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February 2004                                                              Volume 6 - Number 1

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Homeland Security...

PREPARE Act Update

By: Eric Gardner

On September 24, 2003, bill H.R. 3158 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative Jim Turner of Texas named Preparing America to Respond Effectively (PREPARE) act. This bill amends the Homeland Security bill passed in 2002 with a principal impact requiring the Department of Homeland Security to:

• Establish national standards defining levels of preparedness.
• Creates a task force to provides standards to state and local governments for terrorist preparedness
• Provides grants to state and local governments to prepare against terrorist attacks
• Requires the Department of Homeland Security to modify the five color advisory system to be sensitive to industry and regional threats.
• Requires the Department of Homeland Security to better share and receive information between state and local officials impacted by information related to terrorism.
• Requires appropriate Federal Agencies to develop communication and training standards between multiple agencies whose first responders would need to share information or resources when a crisis were to occur.
• Requires education, training, and other applicable efforts be given to “second responders” who would be involved in the long term recovery for an area impacted by a crisis. Private citizens, corporations, and non-profit organizations would be included in this “second responders” population.
• Provides grants to public school systems to develop and implement curriculum for primary and secondary pupils sensitive to education and demographics. The grant would last for a period of three years and covers natural and man made disasters.

The bill was sponsored by Representative Jim Turned of Texas with 147 cosponsors. The scope of the bill is broad and required the Speaker of the House to refer the bill to four committees and eight subcommittees whose jurisdiction was identified to be impacted. Several of these committees have taken no action according to information available.

The Daily Digest identified the bill three times on Nov 7^th, 19^th, and 20^th where discussions occurred within committees.

According to the websites for the House of Representative and the Senate, the subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security is the only committee to have held formal hearings. This occurred last 20 November 2003.

No further information was available from the house Select Committee on Homeland Security when this article was written as of 26 January 2004. A call was made to the committee but no one responded.