Stafford Act Declarations 1953-2011: Trends and Analyses, and Implications for Congress

Congressional concern over the rising number of declarations is primarily focused on their associated costs because once declared, the majority of disaster relief costs (at least 75%) are shifted from the state to the federal government. Moreover, federal expenditures on disaster relief are concomitant with declarations because declarations trigger federal disaster relief programs. Thus, the more disasters are declared, the greater the amount the federal government will spend on disaster assistance. The current fiscal environment, including concern over the federal deficit, has heightened congressional interest in the costs of disasters leading to proposals to offset some portion of disaster assistance spending by implementing budgetary mechanisms that might trigger a sequestration. This report provides a historical overview of the three categories of declarations, including the average number of declarations declared and turned down and distribution of the declarations by incident type and state. This report discusses a wide range of factors that might be contributing to the increase in declarations, and provides policy options that might reduce the number of declarations and some of their associated costs. This report will be updated as events warrant.


This package includes following files:

#	File Name	Document Date	Order ID:	Number of Pages	Price
1	R42702.pdf	Aug 31, 2012	R42702	28	$29.95	Add to Cart

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