EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT association OF TEXAS

On February 25, 2021, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for FY 2021 Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). In FY 2021, there are three components of HSGP:

1. State Homeland Security Program (SHSP),
2. Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI), and
3. Operation Stonegarden (OPSG)

Here is the link to the announcement:

Fiscal Year 2021 Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) (fema.gov)

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas today announced the release of the funding notices for eight different types of preparedness grants.

Terror Attacks, Major Disasters Targeted in Funding

The grant programs provide funding to state, local, tribal and territorial governments, as well as transportation authorities, nonprofit organizations and the private sector, to improve the nation’s readiness in preventing, protecting against, responding to, recovering from and mitigating terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies. The grants reflect the Department’s focus on funding for programs that address our nation’s immediate security needs and ensure public safety in our communities.

The Fiscal Year 2021 grant guidance will continue to focus on the nation’s highest risk areas, including urban areas that face the most significant threats, and national priorities. This year, the Urban Area Security Initiative will enhance regional preparedness and capabilities by funding 31 high-threat, high-density urban areas. This represents Congressional intent to limit these funds to those urban areas that represent up to 85% of the nationwide risk.

As the threats we face evolve, so too must the grant programs intended to prepare communities for those threats. To that end, DHS has identified five critical priority areas for attention in the FY 2021 grant cycle: cybersecurity, soft targets and crowded places, intelligence and information sharing, domestic violent extremism, and emerging threats. Grant recipients under the State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) and Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) will be required to dedicate a minimum of 30% of awards to address these five priority areas: cybersecurity (7.5%, an increase of at least $25 million across the country); soft target and crowded places (5%); information and intelligence sharing (5%); domestic violent extremism (7.5%) and emerging threats (5%).

As with previous years, new capabilities that are built using homeland security grant funding must be deployable if needed to support regional and national efforts. All capabilities being built or sustained must have a clear linkage to the core capabilities articulated in the National Preparedness Goal.

The previous Administration had proposed changes to the risk methodology and program framework. After careful review and consideration, the current Administration decided not to implement all proposed changes, including equal weighting for Threat, Vulnerability and Consequence components in the risk methodology; and making the SHSP and UASI programs fully competitive.

We also recognize that the terrorism national threat environment has changed considerably since these grants were first authorized in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. As such, the Department will engage in a coordinated, collaborative and systematic process to review the risk methodology and program frameworks with our state, local, tribal and territorial partners.

Allocations for Fiscal Year 2021

The following grants are non-competitive and awarded to recipients based on a number of factors:

• State Homeland Security Program (SHSP): Statutory minimums and relative risk as determined by DHS/FEMA’s risk methodology
• Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI): Relative risk as determined by DHS/FEMA’s risk methodology
• Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) Program: Relative population
• Intercity Passenger Rail (IPR) Program – Amtrak: Congressional direction
• State Homeland Security Program—provides $415 million to support the implementation of risk-driven, capabilities-based state homeland security strategies to address capability targets.

Urban Area Security Initiative—provides $615 million to enhance regional preparedness and capabilities in 31 high-threat, high-density areas.

• For both the state homeland and urban area grants, 30% of the awards must address the five priority areas of cybersecurity, soft target and crowded places, information and intelligence sharing, domestic violent extremism, and emerging threats. Additionally, 25% of these grants must be dedicated to law enforcement terrorism prevention activities, and 80% of these grants must be obligated from the state to local or tribal governments within 45 days of receipt.

Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG)—provides more than $355 million to assist state, local, tribal and territorial governments in enhancing and sustaining all-hazards emergency management capabilities.

Intercity Passenger Rail —Amtrak Program—provides $10 million to Amtrak to protect critical surface transportation infrastructure and the traveling public from acts of terrorism and increase the resilience of the Amtrak rail system.

Competitive grants include:

Operation Stonegarden—provides $90 million to enhance cooperation and coordination among state, local, tribal, territorial and federal law enforcement agencies to jointly enhance security along the United States land and water borders.

Tribal Homeland Security Grant Program—provides $15 million to eligible tribal nations to implement preparedness initiatives to help strengthen the nation against risk associated with potential terrorist attacks and other hazards.

Nonprofit Security Grant Program—provides $180 million to support target hardening and other physical security enhancements for nonprofit organizations that are at high risk of a terrorist attack. This year, $90 million is provided to nonprofits in UASI-designated urban areas, and $90 million is provided to nonprofits outside of UASI-designated urban areas located in any state or territory.

Port Security Grant Program—provides $100 million to help protect critical port infrastructure from terrorism, enhance maritime domain awareness, improve port-wide maritime security risk management, and maintain or re-establish maritime security mitigation protocols that support port recovery and resiliency capabilities.

Transit Security Grant Program—provides $88 million to owners and operators of public transit systems to protect critical surface transportation and the traveling public from acts of terrorism and to increase the resilience of transit infrastructure.

Intercity Bus Security Grant Program—provides $2 million to owners and operators of intercity bus systems to protect surface transportation infrastructure and the traveling public from acts of terrorism and to increase the resilience of transit infrastructure.

All preparedness funding notices can be found at www.grants.gov. Final submissions must be made through the non-disaster grants system located at https://portal.fema.gov.

Further information on DHS’s preparedness grant programs is available at www.dhs.gov and http://www.fema.gov/grants.

FEMA announced federal emergency aid has been made available to the state of Texas to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in areas affected by a severe winter storm beginning on Feb. 11, 2021 and continuing.

The President's action makes federal funding available to affected individuals in Angelina, Aransas, Bastrop, Bee, Bell, Bexar, Blanco, Brazoria, Brazos, Brown, Burleson, Caldwell, Calhoun, Cameron, Chambers, Collin, Comal, Comanche, Cooke, Coryell, Dallas, Denton, DeWitt, Ellis, Falls, Fort Bend, Galveston, Gillespie, Grimes, Guadalupe, Hardin, Harris, Hays, Henderson, Hidalgo, Hood, Jasper, Jefferson, Johnson, Kaufman, Kendall, Lavaca, Liberty, Madison, Matagorda, Maverick, McLennan, Montague, Montgomery, Nacogdoches, Nueces, Orange, Palo Pinto, Panola, Parker, Polk, Rockwall, Sabine, San Jacinto, San Patricio, Scurry, Shelby, Smith, Stephens, Tarrant, Travis, Tyler, Upshur, Van Zandt, Victoria, Walker, Waller, Wharton, Wichita, Williamson, Wilson and Wise counties.

Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster.

Individuals and business owners who sustained losses in the designated area can begin applying for assistance by registering online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov or by calling 1-800-621-3362 or 1-800-462-7585 TTY.

Federal funding is also available to state, tribal, eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance, statewide.

Federal funding is available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.

Jerry S. Thomas has been named as the Federal Coordinating Officer for federal response operations for the affected area. Additional designations may be made later if requested by the state and warranted by the results of further assessments.

The FEMA National Integration Center (NIC) is seeking public feedback on two Resource Typing Job Titles / Position Qualification documents: an Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Incident Support Team (IST) and a Fixed Wing Search / Disaster Reconnaissance Team.

The 30-day national engagement period will conclude at 5 PM ET (4:00 CST) on March 2, 2021. The national engagement period provides an opportunity for interested parties to comment on the draft document to ensure that it is relevant for all implementing partners.

These resource typing documents will facilitate the sharing of deployable resource types at all jurisdictional levels.

To provide comments on the drafts, complete the feedback form provided in the links above and submit the form to fema-nims@fema.dhs.gov no later than 5 PM ET (4 PM CST) on March 2, 2021.

On January 19, 2021, FEMA released its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Toolkit, comprised of five separate documents,

NIMS Components - Guidance and Tools | FEMA.gov

The toolkit contains a collection of customizable tools, templates, and guides designed to assist emergency management, specifically EOC managers and staff members, on preparing and operating in emergency environments.

These documents will contribute to developing an EOC that can successfully meet the jurisdiction’s needs. The toolkit documents covers hazard vulnerability assessments, physical site selection, mitigation considerations, capabilities and requirements, information management systems, and training and exercises.

The toolkit is a collective effort with FEMA, emergency management stakeholders, and subject matter experts at various levels, representing FEMA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, state, and private-sector partners.

On January 15, 2021, FEMA released its Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Initial Assessment Report which assesses the agency’s initial response to the global pandemic.  The report covers FEMA’s response from mid-March through Sept. 30, 2020 and provides 32 key findings and 57 recommendations in five areas.

While coordinating the federal COVID-19 response, FEMA also responded to multiple disasters.  2020 was the most active Atlantic hurricane season in history, with 25 named Atlantic Ocean storms, three of which were declared major disasters across seven states.

FEMA’s COVID-19 operations led to innovations for coordination with government and non-government partners on implementing national distribution networks and innovative solutions to data management and analysis and manufacturing and procuring scarce resources. The agency’s adaptive workforce enabled it to facilitate an effective operational response to the pandemic.

The report findings and recommendations will be used to inform FEMA and the emergency management community and improve existing and future responses to pandemics. The Initial Assessment Reportrepresents part of FEMA’s continuous improvement process, helping the agency learn faster and to communicate to the emergency management community where there are opportunities to build greater capacity.

To read the full report go to: https://www.fema.gov/disasters/coronavirus

On December 22, FEMA released the 2020 National Preparedness Report, which only deals with actions taken in 2019. In its ninth year, this report presents an updated, risk-focused approach to summarizing the state of national preparedness.

The 2021 National Preparedness Report will explore the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and evaluate the response to it, reflecting the data that becomes available as the incident continues.

A requirement of Presidential Policy Directive 8 and consistent with the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act reporting responsibilities, the National Preparedness Report (NPR) has assessed the nation’s preparedness posture since 2012. These reports provide partners across the nation with insights into risks, vulnerabilities, and capabilities to support decisions about program priorities, resource allocations and community actions.

The 2020 NPR includes initial results for the National Risk and Capability Assessment (NRCA). The NRCA meets requirements of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, which requires “tiered, capability-specific performance objectives” to assess national preparedness. The 2020 report found that, although affected communities may not be fully prepared to respond to nationally catastrophic incidents, an analysis of shared national capabilities indicates the nation as a whole is closer to achieving its national goals though some significant capability gaps still remain.

The report highlights some of the persistent challenges the nation faces, how the Nation is working collectively to solve those challenges, and what the nation must continue to do to build on those successes. It also provides a deeper assessment of four identified focus areas: Cascading Impacts, Public-Private Partnerships, Vulnerable Populations, and Housing.

Report: FEMA 2020 National Preparedness Report

Original release date: December 17, 2020

Summary

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is aware of compromises of U.S. government agencies, critical infrastructure entities, and private sector organizations by an advanced persistent threat (APT) actor beginning in at least March 2020. This APT actor has demonstrated patience, operational security, and complex tradecraft in these intrusions. CISA expects that removing this threat actor from compromised environments will be highly complex and challenging for organizations.

One of the initial access vectors for this activity is a supply chain compromise of the following SolarWinds Orion products (see Appendix A).

• Orion Platform 2019.4 HF5, version 2019.4.5200.9083
• Orion Platform 2020.2 RC1, version 2020.2.100.12219
• Orion Platform 2020.2 RC2, version 2020.2.5200.12394
• Orion Platform 2020.2, 2020.2 HF1, version 2020.2.5300.12432

Note: CISA has evidence of additional initial access vectors, other than the SolarWinds Orion platform; however, these are still being investigated. CISA will update this Alert as new information becomes available.

On December 13, 2020, CISA released Emergency Directive 21-01: Mitigate SolarWinds Orion Code Compromise, ordering federal civilian executive branch departments and agencies to disconnect affected devices. Note: this Activity Alert does not supersede the requirements of Emergency Directive 21-01 (ED-21-01) and does not represent formal guidance to federal agencies under ED 21-01.

CISA has determined that this threat poses a grave risk to the Federal Government and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments as well as critical infrastructure entities and other private sector organizations. CISA advises stakeholders to read this Alert and review the enclosed indicators (see Appendix B).

Key Takeaways

• This is a patient, well-resourced, and focused adversary that has sustained long duration activity on victim networks.
• The SolarWinds Orion supply chain compromise is not the only initial infection vector this APT actor leveraged.
• Not all organizations that have the backdoor delivered through SolarWinds Orion have been targeted by the adversary with follow-on actions.
• Organizations with suspected compromises need to be highly conscious of operational security, including when engaging in incident response activities and planning and implementing remediation plans.

Click here for a PDF version of this report.

For the full alert, visit:

https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-352a

FEMA announced an additional $40 million in funding is available for the Hazard Mitigation Assistance Flood Mitigation Assistance grant program. This increases the funding amount for Fiscal Year 2020 from $160 million to $200 million. The increase in funding is a result of recovered funds – available funds for projects from previous grant cycles that were completed under budget or were not implemented. 

This competitive grant program assists state, tribal, and territorial governments as applicants in building a culture of preparedness by strengthening our nation’s ability to reduce disaster losses and protect life and property from future disaster damage.

The Notice of Funding Opportunity is updated with the new grant amount. Additional details such as eligibility, funding guidelines and evaluation criteria have not changed and are available on FEMA.gov.

The application period opened Sept. 30. Eligible applicants must apply for funding using the new FEMA Grants Outcome (FEMA GO). All applications must be submitted in the FEMA Go Portal no later than 3 p.m. ET on Jan. 29, 2021. Applications received by FEMA after this deadline will not be considered for funding. Please note that applicants may have earlier deadlines for sub-applicants. For local governments and state and tribal agencies, please contact your State Hazard Mitigation Officer to learn about the applicant's priorities, deadlines, and additional requirements.

FEMA hosted a webinars series to provide applicants and sub-applicants an overview of FEMA pre-disaster hazard mitigation grant programs that included details about the agency’s funding priorities and common application errors and how to avoid them. The recorded webinars are available on the FEMA website.

FEMA is proposing to revise the estimated cost of the assistance disaster declaration factor that it uses to evaluate a Governor’s request for a major disaster under the Public Assistance (PA) Program.

The proposed revisions would more accurately assess states’ disaster response capabilities and would comply with the direction of Congress in the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, which requires FEMA to review and update its disaster declaration factors.

Since 1986, FEMA has evaluated the estimated cost of federal and non-federal public assistance against the statewide population and used a per capita dollar amount (set at $1 in 1986) as an indicator that a disaster may warrant federal assistance. The per capita indicator remained at $1 until 1999, when the Agency began adjusting the indicator for inflation. Also in 1999, FEMA established a $1 million minimum threshold, meaning it would not recommend that the President authorize the PA program unless there was at least $1 million in damage resulting from the disaster. FEMA has never increased the $1 million threshold.

The lack of increases to the per capita indicator from 1986 to 1999 has undercut the value of this factor as an indicator of state capacity. With respect to the minimum threshold, while FEMA determined in 1999 that every state could handle at least $1 million in damages with their own resources, that figure has also not increased with inflation or rising state budgets and expenditures. Accordingly, the current per capita indicator and minimum threshold do not provide an accurate measure of states’ capabilities to respond to disasters.

As a result, FEMA may recommend that the President declare major disaster declarations for incidents that, with more accurate assessment, would be found to be well within a state’s financial capabilities to respond to on its own. FEMA proposes to adjust these factors so that it may more closely adhere to the law which authorizes federal disaster assistance only when an event is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments.

This current proposal builds on previous attempts to correct these same problems. For the last several years, in response to concern from Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and elsewhere, FEMA has been assessing how to incentivize more proactive fiscal planning and risk management at the state level and improve effective stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars.

In 2016, FEMA published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) seeking comment on a disaster deductible, which sought to address these same underlying issues. A second ANPRM was published in 2017, seeking additional feedback to develop the proposal. Based on more than 3,000 public comments received, FEMA decided in 2018 that the deductible was not the best approach to pursue at that time. The revisions to the cost of assistance factor proposed here are FEMA’s latest attempt to update its regulations on assessment of state capabilities.

FEMA proposes to increase the per capita indicator to account for increases in inflation from 1986 to 1999, and to adjust the individual states’ indicators by their total taxable resources (TTR). TTR data is published annually by the Department of the Treasury and is used to estimate the relative fiscal capacity of the states. FEMA also proposes to increase the minimum threshold by accounting for inflation from 1999 to 2019, and annually thereafter. Further, the proposal would adopt the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual population estimates instead of the decennial census population data produced every 10 years, which FEMA currently uses.

By adjusting the per capita indicator and the minimum threshold, and using more current population data, FEMA’s recommendations to the President would be better informed and more accurate assessments of whether an incident exceeds state capabilities, and reduce disproportionate burdens on states with lower fiscal capacity. The resulting reduction in disaster declarations for smaller incidents would allow FEMA to better focus its efforts and resources on larger disasters without the complications of reallocating resources from multiple smaller-scale commitments. Collectively, these changes would provide a better distribution of responsibilities between the states and the federal government and would incentivize states to invest more in response, recovery, and mitigation capabilities, and lead to a more resilient and prepared Nation.

FEMA is seeking public comment on the rule until February 12, 2021. Comments may be submitted through www.Regulations.gov under docket ID FEMA-2020-0038.