§238 Office for Domestic Preparedness

Summary

Creates an Office for Domestic Preparedness inside the Department. The President must appoint a Director. The Office is the main federal office in charge of getting the United States ready for acts of terrorism. The Office must coordinate federal preparedness and work with state, local, tribal, parish, and private emergency responders on training, exercises, and equipment; organize or combine homeland security communications systems; run terrorism preparedness grant programs (except ones run by the Department of Health and Human Services); put Strategy priorities into agency planning; provide training for agents and analysts in federal, state, local, and international agencies; lead terrorism preparedness while working closely with FEMA on nonterror disasters; help the Secretary with risk analysis for state, local, and tribal governments; bring terrorism-related parts of FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness into this Office; and help ensure states and local responders get interoperable communications technology. For fiscal years 2003 and 2004, the Director must run the functions transferred from the Department of Justice as they existed before September 11, 2001, with the same terms, staff, assets, and budget.