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Timestamp: 2019-04-25 14:34:36+00:00

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The President of the United States has available certain powers that may be exercised in the event that the Nation is threatened by crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances (other than natural disasters, war, or near-war situations). Such powers may be stated explicitly or implied by the Constitution, assumed by the Chief Executive to be constitutionally permissible, or inferred from or specified by statute. Through legislation, Congress has made a great many delegations of authority in this regard over the past 200 years.
There are, however, limits and restraints upon the President in his exercise of emergency powers. With the exception of the habeas corpus clause, the Constitution makes no allowance for the suspension of any of its provisions during a national emergency. Disputes over the constitutionality or legality of the exercise of emergency powers are judicially reviewable. Indeed, both the Judiciary and Congress, as co-equal branches, can restrain the Executive regarding emergency powers. So can public opinion. Furthermore, since 1976, the President has been subject to certain procedural formalities in utilizing some statutorily delegated emergency authority. The National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601-1651) eliminated or modified some statutory grants of emergency authority, required the President to declare formally the existence of a national emergency and to specify what statutory authority, activated by the declaration, would be used, and provided Congress a means to countermand the President's declaration and the activated authority being sought.
Federal law provides a variety of powers for the President to use in response to crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances threatening the Nation. Moreover, they are not limited to military or war situations. Some of these authorities, deriving from the Constitution or statutory law, are continuously available to the President with little or no qualification. Others--statutory delegations from Congress--exist on a stand-by basis and remain dormant until the President formally declares a national emergency. These delegations, or grants of power, authorize the President to meet the problems of governing effectively in times of crisis. Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens. Furthermore, Congress may modify, rescind, or render dormant such delegated emergency authority.
Until the crisis of World War I, Presidents utilized emergency powers at their own discretion. Proclamations announced their exercise of exigency authority. However, during World War I and thereafter, Chief Executives have had available to them a growing body of stand-by emergency authority which became operative upon the issuance of a proclamation declaring a condition of national emergency. Sometimes such proclamations confined the matter of crisis to a specific policy sphere, and sometimes they placed no limitation on the pronouncement whatsoever. These activations of stand-by emergency authority remained acceptable practice until the era of the Vietnam war. In 1976, Congress curtailed this practice with the passage of the National Emergencies Act.
Emergency powers were first expressed prior to the actual founding of the Republic. Between 1775 and 1781, the Continental Congress passed a series of acts and resolves which count as the first expressions of emergency authority./2 These instruments dealt almost exclusively with the prosecution of the Revolutionary War.
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, emergency powers, as such, failed to attract much attention during the course of debate over the charter for the new government. It may be argued, however, that the granting of emergency powers by Congress is implicit in its Article I, section 8 authority to "provide for the common Defense and general Welfare," the commerce clause, its war, armed forces, and militia powers, and the "necessary and proper" clause empowering it to make such laws as are required to fulfill the executions of "the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
There is a tradition of constitutional interpretation that has resulted in so-called implied powers, which may be invoked in order to respond to an emergency situation. Locke seems to have anticipated this practice. Furthermore, Presidents have occasionally taken an emergency action which they assumed to be constitutionally permissible. Thus, in the American governmental experience, the exercise of emergency powers has been somewhat dependent upon the Chief Executive's view of the Presidential office.
Finally, apart from the Constitution, but resulting from its prescribed procedures, there are statutory grants of power for emergency conditions. The President is authorized by Congress to take some special or extraordinary action, ostensibly to meet the problems of governing effectively in times of exigency. Sometimes these laws are only of temporary duration. The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, for example, allowed the President to impose certain wage and price controls for about three years before it eventually expired automatically in 1974./6 The statute gave the President emergency authority to address a crisis in the Nation's economy.
Relying upon constitutional authority or congressional delegations made at various times over the past 200 years, the President of the United States may exercise certain powers in the event that the continued existence of the Nation is threatened by crisis, exigency, or emergency circumstances. What is a national emergency?
There are perhaps at least four aspects of an emergency condition. The first is its temporal character: an emergency is sudden, unforeseen, and of unknown duration. The second is its potential gravity: an emergency is dangerous and threatening to life and well-being. The third, in terms of governmental role and authority, is the matter of perception: who discerns this phenomenon? The Constitution may be guiding on this question, but not always conclusive. Fourth, there is the element, of response: by definition, an emergency requires immediate action, but is, as well, unanticipated and, therefore, as Corwin notes, cannot always be "dealt with according to rule." From these simple factors arise the dynamics of national emergency powers./15 These dynamics can be seen in the history of the exercise of emergency powers.
Here was the beginning of a pattern of policy expression and implementation regarding emergency powers. Congress legislated extraordinary or special authority for discretionary use by the President in a time of emergency. In issuing a proclamation, the Chief Executive notified Congress that he was making use of this power and also apprised other affected parties of his emergency action.
Over the next 100 years, Congress enacted various permanent and stand-by laws for responding largely to military, economic, and labor emergencies. During this span of years, however, the exercise of emergency powers by President Lincoln brought the first great dispute over the authority and discretion of the Chief Executive to engage in emergency actions.
By the time of Lincoln's inauguration (March 4, 1861), seven States of the lower South had announced their secession from the Union; the Confederate provisional government had been established (February 4, 1861); Jefferson Davis had been elected (February 9, 1861) and installed as president of the Confederacy (February 18, 1861); and an army was being mobilized by the secessionists. Lincoln had a little over two months to consider his course of action.
When the new President assumed office, Congress was not in session. For reasons of his own, Lincoln delayed calling a special meeting of the legislature, but soon ventured into its constitutionally designated policy sphere. On April 19, he issued a proclamation establishing a blockade on the ports of the secessionist States,/19 "a measure hitherto regarded as contrary to both the Constitution and the law of nations except when the government was embroiled in a declared, foreign war."/20 Congress, of course, had not been given an opportunity to consider a declaration of war.
By a proclamation of May 3, Lincoln ordered that the regular army be enlarged by 22,714 men, that Navy personnel be increased by 18,000, and that 42,032 volunteers be accommodated for three-year terms of service./23 Such a directive, of course, antagonized many Representatives and Senators, because Congress is specifically authorized by Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution "to raise and support armies."
Indeed, Congress subsequently did legislatively authorize, and thereby approve, the President's actions regarding his increasing armed forces personnel, and would do the same later concerning some other questionable emergency actions. In the case of Lincoln, the opinion of scholars and experts is "that neither Congress nor the Supreme Court exercised any effective restraint upon the President./25 The emergency actions of the Chief Executive were either unchallenged or approved by Congress, and were either accepted or, because of almost no opportunity to render judgment, went largely without notice by the Supreme Court. The President made a quick response to the emergency at hand, a response which Congress or the Court might have rejected in law, but which, nonetheless, had been made in fact and with some degree of popular approval. Similar controversy would arise concerning the emergency actions of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both men exercised extensive emergency powers with regard to world hostilities, and Roosevelt also used emergency authority to deal with the Great Depression. Their emergency actions, however, were largely supported by statutory delegations and a high degree of approval on the part of both Congress and the public.
Next, on September 8, 1939, President Roosevelt promulgated a proclamation of "limited" national emergency, though the qualifying term had no meaningful legal significance./33 Almost two years later, on May 27, 1941, he issued a proclamation of "unlimited" national emergency./34 This action, however, actually did not make any important new powers available to the Chief Executive in addition to those activated by the 1939 proclamation. The President's purpose in making the second proclamation was largely to apprise the American people of the worsening conflict in Europe and growing tensions in Asia.
Truman's 1952 termination, however, specifically exempted a December, 1950, proclamation of national emergency he had issued in response to hostilities in Korea./40 Furthermore, this condition of national emergency would remain in force and unimpaired well into the era of the Vietnam war.
The Special Committee conducted and produced various studies during its existence./47 After scrutinizing the United States Code and uncodified statutory emergency powers, the panel identified 470 provisions of Federal law which delegated extraordinary authority to the Executive in time of national emergency./48 Not all of them required a declaration of national emergency to be operative, but they were, nevertheless, extraordinary grants. The Special Committee also found that no process existed for automatically terminating the four outstanding national emergency proclamations. Thus, the panel began developing legislation containing a formula for regulating emergency declarations in the future and otherwise adjusting the body of statutorily delegated emergency powers by abolishing some provisions, relegating others to permanent status, and continuing others in a stand-by capacity. In addition, the panel also began preparing a report offering its findings and recommendations regarding the state of national emergency powers in the Nation.
Although a version of the reform legislation had been introduced in the House on September 16, becoming H.R. 16668, the Committee on the Judiciary, to which the measure was referred, did not have an opportunity to consider either that bill or the Senate adopted version due to the press of other business--chiefly the impeachment of President Nixon and the nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller to be Vice President of the United States. Thus, the National Emergencies Act failed to be considered on the House floor before the final adjournment of the 93rd Congress.
As enacted, the National Emergencies Act consists of five titles. The first of these generally returned all stand-by statutory delegations of emergency power activated by an outstanding declaration of national emergency to a dormant state two years after the statute's approval. However, the Act did not cancel the 1933, 1950, 1970, and 1971 national emergency proclamations because these were issued by the President pursuant to his Article II constitutional authority. Nevertheless, it did render them ineffective by returning to dormancy the statutory authorities they had activated, thereby necessitating a new declaration to activate stand-by statutory emergency authorities.
When declaring a national emergency, the President must indicate, according to Title III, the powers and authorities being activated to respond to the exigency at hand.
Certain Presidential accountability and reporting requirements regarding national emergency declarations are specified in Title IV, and the repeal and continuation of various statutory provisions delegating emergency powers is accomplished in Title V.
Since the 1976 enactment of the National Emergencies Act, the following national emergencies have been declared pursuant to its provisions. With the exception of the 1983 and 1984 actions continuing export control regulations, all of these emergency declarations are operative.
In its final report, issued in late May of 1976, the Special Committee concluded "by reemphasizing that emergency laws and procedures in the United States have been neglected for too long, and that Congress must pass the National Emergencies Act to end a potentially dangerous situation./64 The panel's recommended legislation, of course, was enacted into law before the end of the year.
The development, exercise, and regulation of emergency powers, from the days of the Continental Congress to the present, reflect at least one highly discernible trend: those authorities available to the Executive in time of national crisis or exigency have, since the time of the Lincoln Administration, come to be increasingly rooted in statutory law. The discretion available to a Civil War President in his exercise of emergency power has, to a considerable extent, been harnessed in the contemporary period. Furthermore, due to greater reliance upon statutory expression, the range of this authority has come to be more circumscribed, and the options for its use have come to be regulated procedurally through the National Emergencies Act. Since its enactment, however, the National Emergencies Act has not been revisited by congressional overseers. Nonetheless, as the final report of the Senate Special Committee on National Emergencies suggests, the prospect remains that further improvements and reforms in this policy area might be pursued and perfected.
Bowman, Mary M. C. Presidential Emergency Powers Related to International Economic Transactions. Vanderbilt Journal of Transactional Law, v. 11, Summer 1978: 515-534.
Culp, Maurice S. Executive Power in Emergencies. Michigan Law Review, v. 31, June 1933: 1066-1096.
Fay, James S. Restraints on Executive Emergency Power in the United States and Canada. Hastings International and Comparative Law Review, v. 3, Fall 1979: 127-149.
Fuller, Glenn E. The National Emergency Dilemma: Balancing the Executive's Crisis Powers with the Need for Accountability. Southern California Law Review, v. 52, July 1979: 1453-1511.
Genovese, Michael A. Democratic Theory and the Emergency Powers of the President. Presidential Studies Quarterly, v. 9, Summer 1979: 283-289.
Klieman, Aaron S. Preparing for the Hour of Need: Emergency Powers in the United States. Review of Politics, v. 41, April 1979: 235-255.
----- Preparing for the Hour of Need: The National Emergencies Act. Presidential Studies Quarterly, v. 9, Winter 1979: 47-64.
Lijphart, Arend. Emergency Powers and Emergency Regimes: A Commentary. Asian Survey, v. 18, April 1978: 401-407.
Lobel, Jules. Emergency Power and the Decline of Liberalism. Yale Law Journal, v. 98, May 1989: 1385-1433.
Miller, Arthur S. Constitutional Law: Crisis Government Becomes the Norm. Ohio State Law Journal, v. 39, 1978: 736-751.
Relyea, Harold C. Reconsidering the National Emergencies Act: Its Evolution, Implementation, and Deficiencies. Center for the Study of the Presidency Proceedings, v. 5, 1984: 274-323.
Robinson, Donald L. The Routinization of Crisis Government. Yale Review, v. 63, Winter 1974: 161-174.
Roche, John P. Executive Power and Domestic Emergency: The Quest for Prerogative. Western Political Quarterly, v. 5, December 1952: 592-618.
Rossiter, Clinton L. Constitutional Dictatorship in the Atomic Age. Review of Politics, v. 11, October 1949: 395-418.
Sturm, Albert L. Emergencies and the Presidency. Journal of Politics, v. 11, February 1949: 121-144.
Blackman, John L. Presidential Seizure in Labor Disputes. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1967. 351 p.
Corwin, Edward S. Total War and the Constitution. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1947. 162 p.
Cullen, Donald E. National Emergency Strikes. Ithaca, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1968. 134 p.
Higgs, Robert. Crisis and Leviathan. New York, Oxford University Press, 1987. 339 p.
Janeway, Eliot. The Economics of Crisis: War, Politics, and the Dollar. New York, Weybright and Talley, 1968. 317 p.
Koenig, Louis W. The Presidency and the Crisis: Powers of the Office From the Invasion of Poland to Pearl Harbor. New York, King's Crown Press, 1944. 166 p.
Murphy, Paul L. The Constitution in Crisis Times 1918-1969. New York, Harper and Row, 1972. 541 p.
Randall, James G. Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1951. 596 p.
Rankin, Robert S. and Winfred Dallmayr. Freedom and Emergency Powers in the Cold War. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1964. 277 p.
Rich, Bennett Milton. The Presidents and Civil Disorder. Washington, The Brookings Institution, 1941. 235 p.
Rockoff, Hugh. Drastic Measures. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1984. 285 p.
Rossiter, Clinton L. Constitutional Dictatorship. New York, Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1963. 322 p.
U.S. Congress. House. Committee on International Relations. Trading With the Enemy: Legislative and Executive Documents Concerning Regulation of International Transactions in Time of Declared National Emergency. Committee print, 94th Congress, 2d session. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1976. 684 p.
U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations and Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers. The National Emergencies Act: (Public Law 94-412). Source Book: Legislative History, Texts, and Other Documents. Committee print, 94th Congress, 2d session. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1976. 360 p.
----- Special Committee on National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers. A Brief History of Emergency Powers in the United States. Committee print, 93rd Congress, 2d session. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1974. 140 p.
----- Executive Orders in Times of War and National Emergency. Committee print, 93rd Congress, 2d session. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1974. 283 p.
----- National Emergencies and Delegated Emergency Powers. S. Rept. 94-922, 94th Congress, 2d session. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1976. 38 p.
----- Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency. Emergency Powers Statutes. S. Rept. 93-549, 93rd Congress, Ist session. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1973. 607 p.
----- National Emergency. [3 parts.] Hearings, 93rd Congress, Ist session. April 11, 12, July 24, and November 28, 1973. Washington, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1973. 917 p.

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