Interstate Cooperation, Second Edition: Compacts and Administrative Agreements by Joseph Zimmerman

Author:Joseph Zimmerman [Zimmerman, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, American Government, State
ISBN: 9781438442341
Google: nq5WMAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 17122373
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2013-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Emergency Management Assistance

The cold war prompted the council of state governments' Northeastern Committee on Civil Defense and the national security resources board's civil defense office to draft the Civil Defense and Disaster Compact that was enacted in 1949 by the state legislatures in Indiana, Maine, and Maryland. Congress granted its consent to the compact in 1950.37 Every state and territorial legislature by 1959 enacted the compact that did not require training sessions or standard operating procedures for the dispatch of assistance to requesting states.

A regional mutual assistance compact—Southern Interstate Nuclear Compact—was drafted by the Southern Interstate Nuclear Board (now Southern States Energy Board) and consented to by Congress in 1962 (see chapter 4).38 This compact is limited to emergencies involving radioactive incidents.

The midwestern governors' conference and the southern governors' conference in 1967 approved the National Guard Mutual Assistance Compact that subsequently was enacted by the state legislature in Alaska, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. This compact was similar to the Civil Defense and Disaster Compact and also provided for the use of the national guard of each state in emergency situations in other states. The compact has not received congressional consent.

The threat from the Soviet Union declined with the signing of various treaties and the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the Civil Defense and Disaster Compact no longer was utilized. Hurricane Andrew in 1992, however, revealed the need for a mutual-assistance compact. The southern governors' association drafted the Southern Regional Emergency Assistance Compact that was signed by all southern governors in 1993. Congress in 1995 authorized the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to “[a]ssist and encourage the States to negotiate and enter into emergency preparedness compacts….”39 In the same year, southern governors approved a compact amendment opening membership to all states and territories and Congress in 1996 and granted its consent to the Emergency Management Assistance Compact enacted by the state legislature in Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.40 Congress, as customary, reserved its right to alter, amend, or repeal its consent.

All states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands currently are members. In 1998, only twenty-eight states were members. The New York State Legislature enacted the compact six days after September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the twin towers of the world trade center in New York City. A state may withdraw from compact membership by enacting a statute repealing the compact, and the withdrawal becomes effective thirty days after the governor notifies the governors of the other party states. Thirteen states provided assistance to New York subsequent to the attack on the center. The Massachusetts national guard, for example, sent members to patrol the Watervliet Arsenal in Watervliet, New York.

Article VII of the compact acknowledges “the pattern and detail of the machinery for mutual aid among two or more state may differ from that among the states that are party” to the compact and adds “nothing herein shall

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