NATIONAL 

PREPAREDNESS

FEMA Has Made Progress, 

but Additional Steps Are 

Needed to Improve Grant 

Management and Assess 

Capabilities

Statement of David C. Maurer, Director 

Homeland Security and Justice

Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on Emergency

Management, Intergovernmental Relations, and 

the District of Columbia, Committee on 

Homeland Security and Government Affairs, U.S. 

Senate

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10 a.m. EDT

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

GAO-13-637T

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-637T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Emergency 

Management, Intergovernmental Relations, 

and the District of Columbia, Committee on 

Homeland Security and Government Affairs, 

U.S. Senate

June 25, 2013

NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS 

FEMA Has Made Progress, but Additional Steps Are 

Needed to Improve Grant Management and Assess 

Capabilities 

Why GAO Did This Study

From fiscal years 2002 through 2012, 

Congress appropriated about $41 

billion to a variety of DHS 

preparedness grant programs to 

enhance the capabilities of state and 

local governments to prevent, protect 

against, respond to, and recover from 

terrorist attacks and other disasters. 

DHS allocated more than $22.3 billion 

through four of the largest 

preparedness programs— the Urban 

Areas Security Initiative, the State 

Homeland Security Program, the Port 

Security Grant Program, and the 

Transit Security Grant Program. 

In February 2012, GAO identified 

factors that contribute to the risk of 

FEMA potentially funding 

unnecessarily duplicative projects 

across the four grant programs. In 

March 2011, GAO reported that FEMA 

faced challenges in developing and 

implementing a national preparedness 

assessment, a fact that inhibits its 

abilities to effectively prioritize 

preparedness grant funding. This 

testimony updates GAO’s prior work 

and describes FEMA’s progress in (1) 

managing preparedness grants and (2) 

measuring national preparedness by 

assessing capabilities. This statement 

is based on prior products GAO issued 

from July 2005 to March 2013 and 

selected updates in June 2013. To 

conduct the updates, GAO analyzed 

agency documents, such as the 

National Preparedness Reports, and 

interviewed FEMA officials.

What GAO Recommends

GAO has made recommendations to 

DHS and FEMA in prior reports. DHS 

and FEMA concurred with these 

recommendations and have actions 

under way to address them.

What GAO Found

Officials in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—a component 

of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—have identified actions they

believe will enhance management of the four preparedness programs GAO 

analyzed; however, FEMA still faces challenges. In February 2012, GAO found 

that FEMA lacked a process to coordinate application reviews and made award 

decisions with differing levels of information. To better identify potential 

unnecessary duplication, GAO recommended that FEMA collect project-level 

information and enhance internal coordination and administration of the 

programs. DHS concurred and has taken steps to address GAO’s

recommendations. For example, the fiscal year 2013 and 2014 President’s 

budgets proposed the establishment of the National Preparedness Grant 

Program (NPGP), a consolidation of 16 FEMA grant programs into a single 

program. Members of Congress raised questions about the NPGP and did not 

approve the proposal for fiscal year 2013. FEMA incorporated stakeholder views, 

as directed by Congress, and the fiscal year 2014 President’s Budget again 

proposed the NPGP. If approved, and depending on its final form and execution, 

the NPGP could help mitigate the potential for unnecessary duplication and 

address GAO’s recommendation to improve internal coordination. In March 2013, 

FEMA officials reported that the agency intends to start collecting and analyzing 

project-level data from grantees in fiscal year 2014; but has not yet finalized data 

requirements or fully implemented the data system to collect the information. 

Collecting appropriate data and implementing project-level enhancements as 

planned would address GAO’s recommendation and better position FEMA to 

identify potentially unnecessary duplication.

FEMA has made progress addressing GAO’s March 2011 recommendation that 

it develop a national preparedness assessment with clear, objective, and 

quantifiable capability requirements and performance measures, but continues to 

face challenges in developing a national preparedness system that could assist 

the agency in prioritizing preparedness grant funding. For example, FEMA 

required state and local governments receiving homeland security funding to 

complete Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessments (THIRA) and, 

as a part of this process, develop their own capability requirements by December 

31, 2012. State officials are to use the capability requirements they identified to 

self-assess capabilities in their future State Preparedness Reports, which FEMA 

uses along with other sources to develop the annual National Preparedness 

Reports. However, FEMA faces challenges that may reduce the usefulness of 

these efforts. For example, because states develop their own capability 

requirements, and use individual judgment rather than a quantitative standard to 

assess preparedness capabilities, it may be difficult to identify differences and 

compare capability levels across states. Further, while FEMA officials stated that 

the THIRA process is intended to develop a set of national capability 

performance requirements and measures, such requirements and measures 

have not yet been developed. Until FEMA develops clear, objective, and 

quantifiable capability requirements and performance measures, it is unclear 

what capability gaps currently exist and what level of federal resources will be 

needed to close such gaps. GAO will continue to monitor FEMA’s efforts to 

develop capability requirements and performance measures.

View GAO-13-637T. For more information, 

contact David C. Maurer at (202) 512-8777 or 

maurerd@gao.gov.
Page 1 GAO-13-637T 

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

Chairman Begich, Ranking Member Paul, and Members of the 

Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today’s hearing to provide an 

update on federal efforts to manage preparedness grants and assess 

preparedness capabilities. From fiscal years 2002 through 2013, the 

federal government appropriated about $41 billion to a variety of 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) preparedness grant programs to 

enhance the capabilities of state, local, territory, and tribal governments to 

prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover 

from terrorist attacks and other disasters.1 DHS allocated more than half 

of this total ($22.3 billion) to grant recipients through four of the largest 

preparedness programs— the Urban Areas Security Initiative, the State 

Homeland Security Program, the Port Security Grant Program, and the 

Transit Security Grant Program.

The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (PostKatrina Act) was enacted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.2 In 

response to the Act, among other things, DHS centralized most of its 

preparedness programs under the Federal Emergency Management 

Agency (FEMA)—a component of DHS—to better integrate and 

coordinate grant management. The act also requires that FEMA develop 

a national preparedness system and assess preparedness capabilities to 

determine the nation’s preparedness capability levels and the resources 

needed to achieve desired levels of capability.3

 

1

This total is based on Congressional Research Service data and our analysis, and 

includes Firefighter Assistance Grants and Emergency Management Performance Grants. 

See Congressional Research Service, Department of Homeland Security Assistance to 

States and Localities: A Summary of Issues for the 111th Congress, R40246 (Washington, 

D.C.: Apr. 30, 2010). For the purposes of this testimony, we define capabilities for 

prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery as preparedness capabilities.

2

The Post-Katrina Act was enacted as Title VI of the Department of Homeland Security 

Appropriations Act, 2007, Pub. L. No. 109-295, 120 Stat. 1355 (2006). The provisions of 

the Post-Katrina Act became effective upon enactment, October 4, 2006, with the 

exception of certain organizational changes related to FEMA, most of which took effect on 

March 31, 2007.

3

According to the act, the assessment system must assess, among other things, current 

capability levels as compared with target capability levels (which, for the purposes of this 

testimony, we refer to as capability requirements), and resource needs to meet capability 

requirements. 6 U.S.C. §§ 744, 749.

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-637T 

My testimony today addresses the following questions: (1) To what extent 

has FEMA made progress in managing four of the largest preparedness 

grant programs? (2) To what extent has FEMA made progress measuring 

preparedness by assessing capabilities?

My statement is based on reports and testimonies on DHS and FEMA 

grant management and preparedness assessment that we issued from 

July 2005 through March 2013.4 More information about the scope and 

methodology of our prior work can be found in those reports. To update 

this work, we analyzed documentation such as DHS’s National 

Preparedness Report issued in May 2013 and the DHS Fiscal Year 2014 

Budget-in-Brief, and interviewed and obtained updated information on 

preparedness grants and capability assessment from FEMA officials in 

June 2013. We conducted our work in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that 

we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to 

provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our 

audit objectives. We believe the evidence obtained provides a reasonable 

basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Over the past decade, the federal government has expanded financial 

assistance to a wide array of public and private stakeholders for 

preparedness activities through various grant programs administered by 

DHS through its component agency, FEMA. Through these grant 

programs, DHS has sought to enhance the capacity of states, localities, 

and other entities, such as ports or transit agencies, to prevent, respond 

to, and recover from a natural or man-made disaster, including terrorist 

incidents. Four of the largest preparedness grant programs are the Urban 

Areas Security Initiative, the State Homeland Security Program, Port 

Security Grant Program, and the Transit Security Grant Program.

 

4

For example, GAO, Homeland Security: DHS’s Efforts to Enhance First Responders’ AllHazards Capabilities Continue to Evolve, GAO-05-652 (Washington, D.C.: July 11, 2005); 

Government Operations: Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government 

Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-11-318SP (Washington, D.C.: 

Mar. 1, 2011); and National Preparedness: FEMA Has Made Progress in Improving Grant 

Management and Assessing Capabilities, but Challenges Remain, GAO-13-456T

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 19, 2013).

Background 

Preparedness Grants
 

Page 3 GAO-13-637T 

• The Urban Areas Security Initiative provides federal assistance to 

address the unique needs of high-threat, high-density urban areas, 

and assists the areas in building an enhanced and sustainable 

capacity to prevent, protect, respond to, and recover from acts of 

terrorism.

• The State Homeland Security Program provides funding to support 

states’ implementation of homeland security strategies to address the 

identified planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercise 

needs at the state and local levels to prevent, protect against, respond 

to, and recover from acts of terrorism and other catastrophic events.

• The Port Security Grant Program provides federal assistance to 

strengthen the security of the nation’s ports against risks associated 

with potential terrorist attacks by supporting increased portwide risk 

management, enhanced domain awareness, training and exercises, 

and expanded port recovery capabilities.

• The Transit Security Grant Program provides funds to owners and 

operators of transit systems (which include intracity bus, commuter 

bus, ferries, and all forms of passenger rail) to protect critical surface 

transportation infrastructure and the traveling public from acts of 

terrorism and to increase the resilience of transit infrastructure.

Since its creation in April 2007, FEMA’s Grant Programs Directorate 

(GPD) has been responsible for managing DHS’s preparedness grants.5

GPD consolidated the grant business operations, systems, training, 

policy, and oversight of all FEMA grants and the program management of 

preparedness grants into a single entity.

According to DHS and FEMA strategic documents, national preparedness 

is the shared responsibility of the “whole community,” which requires the 

contribution of a broad range of stakeholders, including federal, state, and 

local governments, to develop preparedness capabilities to effectively 

prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and recover 

from a major disaster.6 Figure 1 provides an illustration of how federal, 

 

5

The Post-Katrina Act transferred most of the Preparedness Directorate to FEMA, 

effective on March 31, 2007. Pub. L. No. 109-295, § 611(13), 120 Stat. 1355, 1400 (2006).

6

FEMA, FEMA Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2011-2014 (Washington, D.C.: February 

2011), and DHS, National Preparedness Goal (Washington, D.C.: September 2011).

National Assessment of 

Preparedness
 

Page 4 GAO-13-637T 

state, and local resources provide preparedness capabilities for different 

levels of government and at various levels of incident effect (i.e., the 

extent of damage caused by a natural or man-made disaster). The 

greater the level of incident effect, the more likely state and local 

resources are to be overwhelmed.

Figure 1: Conceptual Illustration for Assessing Capability Requirements and 

Identifying Capability Gaps for National Preparedness.

We have previously reported on and made recommendations related to

DHS’s and FEMA’s efforts to develop a national assessment of 

preparedness, which would assist DHS and FEMA in effectively 

prioritizing investments to develop preparedness capabilities at all levels 

of government, including through its preparedness grant programs.7 Such 

an assessment would

 

7

GAO-05-652 and GAO, National Preparedness: FEMA Has Made Progress, but Needs to 

Complete and Integrate Planning, Exercise, and Assessment Efforts, GAO-09-369

(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 30, 2009).
 

Page 5 GAO-13-637T 

• identify the critical elements at all levels of government necessary to 

effectively prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, 

and recover from a major disaster (i.e., preparedness capabilities), 

such as the ability to provide lifesaving medical treatment via 

emergency medical services following a major disaster;

• develop a way to measure those elements (i.e., capability 

performance measures); and

• assess the difference between the amount of preparedness needed at 

all levels of government (i.e., capability requirements) and the current 

level of preparedness (i.e. capability level) to identify gaps (i.e., 

capability gaps).

In February 2012, we identified multiple factors that contributed to the risk 

of FEMA potentially funding unnecessarily duplicative projects across four 

of the largest grant programs—the Urban Areas Security Initiative, the 

State Homeland Security Program, the Port Security Grant Program, and 

the Transit Security Grant Program.8 These factors include overlap 

among grant recipients, goals, and geographic locations, combined with 

differing levels of information that FEMA had available regarding grant 

projects and recipients. Specifically, we found that FEMA made award 

decisions with differing levels of information and lacked a process to 

coordinate application reviews.9 To better identify potential unnecessary 

duplication, we recommended that FEMA (1) take steps to ensure that it 

collects project information at the level of detail needed to better position 

the agency to identify any potential unnecessary duplication within and 

across the four grant programs, and (2) explore opportunities to enhance 

FEMA’s internal coordination and administration of the programs. DHS 

agreed with the recommendations and identified planned actions to 

improve visibility and coordination across programs and projects. We also 

suggested that Congress consider requiring DHS to report on the results 

of its efforts to identify and prevent duplication within and across the four 

 

8

GAO, Homeland Security: DHS Needs Better Project Information and Coordination 

among Four Overlapping Grant Programs, GAO-12-303 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 

2012).

9

GAO, More Efficient and Effective Government: Opportunities to Reduce Duplication, 

Overlap and Fragmentation, Achieve Savings, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-449T

(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012).

FEMA Has Taken 

Actions to Enhance 

Management of Four 

Preparedness Grant 

Programs to Reduce 

the Risk of 

Unnecessary 

Duplication, but 

Challenges Remain
 

Page 6 GAO-13-637T 

grant programs, and consider these results when making future funding 

decisions for these programs. 

Since we issued our February 2012 report, FEMA officials have identified 

actions they believe will enhance management of the four grant programs 

we analyzed; however, FEMA still faces challenges to enhancing 

preparedness grant management. First, the fiscal year 2013 and 2014 

President’s budgets proposed the establishment of the National 

Preparedness Grant Program (NPGP), a consolidation of 16 grant 

programs (including the 4 grants we analyzed in our February 2012 

report) into a comprehensive single program. According to FEMA officials, 

the NPGP would eliminate redundancies and requirements placed on 

both the federal government and grantees resulting from the existing 

system of multiple individual, and often disconnected, grant programs. 

For example, FEMA officials said that the number of applications a state 

would need to submit and the federal government’s resources required to 

administer the applications would both decrease under the consolidated 

program. However, Members of Congress raised questions about the 

consolidation of the 16 grant programs and Congress did not approve the 

proposal in fiscal year 2013.10 The fiscal year 2014 President’s budget 

again proposed NPGP and, according to the fiscal year 2014 DHS 

Budget-in-Brief, FEMA improved the proposal by incorporating 

stakeholder views, as directed by Congress.11 If approved, and 

depending on its final form and execution, the consolidated NPGP could 

help reduce redundancies and mitigate the potential for unnecessary 

duplication, and may address the recommendation in our February 2012 

report to enhance FEMA’s internal coordination and administration of the 

programs.

 

10According to House report accompanying the DHS fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill, 

the NPGP proposal was denied due to the lack of congressional authorization and the lack 

of the necessary details that are needed for the initiation of a new program to include 

grant guidance and implementation plans. The committee also reported that stakeholders 

had expressed concern with the lack of stakeholder outreach prior to the program’s 

introduction and directed DHS to conduct more stakeholder outreach. See H.R. Rep. No. 

112-492, at 115 (2012).

11For example, to address the stakeholder concern that regulated port entities and transit 

systems would be required to apply through their state administrative agencies, the DHS 

Fiscal Year 2014 Budget-in-Brief states that the fiscal year 2014 NPGP will allow for 

transit agencies and port areas to include their own individual applications alongside the 

state administrative agency applications, consistent with urban area requests.
 

Page 7 GAO-13-637T 

Second, in March 2013, FEMA officials reported that the agency intends 

to start collecting and analyzing project-level data from grantees in fiscal 

year 2014; however, FEMA has not yet finalized specific data 

requirements and has not fully established the vehicle to collect these 

data—a new data system called the Non-Disaster Grants Management 

System (ND Grants). As of June 2013, FEMA officials expect to develop 

system enhancements for ND Grants to collect and use project-level data 

by the end of fiscal year 2013. FEMA officials stated that FEMA has 

formed a working group to develop the functional requirements for 

collecting and using project-level data and plans to obtain input from 

stakeholders and consider the cost-effectiveness of potential data 

requirements. In alignment with data requirement recommendations from 

a May 2011 FEMA report, the agency anticipates utilizing the new projectlevel data in the grant application process starting in fiscal year 2014.12

Collecting appropriate data and implementing ND Grants with projectlevel enhancements as planned, and as recommended in our February 

2012 report, would better position FEMA to identify potentially 

unnecessary duplication within and across grant programs.

Third, in June 2012, FEMA officials stated that there are additional efforts 

under way to improve internal administration of different grant programs. 

For example, officials stated that a FEMA task force has been evaluating 

grants management processes and developing a series of 

recommendations to improve efficiencies, address gaps, and increase 

collaboration across regional and headquarters counterparts and financial 

and programmatic counterparts. These activities represent positive steps 

to improve overall grants management, but officials did not identify any 

specific mechanisms to identify potentially duplicative projects across 

grant programs administered by different FEMA entities.

 

12FEMA, Redundancy Elimination and Enhanced Performance for Preparedness Grants 

Act: Fiscal Year 2011 Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: May 23, 2011).
 

Page 8 GAO-13-637T 

We have previously found that DHS and FEMA have faced challenges in 

developing and implementing a national assessment of preparedness. 

For example:

• In July 2005, we reported that DHS had identified potential challenges 

in gathering the information needed to assess preparedness 

capabilities, including determining how to aggregate data from federal, 

state, local, and tribal governments and others and integrating selfassessment approaches.13

• In April 2009, we reported that establishing quantifiable metrics for 

capabilities was a prerequisite to developing assessment data that 

can be compared across all levels of government.14 However, in 

analyzing FEMA’s efforts to assess capabilities, we reported that 

FEMA faced methodological challenges with regard to (1) differences 

in available data, (2) variations in reporting structures across states, 

and (3) variations in the level of detail within data sources requiring 

subjective interpretation.

 

13GAO-05-652. 

14GAO-09-369. 

FEMA Has Made 

Progress in 

Establishing National 

Preparedness 

Capabilities, but 

Challenges Remain in 

Establishing 

Performance 

Measures That Could 

Assist in Prioritizing 

Grant Funding

FEMA Has Faced 

Challenges Developing a 

National Assessment of 

Preparedness
 

Page 9 GAO-13-637T 

• In March 2011, we reported that FEMA’s efforts to develop and 

implement a comprehensive, measurable national preparedness 

assessment were not yet complete. Accordingly, we recommended 

that FEMA complete a national preparedness assessment and that 

such an assessment should assess capability gaps at each level of 

government based on capability requirements to enable prioritization 

of grant funding.15 We also suggested that Congress consider limiting 

preparedness grant funding until FEMA completes a national 

preparedness assessment. In the fiscal year 2011 and 2012

appropriations bills, Congress reduced funding for preparedness 

grants by $875 million and $1.28 billion less than the amount 

requested, respectively, and the House committee report 

accompanying the DHS appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012 noted 

that FEMA could not demonstrate how the use of the grants had 

enhanced disaster preparedness.16 Similarly, in fiscal year 2013, 

Congress reduced funding for FEMA preparedness grants by about 

$400 million from the amount requested.17

 

15GAO-11-318SP. 

16In April 2011, Congress passed the fiscal year 2011 appropriations act for DHS, which 

reduced funding for FEMA preparedness grants by $875 million from the amount 

requested in the President’s fiscal year 2011 budget. See Pub. L. No. 112-10, § 1632, 125 

Stat. 38, 143 (2011). The consolidated appropriations act for fiscal year 2012 appropriated 

$1.7 billion for FEMA preparedness grants, $1.28 billion less than requested. See Pub. L. 

No. 112–74, 125 Stat. 786, 960-62 (2011). This total includes all grant programs in the 

state and local programs account and the Emergency Management Performance Grant 

program but does not include funding appropriated for firefighter assistance grant 

programs. The House committee report accompanying the DHS appropriations bill for 

fiscal year 2012 stated that FEMA could not demonstrate how the use of the grants had 

enhanced disaster preparedness. See H.R. Rep. No. 112-91, at 106-08 (2011). 

17This total includes all grant programs in the state and local programs account and the 

Emergency Management Performance Grant program, as well as the firefighter 

assistance grant programs.
 

Page 10 GAO-13-637T 

While FEMA has taken steps to establish and assess capabilities, the 

agency has not yet developed clear, objective, and quantifiable capability 

requirements and performance measures that are needed to identify 

capability gaps in a national preparedness assessment, as recommended 

in our March 2011 report. In March 2011, the White House issued 

Presidential Policy Directive 8 on National Preparedness (PPD-8), which 

called for the development of a comprehensive approach to assess 

national preparedness that uses a consistent methodology with clear, 

objective, and quantifiable performance measures.18 PPD-8 also called 

for the development of a national preparedness goal, as well as annual 

national preparedness reports (both of which were previously required 

under the Post-Katrina Act).19 To address PPD-8 provisions, FEMA 

issued the National Preparedness Goal in September 2011, which 

establishes a list of preparedness capabilities for each of five mission 

areas (prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery) that are 

to serve as the basis for preparedness activities within FEMA, throughout 

the federal government, and at the state and local levels.20 In March 

2012, FEMA issued the first annual National Preparedness Report, 

designed to identify progress made toward building, sustaining, and 

delivering the preparedness capabilities described in the National 

Preparedness Goal in the decade following the September 11, 2001, 

attacks. The second annual National Preparedness Report was issued in 

May 2013 and focuses on national accomplishments either achieved or 

reported during 2012. According to FEMA officials, the National 

Preparedness Report identifies what they consider to be national-level 

capability gaps.

FEMA officials stated that they have efforts under way to assess regional, 

state, and local capabilities to provide a framework for completing a 

 

18The Post-Katrina Act required FEMA, in developing guidelines to define preparedness 

capabilities, to ensure that the guidelines are specific, flexible, and measurable. 6 U.S.C. § 

746.

19The Post-Katrina Act also required FEMA to develop a national preparedness goal, as 

well as annual federal preparedness reports. 6 U.S.C. §§ 743, 752. 

20The National Preparedness Goal refers to these capabilities as core capabilities, which 

replace what had been previously called target capabilities. The target capabilities were 

initially developed by DHS in 2005. For example, one of the preparedness capabilities for 

the response mission area relates to mass search and rescue operations, specifically to 

deliver traditional and atypical search and rescue capabilities with the goal of saving the 

greatest number of endangered lives in the shortest time possible.

FEMA Has Made Progress 

in Establishing and 

Assessing Preparedness 

Capabilities, but Has Not 

Yet Developed Capability 

Requirements and 

Performance Measures 

That Could Assist in 

Prioritizing Grant Funding
 

Page 11 GAO-13-637T 

national preparedness assessment.21 For example, FEMA required state 

and local governments receiving homeland security funding to complete 

Threat and Hazard Identification and Risk Assessments (THIRA) by 

December 31, 2012.22 Guidance issued in April 2012 for development of 

the THIRAs describes a process for assessing the various threats and 

hazards facing a community, the vulnerability of the community, as well 

as the consequences associated with those threats and hazards. As part 

of the process, state and local governments are to develop their own 

capability requirements. Further, FEMA officials stated that they plan to 

release additional guidance during the summer of 2013 to assist state 

and local governments with estimating capability levels based on the 

capability requirements they developed in their THIRAs. According to 

FEMA officials, these estimations will help inform annual THIRA updates 

and may help state and local governments to refine their capability 

requirements in future THIRAs.

According to FEMA officials, the THIRAs are to be used by state, 

regional, and federal entities for future planning and assessment efforts. 

At the state level, FEMA guidance notes that state officials are to use the 

capability requirements they identified in their respective THIRAs to 

assess capabilities in their future State Preparedness Reports, which are 

statewide survey-based self-assessments of capability levels and 

requirements submitted by all 56 U.S. states and territories. FEMA uses 

the State Preparedness Reports, in addition to other sources, to develop 

the National Preparedness Report. Because the THIRAs were first 

completed by the end of calendar year 2012, the 2013 National 

Preparedness Report was the first iteration of the report in which states 

assessed their preparedness capabilities against the capability 

requirements from their THIRAs. At the regional level, each of the 10 

FEMA regions is to analyze the local and state THIRAs to develop 

 

21GAO-11-318SP. 

22According to FEMA officials, as of March 2013, some state and local urban areas had 

not yet completed their THIRAs. FEMA granted 6-month extensions to the December 31, 

2012 deadline for five states and three local urban areas affected by Hurricane Sandy in 

late October 2012. 
 

Page 12 GAO-13-637T 

regional THIRAs.23 At the national level, the local, state, and regional 

THIRAs are collectively intended to provide FEMA with data that it can 

analyze to assist in the identification of national funding priorities for 

closing capability gaps. The outcome of the THIRA process is intended to 

be a set of national capability performance requirements and measures, 

which FEMA officials stated they intend to incorporate into future National 

Preparedness Reports.

However, limitations associated with some of the data used in the 

National Preparedness Report may reduce the report’s usefulness in 

assessing national preparedness. First, in October 2010, we reported that 

data in the State Preparedness Reports could be limited because FEMA 

relies on states to self-report such data, which makes it difficult to ensure 

data are consistent and accurate.24 Second, because states develop their 

own capability requirements, and use individual judgment rather than a 

quantitative standard to assess preparedness capabilities, it may be 

difficult to identify differences and compare capability levels across states. 

Finally, both the 2012 and 2013 National Preparedness Reports describe 

methodological challenges. For example, the 2012 National 

Preparedness Report noted that challenges remain in measuring 

progress from year to year and that, in many cases, measures do not yet 

exist to gauge performance, either quantitatively or qualitatively. 

Therefore, while programs may exist that are designed to address a given 

capability gap, FEMA has little way of knowing whether and to what 

extent those programs have been successful. Thus, as of June 2013, 

FEMA has not yet completed a national preparedness assessment, as we 

recommended in our March 2011 report, which could assist FEMA in 

prioritizing grant funding.

Depending on how the THIRA and National Preparedness Report

processes evolve, such an approach to capability assessment could be a 

 

23FEMA officials stated that they required the FEMA regions to complete their inaugural 

THIRAs by September 30, 2012, 3 months before the local and state THIRAs were due. 

As a result, the first regional THIRAs did not incorporate information from the local and 

state THIRAs. The officials explained that FEMA directed the regional THIRAs to be 

completed in 2012 before the local and state THIRAs in order to aid development of 

preparedness grant guidance for fiscal year 2013, but that future iterations of the regional 

THIRAs are intended to incorporate information from completed local and state THIRAs. 

24GAO, FEMA Has Made Limited Progress in Efforts to Develop and Implement a System 

to Assess National Preparedness Capabilities, GAO-11-51R (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 29, 

2010).
 

Page 13 GAO-13-637T 

positive step toward addressing our March 2011 recommendation to 

FEMA to develop a national preparedness assessment of existing 

capabilities levels against capability requirements. Such a national 

preparedness assessment may help FEMA to (1) identify the potential 

costs for developing and maintaining required capabilities at each level of 

government, and (2) determine what capabilities federal agencies should 

be prepared to provide. While the recently completed THIRAs and 2013 

National Preparedness Report are positive steps in the initial efforts to 

assess preparedness capabilities across the nation, capability 

requirements and performance measures for each level of government 

that are clear, objective, and quantifiable have not yet been developed. 

As a result, it is unclear what capability gaps currently exist, including at 

the federal level, and what level of resources will be needed to close such 

gaps through prioritized preparedness grant funding. We will continue to 

monitor FEMA’s efforts to develop capability requirements and 

performance measures.

Chairman Begich, Ranking Member Paul, and members of the 

subcommittee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased 

to respond to any questions that you may have at this time.

For further information about this statement, please contact David C. 

Maurer, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues, at (202) 512-

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