Buried in Public Law 109-295, the DHS appropriation act for 2007, signed on October 4, 2006, was TITLE VI-National Emergency Preparedness, the statutory basis of the "new" FEMA and effective March 31, 2007. Under that title referred to as PKEMA 2006 by this blogger, Subtitle C--Comprehensive Preparedness System, in its Chapter 1--National Preparedness System were three sections with mandates on exercises. These included Section 648-TRAINING AND EXERCISES paragraph (b) National Exercise Program; Section 649-COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM; AND Section 650--Remedial Action Program.
My assumption is that the author or authors of the Secretary DHS memo to Administrator Fugate on August 17, 2010 was or were familiar with the statutory mandates. After all the legal presumption has always been that we are all presumed to know the law, whether or not we have received actual notice of its adoption. The Federal Register is one way the feds give legal notice.
My point is a simple on-does the memo encompass the statutory mandates? My conclusion is NO and see part 3 of the NLE posts. Steven Aftergood of the FAS has also posted the exercise memo on the FAS web site on the FEMA page.
