vast majority of the spill area now appears to have recovered, pockets of crude oil remain in some locations, and there is evidence that some damage is continuing.

"The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Trustee Council was established with funds from the legal settlement between the State of Alaska, the Federal Government and Exxon to develop research, restoration and habitat conservation plans for the spill area. The NMFS Alaska Regional Administrator represents NOAA on the Council and oversees the NMFS Office of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Damage Assessment and Restoration. The EVOS office administers projects carried out by NMFS researchers and outside contractors, and facilitates research planning and coordination between EVOS projects and other programs." — About NOAA Fisheries' EVOS Office. 

Includes information on the oil spill, research and restoration, and civil settlement documents.

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting requested a review on the administration of the ice delivery process between International American Products, Worldwide Services and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Specifically, we limited our review to only the administration of the ice delivery process during the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort. The report also addresses other matters identified during our review of the administration of the 2003 ice delivery contract. We issued DoD Inspector General Report No. 2006-116, 'Ice Delivery Contracts Between International American Products, Worldwide Services and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,' on September 26, 2006. That report addressed Congressman Bennie Thompson's concerns on the award of the ice delivery contracts between International American Products, Worldwide Services and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This report addresses the administration of the 2003 ice delivery contract related to the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort....

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Charleston District did not effectively administer the 2003 ice delivery contract for the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort. The Corps Charleston District did not provide adequate training and guidance for invoice processing over the National Ice/Water Mission. They made inaccurate or inadequately supported payments on 142 of the 342 invoices received in the amount of about $262,000."—Executive Summary.

"This Directive is issued to establish military Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer (EPLO) policy and program guidance governing the use of Reserve component (RC) members in providing military support and assistance to civil authorities. The Directive also establishes DoD policy for the management of EPLO programs in each of the Military Departments."—Summary.

Available in PDF and RTF formats.

"This Directive updates policy and responsibilities governing planning and response by the DoD Components for military assistance to Federal, State, and local government (including government of U.S. territories) and their law enforcement agencies for civil disturbances and civil disturbance operations, including response to terrorist incidents, which hereafter are referred to cumulatively as 'Military Assistance for Civil Disturbances.' "—Summary.

Available in PDF and RTF formats.

"This Directive establishes DoD policy and assigns responsibilities for providing military assistance to civil authorities. Supersedes reference Secretary of Defense Memorandum, 'Military Assistance to Civil Authorities,' December 12, 1995. Cancels reference Deputy Secretary of Defense Memorandum, 'Support of Civil authorities in airplane Hijacking Emergencies,' July 29, 1972 and AR 385-70/AFR 55-13/OPNAVINST 3710.18B, 'Unmanned Free Balloons and Kites, and Unmanned Rockets,' December 13, 1965."—Summary.

Available in PDF and RTF formats.

"The Department of Energy's Strategic Petroleum Reserve consists of underground caverns currently holding nearly 700 million barrels of crude oil. The Reserve's primary energy security mission is to maintain drawdown readiness to mitigate the impact of a severe crude oil supply disruption. To achieve this goal, the Reserve must be prepared to promptly restore operations and schedule the flow of crude oil to refineries, even in the midst of a major disaster. The Reserve sites are located in the heart of the Gulf Coast region of the United States, an area prone to hurricanes and major storms. In such an environment, continuity of operations is especially challenging....

"We found that the Department used the Reserve and its assets with great effectiveness to address emergency energy needs in the crisis surrounding Katrina and Rita. Despite being in the path of the hurricanes' destruction, the Reserve promptly fulfilled requests for oil from refineries suffering from storm-induced supply shortages. Within four days of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, oil was sent to requesting refineries. Overall, the Reserve provided almost 21 million barrels of crude oil to refiners through loans and sales. To their credit, the Reserve's management and staff reacted magnificently under extremely difficult circumstances."—Gregory H. Friedman, Inspector General, Memorandum for the Secretary (December 5, 2006)

"Law is a traditional public health tool for disease prevention and health promotion. For many traditional public health problems, both acute and chronic, the role of law has been crucial in attaining public health goals, even rivaling the roles of epidemiology and laboratory science. Many of the greatest successes claimed by public health, such as high childhood immunization rates, improved motor vehicle safety, safer workplaces, and reduced tooth decay, have relied heavily on law. In the past few years, law has played an important role in the control of emerging health problems such as SARS and the threat of pandemic influenza.

"In 2000, CDC formally recognized the important role of law in public health by establishing the CDC Public Health Law Program. We are located in the Office of the Chief of Public Health Practice in the CDC Office of the Director. Our mission is to improve the health of the public through law. Our strategic goals are to: develop the legal preparedness of the public health system to address terrorism and other national public health priorities; improve the understanding and use of law as a public health tool; and establish robust partnerships to join public health practitioners with partners in key law-related sectors, such as elected officials and the legal and law enforcement communities.

"The program works to: strengthen the competencies of public health professionals, attorneys, and other practitioners to apply law to public health and increase the number of attorneys active in public health; support and conduct applied research in public health law and translate findings into practice; provide consultation and analysis in public health law to CDC programs and extramural constituents; establish partnerships among CDC and other organizations active in public health law and assist in strengthening their public health law capacity and expertise; and develop and disseminate authoritative information on public health law to the public health practice, policy, research, and education communities."—Website.

"The U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one of seven U.S. uniformed services, is made up entirely of officers commissioned on the basis of their health-related training. Agencies within and outside the Department of Health and Human Services (the Department) employ Corps officers to provide health care and related services in health professional shortage areas. In addition, the Secretary of the Department has the authority to deploy the Corps in response to public health emergencies. Hence, Corps officers must simultaneously fulfill their responsibilities to their employer agency and to the Corps.

"In August and September 2005, respectively, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast. In response to health care and public health needs in the affected areas, the Corps carried out the largest deployment in its 207-year history. More than 2,100 officers worked with State, local, and private agencies in response to the hurricanes. Since 2003, the Corps has been engaged in a continuous effort to improve its response capacity. On January 18, 2006, the Secretary announced the latest phase in this effort, in which the Corps will increase the number of officers by 10 percent, create a team-oriented deployment process, and improve the recruitment process.

"Commissioned Corps officers deployed in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita provided valuable services, but the Corps could improve its response to public health emergencies. The Commissioned Corps provided valuable support to States, but more officers—especially nurses, mental health professionals, and dentists— were needed. While most deployed officers met Corps readiness standards, many lacked experience, effective training, and familiarity with response plans. Agencies were unwilling or unable to allow some officers to deploy, while logistical difficulties delayed others' arrival in the field. Confusion surrounded some officers' arrival, but most field assignments were appropriate and officers felt safe at their locations. Most officers were equipped adequately, but some lacked working communications devices and other basic tools. Many officers personally incurred mission-related expenses and some were not reimbursed promptly, which could affect their ability to deploy to future public health emergencies." —Executive Summary.

"The Government purchase card program was designed to save the Government money by avoiding costly paperwork and to expedite the process of making purchases. In response to Hurricane Katrina, Public Law 109-62 authorized agencies to streamline certain purchasing requirements for procurement of supplies or services to support rescue and relief operations. This report (1) determines whether Government purchase card purchases related to Hurricane Katrina complied with requirements for the use of the card and (2) identifies lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina purchases to assist in the administration of the Government purchase card program during future emergency situations.

"We found that 15 percent of purchases did not comply with purchase card requirements. Additionally, cardholders had questions and concerns regarding some purchases and over half of cardholders expressed the need for additional written guidance regarding emergency purchasing procedures. Lastly, we found that Hurricane Katrina purchase data contained inaccuracies.

"We recommend that the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management provide additional written guidance on emergency purchasing procedures. We also recommend that ASAM require training on emergency purchasing procedures. Finally, we recommend that ASAM develop a tracking system for monitoring Government purchase card purchases during emergency situations. In its comments to the draft report, ASAM concurred with our recommendations and stated that it has set a course of action to strengthen the Department of Health and Human Services' purchase card program."

"The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Program Support Center (PSC) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.

"As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, PSC awarded a contract to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Bureau of Minority Health Access (Louisiana) to address the State's health and housing needs. Our objective was to determine whether PSC complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving Louisiana. PSC complied with the requirements."—Executive Summary.

"The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Program Support Center (PSC) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.

"As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, PSC awarded a contract to the Mississippi Department of Health, Office of Health Disparity Elimination (Mississippi) to address the State's health and housing needs. Our objective was to determine whether PSC complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving Mississippi. PSC complied with the requirements."—Executive Summary.

"The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Program Support Center (PSC) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.

"As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, PSC awarded a contract to the Nevada Hospital Association (the Association) to furnish a 100-patient mobile hospital unit for hurricane victims. Our objective was to determine whether PSC complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving the Association. PSC complied with the requirements."—Executive Summary.

"The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Program Support Center (PSC) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.

"As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, PSC awarded a contract to the Tennessee Department of Health, Office of Minority Health (Tennessee) to address the State's health and housing needs. Our objective was to determine whether PSC complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving Tennessee. PSC complied with the requirements."—Executive Summary.

"The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Program Support Center (PSC) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.

"As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, PSC awarded a contract to the Texas Department of State Health Services, Office for the Elimination of Health Disparities (Texas) to address the State's health and housing needs. Our objective was to determine whether PSC complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving Texas. PSC complied with the requirements."—Executive Summary.

"The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Program Support Center (PSC) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.

"As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, PSC awarded a contract to Doleac Electric Company, Inc. (Doleac), to repair electrical lines on the site of a portable hospital unit that furnished emergency medical services to hurricane victims. Our objective was to determine whether PSC complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving Doleac. PSC complied with the requirements."—Executive Summary.

"The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Program Support Center (PSC) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

"The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.

"As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, PSC awarded a contract to Pamela Gilyard Catering Services (Gilyard Catering) to furnish meals for HHS staff engaged in hurricane relief efforts. Our objective was to determine whether PSC complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving Gilyard Catering. PSC complied with the requirements."—Executive Summary.

"The purpose of this Chemical/Biological (C/B) Health and Medical Services Support Plan for the Federal response to acts of C/B terrorism is to provide a coordinated Federal response for urgent public health and medical care needs resulting from C/B terrorist threats or acts in the United States.

"The principal purpose of this plan is to support the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by leading the Emergency Support Function (ESF) #8 response to the health and medical aspects of a C/B terrorist incident." —Introduction.

"This guide is for people in a state, city, county, or town who come together during times of emergency, make the tough decisions about how to manage the crisis, and put their boots on the ground to save lives and protect the health and safety of area residents.

We attempt to provide insight into what roles, resources, and tools the public health sector can bring to the emergency response table at local,
state, and federal levels. Although you may notice that many examples are focused on terrorism-related public health emergencies, the information is relevant to all kinds of public health emergencies, including natural disasters." — Introduction

"FEMA needs to prepare a single comprehensive document for monitoring debris removal operations. FEMA also needs to define better the requirements for contracting debris-removal monitoring services.

"We reviewed the adequacy of FEMA guidance for monitoring Hurricane Katrina debris removal operations in Louisiana (LA) and Mississippi (MS). Debris removal monitoring is a process of observing and documenting debris removal operations to ensure that FEMA funding is provided for only those activities that conform to and are consistent with requirements of FEMA's public assistance program."

"The ability to recognize quickly the signs of an intentional biological attack or naturally occurring outbreak is crucial to protecting the American public. Recognizing a gap in national biological threat analysis, in 2004, the President directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to consolidate federal agency bio-surveillance data in one system. In response, DHS began efforts to develop the National Bio-Surveillance Integration System (NBIS), the nation's first system capable of providing comprehensive and integrated bio-surveillance and situational awareness....

"Since 2001, federal agencies collectively have spent an estimated $32 billion on electronic surveillance systems and various other IT initiatives to address bio-defense. Bio-defense is defined as procedures involved in taking defensive measures against attacks using biological agents. Defensive measures include research on vaccines and medications, hospital preparedness, and protection of water supplies.... Although these individual programs have helped in gathering and reviewing sector-specific data, the federal government has had no single system for consolidating and examining bio-surveillance across federal, state, and local lines."—Executive Summary.

"At the request of Senators Byron L. Dorgan and Mary L. Landrieu, we reviewed FEMA's award of 36 contracts worth $3.6 billion for the maintenance and deactivation of travel trailers and manufactured housing needed after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita....

"Overall, FEMA contracting officials treated bidders fairly during the bid process. However, to fully realize its goal of maximizing local participation, they should have established better criteria for determining whether a bidder was a local firm. They also should have analyzed prices more thoroughly before awarding the contracts to ensure that costs were reasonable.

"The Senators ask us to provide answers related to the following topics:

• Destruction of bidding material
• Information provided to bidders
• Wide range of cost estimates among winning bidders
• Qualifications of winning bidders
• Public availability of winning bids and post-award meetings
• Adequacy of services provided to travel trailer residents
• Award of four $100 million contracts to a joint venture"

"The primary objectives of our assessment were to identify key areas for preparing for a catastrophic disaster, and determine the progress FEMA has made in the key areas since Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. We reviewed pertinent reports, including those of our office and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), as well as congressional testimony. We identified nine key areas critical to successful catastrophic preparedness efforts. We collaborated with FEMA officials to identify two to five critical components within each key area. We interviewed FEMA officials and evaluated documents provided by them. We assessed FEMA's progress in each of the areas using a four-tiered scale: substantial progress, moderate progress, modest progress, and limited or no progress.

"Given the scope and limitations of our review, we did not perform an in-depth assessment of each of the nine key preparedness areas. We used the critical components within each area, as well as our broader knowledge of the key preparedness areas, to gauge FEMA's overall progress in those areas."—Executive Summary.

"Law enforcement efforts to provide public safety and security, and detect disaster assistance fraud, are complicated by: (1) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) concerns about improperly disclosing Privacy Act-protected information; and (2) the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act, which prevents federal Inspectors General from expeditiously conducting computer matches among recipients of disaster assistance.

"We are recommending that the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency:

1. Add specific routine uses to the System of Records Notice that authorizes the disclosure of FEMA disaster recovery assistance files for the purpose of locating registered sex offenders and fugitive felons in the aftermath of a disaster.
2. Develop and execute agreements with DOJ, the coordinator for Public Safety and Security under the National Response plan, to provide appropriate law enforcement entities direct access to FEMA disaster recovery assistance files for public safety and security efforts, including identifying the whereabouts of registered sex offenders and fugitive felons.
3. Collaborate with DOJ to develop protocols, procedures, and processes to facilitate the appropriate sharing of information from FEMA disaster recovery assistance files among federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies that are responsible for ensuring public safety and security following a disaster.
"—Executive Summary.

"Starting in fiscal year 2005, and continuing through early 2007, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials used funds received from the sale of used travel trailers and mobile homes to partially finance the operations of a dozen Emergency Housing Unit (EHU) sites in seven states. However, more than $13.5 million of the sales proceeds were expended for ineligible purchases. This occurred because FEMA program officials failed to ensure that the EHU expenditures met General Services Administration (GSA) regulations on the use of sales proceeds.

"Proceeds from the sale of government property are restricted-use funds that can be used for the purchase of a select group of replacement type items within a specified time. GSA regulations specify conditions that must be met in order to participate in the program, and if not met, an agency must return proceeds to the United States Treasury.FEMA officials used approximately one half of the sales proceeds, or about $13.5 million, on ineligible expenditures including (1) contracts to support and equip storage sites, (2) replenishment of purchase card accounts, and (3) travel expenses. These purchases generally represented operating expenses of the EHU sites, but were ineligible expenditures under GSA regulations. Because of the unbudgeted nature of these funds and the need for better oversight and control, unnecessary and uneconomical purchases were made.

"FEMA requested this review in early 2007 and FEMA's Disaster Finance Center initiated its own detailed review concurrently. The Disaster Finance Center review, completed in June 2007, concluded that most of the sales proceeds were used for ineligible purposes or not used within prescribed timeframes. The Disaster Finance Center recommended that appropriate fund account adjustments be made and that improperly used funds be returned to the U.S. Treasury. We concur with the Disaster Finance Center recommendations and make additional recommendations to prevent misuse in the future."—Executive Summary

"The Office of University Programs, Science and Technology Directorate is sponsoring a summit to showcase key research and education priorities of the Department of Homeland Security Centers of Excellence, the Science and Technology Directorate and the Department of Homeland Security at large. The Summit highlights the efforts of the Office of University Programs as it continues to rise to the challenges associated with helping to protect the Nation. Subject matter experts from academia, industry, government and the international community will address the latest homeland security research and education issues in the following areas: Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events; Security of Agriculture and the Food System; Studies of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism; Preparedness and Catastrophic Event Response; Chemical and Biological Threats and Countermeasures; Emerging Threats; University Programs Homeland Security Education Initiatives; International Homeland Security Research Challenges."—Website.

This website includes pdf files of speakers' presentations and facts sheets produced in conjunction with the conference.

"The Homeland Security Centers of Excellence (HS-Centers) bring together leading experts and researchers to conduct multidisciplinary research and education for homeland security solutions.

"The centers are authorized by Congress and chosen by the Department's Science & Technology Directorate through a competitive selection process. Each center is led by a university in collaboration with partners from other institutions, agencies, laboratories, think tanks, and the private sector."—Website.

"This memorandum presents our findings and recommendations based on our review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) housing strategy for future disasters. Our objective was to determine the efficacy of FEMA’s strategic plans for providing emergency housing to future disaster survivors.

We based our findings and recommendations on discussions with FEMA staff and reviews of the National Disaster Housing Strategy, FEMA’s 2009 Disaster Housing Plan, and other FEMA and congressional reports. We also reviewed FEMA’s disaster housing response activities following Hurricane Ike in 2008 and other housing-related requirements of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (Post-Katrina Reform Act)." — Introductory letter

"The NIPP meets the requirements that the President set forth in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD-7), Critical Infrastructure Identifcation, Prioritization, and Protection, and provides the overarching approach for integrating the Nation’s many CIKR protection initiatives into a single national effort. It sets forth a comprehensive risk management framework and clearly defined roles and responsibilities for the Department of Homeland Security; Federal Sector-Specifc Agencies; and other Federal, State, regional, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners implementing the NIPP.

The 2009 NIPP captures the evolution and maturation of the processes and programs frst outlined in 2006 and was developed collaboratively with CIKR partners at all levels of government and the private sector. Participation in the implementation of the NIPP provides the government and the private sector with the opportunity to use collective expertise and experience to more clearly define CIKR protection issues and practical solutions and to ensure that existing CIKR protection planning efforts, including business continuity and resiliency planning, are recognized." — Preface

"On December 17, 2003, the President issued HSPD-8. HSPD-8 established national policies to strengthen the preparedness of the United States to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from threatened or actual terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies within the United States. HSPD-8 directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a national domestic all-hazards preparedness goal in coordination with the heads of other appropriate Federal departments and agencies and in consultation with State, local, tribal, and territorial governments. The National Preparedness Guidelines (Guidelines) finalize development of the national preparedness goal and its related preparedness tools.

"The purposes of the Guidelines are to:

• Organize and synchronize national (including Federal, State, local, tribal, and territorial) efforts to strengthen national preparedness;
• Guide national investments in national preparedness;
• Incorporate lessons learned from past disasters into national preparedness priorities;
• Facilitate a capability-based and risk-based investment planning process; and
• Establish readiness metrics to measure progress and a system for assessing the Nation's overall preparedness capability to respond to major events, especially those involving acts of terrorism."—Introduction.

"This National Response Framework (NRF) [or Framework] is a guide to how the Nation conducts all-hazards response. It is built upon scalable, flexible, and adaptable coordinating structures to align key roles and responsibilities across the Nation. It describes specific authorities and best practices for managing incidents that range from the serious but purely local, to large-scale terrorist attacks or catastrophic natural disasters.

"This document explains the common discipline and structures that have been exercised and matured at the local, tribal, State, and national levels over time. It describes key lessons learned from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, focusing particularly on how the Federal Government is organized to support communities and States in catastrophic incidents. Most importantly, it builds upon the National Incident Management System (NIMS), which provides a consistent template for managing incidents."—Introduction | Overview.

See also the NRF Resource Center for more information.

"We seek continually to improve the operations of the Department, to discharge our duty of safeguarding the home front. This includes:

1. Clarifying, defining, and communicating leadership roles, responsibilities, and lines of authority at all government levels;

2. Strengthening accountability systems that balance the need for fast, flexible response with the need to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse;

3. Consolidating efforts to integrate the Department's critical mission of preparedness; and

4. Enhancing our capabilities to respond to major disasters and emergencies, including catastrophic events, particularly in terms of situational assessment and awareness, emergency communications, evacuations, search and rescue, logistics, and mass care and sheltering." —Letter from the Secretary.

"The deepwater Gulf of Mexico has become an important oil and gas province and, therefore, has experienced a substantial increase in leasing, exploration, development, and production activities. This trend is expected to continue although the remote location, harsh operating environment, new and unusual technologies, different operating procedures, and additional environmental issues present regulator and environmental concerns. Additional information on deepwater-related issues will enhance MMS environmental analyses and assist in management of this lesser known area."

This site includes deepwater NEPA documents and a variety of deepwater environmental publications. 

"Welcome to the Minerals Management Service's Electronic Reading Room, which contains documents related to the BP/Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill that have been cleared for public release...

"Please note that we will be adding to this collection regularly as we continue to process and release documents that have been requested by members of the public and by members of Congress."

• Overstated the need for land
• Sought unneeded kitchen space, refrigerators, and microwaves
• Did not consider multi-story office space
• Unnecessarily required a 6-foot fence
• Did not clearly indicate whether private rooms per person were needed"

"Mitigation Plans form the foundation for a community's long-term strategy to reduce disaster losses and break the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage. The planning process is as important as the plan itself. It creates a framework for risk-based decision making to reduce damages to lives, property, and the economy from future disasters. Hazard mitigation is sustained action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and their property from hazards." — Website

1. Incident Management
2. Operational Planning
3. Disaster Logistics
4. Emergency Communications
5. Service to Disaster Victims
6. Continuity Programs
7. Public Disaster Communications
8. Integrated Preparedness
9. Hazard Mitigation

"As indicated in the earlier research, there is no single reason for the decline in volunteers in most departments. However, there is a universal consensus that skilled department leadership is a key to resolving the problems. Retention and recruitment problems usually can be traced to several underlying factors: more demands on people's time in a hectic modern society; more stringent training requirements; population shifts from smaller towns to urban centers; changes in the nature of small town industry and farming; internal leadership problems; and a decline in the sense of civic responsibility, among other factors. Although some regions are more affected than others, and the problems and solutions vary across regions, even within States and counties, volunteer retention and recruitment is a problem nationwide. Specifically, it is a local issue and must be dealt with locally.

"Can the trend in declining volunteerism be reversed? Information collected reveals that departments that have taken steps to deal with the problems have seen a resurgence in volunteerism. This indicates that many of the problems can be mitigated or eliminated if proper attention and resources are given to them. This text will attempt to identify and share the ideas and practices that are successful in recruitment and retention. Departments that have failed to address the problems and challenges of volunteering in today's world have been forced to hire career firefighters, consolidate, or even close their doors."—Introduction.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has sent more than 300 personnel into the Gulf of Mexico region to respond to the BP Oil Spill. We are working with BP and many partners to do everything we can to minimize the impact of the oil spill on fish, wildlife and habitat.

"Our people are preparing for potential oil impact at 33 wildlife refuges that line the ocasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. We are conducting aerial and ground surveys to assess the damage, and recovering oiled or injured wildlife to be cleaned, healed and released in safe locations." — What We are Doing.

"Hurricane Katrina caused several breaches in the floodwalls along three drainage canals in New Orleans, contributing to catastrophic flooding. To restore the pre-Katrina level of hurricane-related flood protection, the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) decided to acquire several large-capacity pumping systems. During the process of acquiring, testing, and installing the pumping systems, issues with the pump contract and operation of the pumping systems came to light, including several identified in a Corps Independent Team Report (ITR). GAO was asked to evaluate the Corps' efforts to (1) develop contract specifications and award the contract, (2) address pumping system performance issues, (3) document contract modifications, and (4) reconcile contract payments."—Purpose.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) experienced near-constant organizational change from fiscal years 2001 through 2005 that caused considerable flux in FEMA's resources. During this period, the most significant change occurred in March 2003 when FEMA transitioned from an independent agency to a component of the newly created DHS....

"FEMA also contributed to DHS start-up costs and ongoing expenses, which reduced funds available for FEMA's operating expenses. Though FEMA would have incurred some of these costs as an independent agency, evidence suggests that FEMA may have been assessed a disproportionate amount relative to several larger DHS entities....

"FEMA lacks a strategic workforce plan and related human capital strategies—such as succession planning or a coordinated training effort—which are integral to managing resources...."

"While the federal government provides significant financial assistance after major disasters, state and local governments play the lead role in disaster recovery. As affected jurisdictions recover from the recent hurricanes and floods, experiences from past disasters can provide insights into potential good practices. Drawing on experiences from six major disasters that occurred from 1989 to 2005, GAO identified the following selected insights: 

• Create a clear, implementable, and timely recovery plan.
• Build state and local capacity for recovery. 
• Implement strategies for businesses recovery.
• Adopt a comprehensive approach toward combating fraud, waste,
  and abuse." — GAO Highlights

"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.

"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." —What the GAO found.

"In February 2006, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) appropriated $2 billion for certain health care costs related to Hurricane Katrina through Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was charged with allocating the $2 billion in funding to states directly affected by the hurricane or that hosted evacuees.

"GAO performed this work under the Comptroller General's statutory authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative. In this report, GAO examined: (1) how CMS allocated the DRA funds to states, (2) the extent to which states have used DRA funds, and (3) whether selected states—Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas—anticipate the need for additional funds after DRA funds are expended."—Why GAO Did this Study.

"While EPA provided useful environmental health risk information to the public via flyers, public service announcements, and the EPA Web page, the communications were at times unclear and inconsistent on how to mitigate exposure to some contaminants, particularly asbestos and mold. Further, the usefulness of three key reports on EPA's environmental sampling in New Orleans—developed with, among others, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to address potential health risks from exposure to floodwaters, sediments, and air—was limited by a lack of timeliness and insufficient disclosures about EPA's sampling program. For example, EPA did not state until August 2006 that its December 2005 report—which said that the great majority of the data showed that adverse health effects would not be expected from exposure to sediments from previously flooded areas—applied to short-term visits, such as to view damage to homes.

"Mitigating several challenges EPA faces addressing Hurricane Katrina could better protect the environment in the future. First, EPA did not remove hazardous materials from national wildlife refuges in a timely manner as part of its response in part because disaster assistance funding generally is not used for debris cleanups on federal lands. Second, because states generally have authority over landfill decisions, EPA does not have an effective role in emergency debris disposal decisions that could cause pollution. Finally, lack of clarity in federal debris management plans and protocols precluded the timely and safe disposal of some appliances and electronic waste."—What GAO Found.

"FEMA's ineffective oversight resulted in an estimated $30 million in wasteful and improper or potentially fraudulent payments to the MD ["maintain and deactivate"] contractors from June 2006 through January 2007 and likely led to millions more in unnecessary spending beyond this period. For example, FEMA wasted as much as $16 million because it did not issue task orders to the contractors with the lowest prices. In addition, GAO estimates that FEMA paid the contractors almost $16 million because it approved improper or potentially fraudulent invoices. This amount includes about $15 million spent on maintenance inspections even though there was no evidence that inspections occurred and about $600,000 for emergency repairs on housing units that do not exist in FEMA's inventory.

"Furthermore, FEMA's placement of trailers at group sites is leading to excessive costs. As shown below, FEMA will spend on average about $30,000 on each 280 square foot trailer at a private site through March 2009, the date when FEMA plans to end temporary housing occupancy. In contrast, expenses for just one trailer at the Port of Bienville Park case study site could escalate to about $229,000---the same as the cost of a five bedroom, 2,000 square foot home in Jackson, Mississippi." —What GAO Found.

"This report provides a limited assessment of the controls FEMA had in place for disaster assistance during the response to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Specifically, we discuss (1) whether certain aspects of FEMA’s fraud prevention controls have improved since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and (2) issues we identified related to the customer service provided to disaster applicants." — Introduction

"In our December 6, 2006, testimony, GAO stated that FEMA made tens of millions of dollars of potentially improper and/or fraudulent payments associated with both hurricanes Katrina and Rita. These payments include $17 million in rental assistance paid to individuals to whom FEMA had already provided free housing through trailers or apartments. In one case, FEMA provided free housing to 10 individuals in apartments in Plano, Texas, while at the same time it sent these individuals $46,000 to cover out-of-pocket housing expenses. In addition, several of these individuals certified to FEMA that they needed rental assistance.

"FEMA made nearly $20 million in duplicate payments to thousands of individuals who claimed damages to the same property from both hurricanes Katrina and Rita. FEMA also made millions in potentially improper and/or fraudulent payments to nonqualified aliens who were not eligible for [FEMA's Individuals and Households Program]. For example, FEMA paid at least $3 million to more than 500 ineligible foreign students at four universities in the affected areas. This amount likely understates the total payments to ineligible foreign students because it does not cover all colleges and universities in the area. FEMA also provided potentially improper and/or fraudulent IHP assistance to other ineligible non-U.S. residents, despite having documentation indicating their ineligibility.

"Finally, FEMA's difficulties in identifying and collecting improper payments further emphasized the importance of implementing an effective fraud, waste, and abuse prevention system. For example, GAO previously estimated improper and potentially fraudulent payments related to the IHP application process to be $1 billion through February 2006. As of November 2006, FEMA identified about $290 million in overpayments and collected about $7 million."—What GAO Found.

"The mass destruction and displacement of people caused by the hurricanes created new challenges, including an unprecedented demand for services from these five programs. The demand for food stamps and UI benefits, and the disaster assistance they provide, rose sharply. New evacuee policies were created to provide food stamps and TANF assistance to evacuees nationwide. In contrast, Social Security and SSI had a significant increase for replacement benefits, but did not have a large increase in new applications.

"Disaster plans, flexible service delivery options, and access to contingency funding facilitated response, but not all programs had these elements in place. The federally administered Social Security and SSI programs had service delivery disaster plans in place to meet demand. However, such strategies were sometimes lacking for the state-administered Food Stamp, UI, and TANF programs. Flexible service delivery options such as 800 numbers and Internet application services and debit cards for issuing benefits expedited services. Last, access to contingency funding was key to facilitating disaster response."—What GAO Found.

"GAO was asked to examine (1) constraints upon the use of antivirals and vaccines to forestall a pandemic and (2) efforts under way to overcome these constraints. GAO reviewed documents and consulted with officials of the Departments of State and Health and Human Services (HHS), international organizations, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

"The use of antivirals and vaccines, two elements of the international strategy to forestall a pandemic, could be constrained by their uncertain effectiveness and limited availability. To use antivirals effectively, health authorities must be able to detect a pandemic influenza strain quickly through surveillance and diagnostic efforts and use this information to administer antivirals. ... Unlike antivirals, vaccines are formulated to target a specific influenza strain in advance of infection. The effectiveness of vaccines in forestalling a pandemic could be limited because such a targeted pandemic vaccine cannot be developed until that strain has been identified.

"The United States, its international partners, and the pharmaceutical industry are investing substantial resources to address constraints on the availability and effectiveness of antivirals and vaccines."—What GAO Found.

"[This report synthesizes] the results from our pandemic work over the past few years by the six key themes in our pandemic strategy, as follows:

• Leadership roles and responsibilities need to be clarified and
  tested, and coordination mechanisms could be better utilized.
• Efforts are underway to improve the surveillance and detection of pandemic-related threats in humans and animals, but targeting assistance to countries at the greatest risk has been based on incomplete information.
• Pandemic planning and exercising has occurred in the United
  States and other countries, but planning gaps remain.
• Further actions are needed to address the capacity to respond to and recover from an influenza pandemic. 
• Federal agencies have provided considerable guidance and
  pandemic-related information, but could augment their efforts. 
• Performance monitoring and accountability for pandemic
  preparedness needs strengthening." — Introduction

"NFIP paid an unprecedented dollar amount for a record number of claims from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Congress increased NFIP's borrowing authority with the U.S. Treasury from a pre-Katrina level of $1.5 billion to about $20.8 billion in March 2006, but FEMA will probably not be able to repay this debt on annual premium revenues of about $2 billion. As of May 2006, NFIP had paid approximately 162,000 flood damage claims from Hurricane Katrina and another 9,000 claims from Hurricane Rita. Most paid claims were for primary residences where flood insurance was generally required....

"FEMA has made progress but has not fully implemented the NFIP program changes mandated by the Flood Insurance Reform Act. For example, 15 states had adopted minimum education and training requirements for insurance agents who sell NFIP policies, as of October 2006."—What GAO Found.

"GAO examined (1) the rationale for and resources of federal and state programs that provide natural catastrophe insurance; (2) the extent to which Americans living in catastrophe-prone areas of the United States are uninsured and underinsured, and the types and amounts of federal payments to such individuals since the 2005 hurricanes; and (3) public policy options for revising the federal role in natural catastrophe insurance markets. To address these questions, GAO analyzed state and federal programs, examined studies of uninsured and underinsured homeowners and federal payments to them, identified and analyzed policy options, and interviewed officials from private and public sectors in both high- and low-risk areas of the United States. GAO also developed a four-goal framework to help analyze the available options.

"This report examines seven public policy options for changing the federal government's role, including establishing an all-perils homeowner insurance policy, providing reinsurance for state catastrophe funds, and creating a mechanism to provide federal loans for state catastrophe funds."—Purpose of study.

"The number of federal flood insurance policies in force nationwide increased 36 percent from 1997 through 2006, but most homeowners at risk of flooding still lacked such insurance. While average insurance amounts (per policy) increased 78 percent from 1997 through 2006—consistent with rising home values—the average premium decreased 3 percent from 1997 through 2006, likely driven in part by the increase in policies sold in moderate- to low-risk areas. Conversely, loss amounts fluctuated by year, peaking at more than $17.7 billion in 2005. Seventy-nine percent of the funds paid out through NFIP from 1997 through 2006 were for hurricane-related claims, but the percentages in individual years varied widely (correlating with hurricane activity). Finally, the extent of claim payments attributed to repetitive loss properties (those with two or more claims in a rolling 10-year period) increased from 1997 through 2006, from $3.7 billion to nearly $8 billion, with the most significant increases resulting from the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes.

"Because of data limitations, GAO was not able to determine the actual number of properties acquired through FEMA mitigation programs, which are intended to minimize the damage and financial impact of floods. Information on completed mitigation projects (which encompass multiple properties) indicates that about one-third of properties approved for acquisition from 1997 to 2006 were acquired. However, these data are limited because they do not include a count of properties acquired in ongoing projects. Projects may take several years to complete, and FEMA does not report properties acquired until a project is complete. Further, FEMA collected property acquisition data (for completed projects) in an ad hoc manner because FEMA's grants management system lacks the capability to record acquisition data. As a result, FEMA cannot readily determine the extent to which flood-damaged and repetitive loss properties have been acquired through its mitigation programs.

"Lack of monitoring records, inconsistent application of procedures, and lack of coordination have diminished the effectiveness of FEMA monitoring of NFIP-related contracts. While federal internal control standards state that records should be properly maintained, FEMA did not consistently follow its monitoring procedures for preparing or maintaining monitoring reports and was unable to provide copies of the majority of monitoring reports GAO requested. Further, FEMA offices did not coordinate information and actions relating to contractor deficiencies and payments. In some cases, key officials were unaware of decisions on contractor performance. As a result, FEMA cannot consistently ensure adherence to contract requirements and lacks information critical for effective oversight of key contractors. Given the reliance of NFIP upon contractors, it is important that FEMA have in place adequate controls that are consistently applied to all contracts." — What GAO Found.

"Under the Bush Administration, the 'shadow government' of private companies working under federal contract has exploded in size. Between 2000 and 2005, procurement spending increased by over $175 billion dollars, making federal contracts the fastest growing component of federal discretionary spending.

"This growth in federal procurement has enriched private contractors. But it has also come at a steep cost for federal taxpayers. Overcharging has been frequent, and billions of dollars of taxpayer money have been squandered."—Executive Summary.

A section devoted to "Wasteful Katrina Contracts" begins on p.58.

U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources page dedicated to the investigation of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, including links to press releases, hearing videos, and other materials specific to the Deepwater Horizon accident and offshore oil drilling more generally.

"The National Library of Medicine has released a new resource focused on the health effects from wildfires. The California Wildfires web page includes information on the health effects from fires and exposure to smoke; links to air quality resources, environmental clean-up following fires, and animals in disasters.

"In addition, resources for emergency responders and information in Spanish are alsoincluded. Searches of NLM databases, such as MedlinePlus, PubMed,TOXLINE, Tox Town, and Haz-Map (occupational health) are provided for additional health information. It also provides the locations of facilities reporting to the EPA Toxics Release Inventory and Superfund sites in and around San Diego (TOXMAP).

"This web page is designed to help emergency responders, health care providers, public health workers, and the general public find authoritative and timely information about key health concerns from wildfires. Links to other federal government web sites, including USA.gov, FEMA, and the Department of Health and Human Services are included."

"The U.S. National Response Team (NRT) is an organization of 16 Federal departments and agencies responsible for coordinating emergency preparedness and response to oil and hazardous substance pollution incidents. The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) serve as Chair and Vice Chair respectively. The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) and the Code of Federal Regulations (40 CFR part 300) outline the role of the NRT and Regional Response Teams (RRTs). The response teams are also cited in various federal statutes, including Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) ??? Title III and the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act [HMTA]."—Website.

Website includes section on applicable laws, regulations, and directives.

"This report summarizes an assessment of the risks from severe accidents in five commercial nuclear power plants in the United States. These risks are measured in a number of ways, including: the estimated frequencies of core damage accidents from internally initiated accidents and externally initiated accidents for two of the plants; the performance of containment structures under severe accident loadings; the potential magnitude of radionuclide releases and offsite consequences of such accidents; and the overall risk (the product of accident frequencies and consequences). Supporting this summary report are a large number of reports written under contract to NRC that provide the detailed discussion of the methods used and results obtained in these risk studies.

"This report was first published in February 1987 as a draft for public comment. Extensive peer review and public comment were received. As a result, both the underlying technical analyses and the report itself were substantially changed. A second version of the report was published in June 1989 as a draft for peer review. Two peer reviews of the second version were performed. One was sponsored by NRC; its results are published as the NRC report NUREG-1420. A second was sponsored by the American Nuclear Society (ANS); its report has also been completed and is available from the ANS. The comments by both groups were generally positive and recommended that a final version of the report be published as soon as practical and without performing any major reanalysis. With this direction, the NRC proceeded to generate this final version of the report.

"Volume I of this report has three parts. Part I provides the background and objectives of the assessment and summarizes the methods used to perform the risk studies. Part II provides a summary of results obtained for each of the five plants studied. Part III provides perspectives on the results and discusses the role of this work in the larger context of the NRC staff's work."—Abstract

"This hearing is to examine EPA's response and future preparedness and to receive testimony on the Test and Clean program EPA is conducting in Lower Manhattan.

"Following September 11th, EPA was highly involved conducting air, water, and dust monitoring in Lower Manhattan for environmental hazards. EPA vacuumed street debris and disposed of hazardous wastes. EPA also conducted a voluntary clean up program from 2002 to 2003 that served more 4,100 residents in Lower Manhattan. Although EPA does not ordinarily administer worker protection regulations, it provided respirators and protective gear for workers at the World Trade Center site....

"In January 2007, EPA opened the public registration for a new Lower Manhattan Test and Clean Program. This program is designed to test for elevated levels of four contaminants associated with dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center. FEMA has provided $7 million to EPA for this work. I understand that members of the expert panel CEQ and EPA convened for this purpose are dissatisfied that a more exacting program could not be developed. However, I have an August 2006, letter from New York City Health Commissioner Frieden stating, 'The environmental investigations and testing conducted in lower Manhattan indicates that potential health impacts from any remaining [World Trade Center] dust are extremely low or non-existent.'"— Statement of Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.)

"The OWCN is the world's only oiled wildlife response organization boasting more than 25 different members comprised of world-class aquaria, universities, scientific organizations and rehabilitation groups. Established in 1994 by the Department of Fish and Game's Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) as a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, it is currently administered by the UC Davis Wildlife Health Center in the School of Veterinary Medicine." — About Us. 

"The Delta Initiative is a multi-year research and planning effort at the University of California - Berkeley dealing with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region of California. The fate of the Delta is crucial to California's future—it is the hub of the state's water supply system, is irreplaceable habitat for migrating birds and fish, and is the route through which critical infrastructure powers the Bay Area's dynamic economy. The Delta is also home to more than half a million people and a large agriculture industry, and is facing dramatic urbanization pressure from the Bay Area, Central Valley and Sacramento housing markets.

"The Delta is also at extraordinary risk of disaster. Much of the land in the region has subsided below sea level, and is protected only by an aging system of levees. River floods, earthquakes, and climate change all pose grave threats to the levees, the land, and the state's freshwater supply. A mass failure of the levee system (similar to that which struck New Orleans) could have immense consequences for the economy of the entire state, and even the nation.

"The Delta Initiative seeks to understand these pressures and risks, and to explore alternative futures for the Delta that would improve public safety, secure water supply and infrastructure systems, reduce state taxpayer liability, and provide habitat, open-space and recreation benefits."

See this site for reports on the Initiative's vision for the Delta and related documents and activities.

"Hurricane Katrina not only devastated a large area of the Gulf Coast, it also raised fundamental questions about how the nation can-and should-deal with the fundamental problems of risk and responsibility.

"Nearly 300 leaders from government, business, and nonprofit organizations and journalists from throughout the nation attended the National Symposium in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill December 1, 2005, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, Congressional Quarterly, and The Communications Institute.

"Symposium Goals - The Symposium objectively examined the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on nearly every sector of society and involving leading experts from many of the nation's leading academic and research institutions as well as leaders from government and business and senior journalists.

"The National Symposium reviewed critical questions that must be addressed in coping with future risks and disasters: How can we best assess and prepare for the events we are most likely to face?;How can we develop the best strategies for reducing their costs and improving our response?;Who should do what-what partnerships can we build among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and what glue can we provide to make those partnerships stick?; How should we, as a society, weigh the question of who bears the costs?; How do we deal with the important issues of equity and fairness, and how can we create mechanisms to resolve these issues as efficiently as possible?"— Conference Website.

Website contains related publications.

Judge Jack B. Weinstein, senior federal judge in the Eastern District of New York, has presided over many of the landmark mass tort cases involving Agent Orange, DES, asbestos litigation, repetitive stress injury, and other environmental toxic torts. He published his landmark decisions in these cases as well alongside articles he has written analyzing the problems relating to complex mass tort litigation. The book documents prominent features of mass tort litigation, and Judge Weinstein's views concerning the most fair and efficient resolution of these massive litigations.

Chapter 2 deals specifically with "The Law's Reaction to Disasters", discussing various types of disasters, jurisdictional issues, "desirable conditions for disaster management by courts", procedural tools and models, and proposing a national disaster court.

"The New Madrid Seismic Zone has always been one of the top challenges from an Emergency Management planning standpoint in that the scale of a potential New Madrid earthquake based on the 1811-1812 occurrences would be so large over eight states, 4 federal regions, and would effect the nation, not just from a response perspective, but from a secondary and tertiary cascading of events to the infrastructure—it would be so large that we have to look at this nationally, knowing that we’re supporting the eight states through CUSEC individually.

What we’ve done, is we started this in 2006. It’s been ongoing for over 2 ½ years and the planning process will culminate in the 2011 national level exercise, which is also the 200^th anniversary of the 1811-1812 earthquakes. We’ve just now gone beyond the states. We finished the state plans and we’re going on to the regional plans.

This is bottom-up scenario based planning. We started at the local level, just like a response would occur. We brought it up from the local level to the state, and we’re now at the regional level. Our intentions are in the coming months, once we get beyond the regions, we will bring this to the national level. When we get the national level, we will basically take a look at all the plans, the role of these plans, and start to integrate them and understand what is going to occur from the ground up, so that at the national level we can start building in solutions to address the catastrophic nature of this." — from the Virtual Forum Presentation