Emergency Preparedness Laws and Regulations
This tab includes laws, legislation, regulations, agency guidance, and executive orders relevant to emergency preparedness.
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October 26,2015
Connecticut Executive Order 50, signed by Governor Dannel P. Malloy on October 26, 2015, establishes a permanent working group called the State Agency Fostering Resilience Council (SAFR Council), committed to strengthening the state’s resiliency to extreme weather events including hurricanes, flooding, extreme heat, and slow onset events such as sea-level rise. The SAFR Council is to be comprised of 12 members, appointed by the Governor, including agency heads and experts.
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October 8, 2015
AB 1482 requires the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA), in coordination with the Strategic Growth Council, to oversee and coordinate state agency actions to adapt to climate change. The bill requires CNRA to update the state’s climate adaptation strategy (Safeguarding California), by July 1, 2017, and every three years thereafter. As part of the update, the CNRA will coordinate with other state agencies to identify the agency or agencies to lead adaptation efforts in each sector. The updates to the plan are to include climate change vulnerabilities by sector and the priority actions needed to reduce risks, for at least the following sectors:
Water
Energy
Transportation
Public health
Agriculture
Emergency services
Forestry
Biodiversity and habitat
Ocean and coastal resources
To address the vulnerabilities as identified in the updated plan, state agencies are directed to fulfill the objectives of:
Educating the public about the consequences of climate change, such as sea-level rise, extreme weather events, the urban heat island effect, habitat loss, wildfire, drought, threats to infrastructure and agriculture, worsening air and water quality, and public health impacts.
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April 2015
In 2014, the Massachusetts Port Authority (“Massport”) began the Massport Resiliency Program to protect Massport transportation facilities from flooding hazards caused by extreme storms and rising sea levels as a result of climate change. The program seeks to better prepare for the impacts of climate change by incorporating resilience principles into Massport’s business strategy and operations. As a part of this program, Massport created a Floodproofing Design Guide (“Guide”) that will help make the built environment resilient to sea-level rise and major flood events.
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February 4, 2015
The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation office was awarded $1. 5 million by the National Park Service following Hurricane Sandy, the bulk of which will be used to undertake disaster planning initiatives. The goals of the initiative are to identify the counties with the most vulnerable historic properties, develop strategies to protect those historical properties from future disasters, and then integrate those strategies into the selected counties’ Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Plans.
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June 19, 2014
On June 19, 2014 both houses of the Rhode Island legislature passed the Resilient Rhode Island Act of 2014. The Act follows Governor Chafee’e Executive Order creating the Rhode Island Executive Climate Change Council (February 21, 2014), and provides a framework for state government to adaptively plan for and manage climate change impacts.
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February 21, 2014
In February, 2014, Governor Lincoln Chafee signed Executive Order 14-01, creating the Rhode Island Executive Climate Change Council (EC3). The Council was charged with taking a lead role in developing a comprehensive approach, including both emissions reductions and adaptation planning, to address the potential threats from climate change to the state’s environment, economy, and people. The Governor established the EC3 to advise him, the General Assembly and the public on how the State and its communities can best prepare for the impacts of climate change.
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November 2013
The 2014 Dane County, Wisconsin executive budget proposal asked for nearly $1 million in funding for climate adaptation, including several transportation infrastructure improvements such as larger culverts for increased precipitation runoff. This is the first time that the Dane County Executive has included requests for climate adaptation funding in its budget. The County Board adopted the proposed budget in November 2013.
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October 2013
California’s Climate Action Team (CAT) developed this document to provide California agencies with guidance for incorporating extreme heat projections, and best practices for adapting to heat-related climate change impacts into planning and decision making.
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August 8, 2013
In August 2013, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie authorized $1. 28 billion in state financing for critical improvements to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects across the state under S2815. The funding includes $355 million that will protect and provide resiliency to infrastructure directly impacted by Superstorm Sandy. The bipartisan supported legislation establishes a three year program that could allocate up to $5 billion, not only to repair the plants, but also to harden them against future extreme weather events.
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June 1, 2013
In 2013, New York passed a law and launched the Fuel NY Initiative, to increase the number of gas stations along critical routes that will be able to operate during power outages caused by extreme weather events or other disasters. In conjunction with this law, Governor Cuomo announced the Fuel NY Initiative, which provides funding to help gas stations meet the new backup power requirements. The law and Initiative were developed in response to Hurricane Sandy, which illustrated the many challenges caused when most gas stations lost power as a result of the storm and were not able to operate fuel pumps to dispense fuel needed for emergency response and recovery efforts.
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