§317 Regional Offices

Summary

The Agency must have 10 regional offices. Each regional office is led by a Regional Administrator who the Administrator picks after talking with State, local, and tribal officials. The Regional Administrator reports directly to the Administrator and must be in the Senior Executive Service. The Administrator must choose people who know emergency management and homeland security and who, when possible, are familiar with the region’s geography and people. Regional Administrators work with State, local, and tribal governments, emergency managers, health providers, the private sector, and nonprofit and regional planning groups. They must coordinate regional planning, training, exercises, and development for disasters, terrorism, and other man-made incidents. They help build regional response capabilities (including communications), run a Regional Response Coordination Center, staff and manage 1 or more strike teams (authorized under section 5144 of title 42) as the first federal response, name someone to make regional plans that support the National Response Plan, support mutual aid agreements, find gaps for people with special needs, and help pick sites for multijurisdictional incident command when needed. Regional Administrators must take periodic training (including the National Incident Management System and the National Response Plan) and join exercises. There are Area Offices for the Pacific and Caribbean, and an Area Office in Alaska. Each Regional Administrator must create a Regional Advisory Council made up of nominated State, local, or tribal officials to advise on regional emergency issues. Strike teams must mostly be based in their region, train and exercise with local partners, be ready for catastrophic incidents, and the Administrator must tell Congress if more legal authority is needed.