FEMA Has Made Limited Progress in Efforts to Develop and Implement a System to Assess National Preparedness Capabilities

This letter responds to a mandate in the conference report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Act, 2010. In accordance with the direction in that report and in consultation with congressional staff, we provided interim oral briefings in March and July 2010 and are reporting the results of our final briefing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) efforts to assess national preparedness. Specifically, we are reporting on (1) the usefulness and limitations of the national preparedness capabilities data that have been collected to date through selected evaluation efforts as described by FEMA, and (2) the extent to which FEMA has made progress in its national preparedness capability assessment efforts since we last reported on this issue in April 2009.