(2) All authority which was vested in the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness with respect to determining whether a major disaster has occurred within the meaning of (A) section 16 of the Act of September 23, 1950, as amended (20 U.S.C. 646), (B) section 7 of the Act of September 30, 1950, as amended (20 U.S.C. 241-1), and (C) section 762 (a) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 as added by section 161 (a) of the Education Amendments of 1972, Public Law 92-318, 86 Stat. 288 at 299 (relating to the furnishing by the Commissioner of Education of disaster relief assistance for educational purposes), and which was transferred to the President by Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1973. SEC. 3. (a) There is hereby established the National Council on Federal Disaster Assistance (hereinafter referred to as the "Council") which shall be composed of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who shall be the Chairman of the Council, and policy level representatives of the Departments of Defense; the Interior; Agriculture; Commerce; Labor; Health, Education, and Welfare; and Transportation; and of the Small Business Administration and the Office of Economic Opportunity, and such other members as the President may from time to time designate. This Council supersedes the National Council on Federal Disaster Assistance established by Executive Order No. 11526. Representatives of the other Federal departments or agencies, officials of State and local governments, and private citizens may be invited by the Chairman to participate in the deliberations of the Council. (b) The Council shall advise and assist the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in: (1) insuring that the Federal agencies furnish necessary assistance following a large-scale disaster on a priority basis to the Federal Coordinating Officer appointed by the President to operate under the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, pursuant to section 201 of the Disaster Relief Act of 1970; (2) developing policies and programs to provide a strong and integrated total Federal disaster assistance effort; (3) stimulating cooperation and the sharing of data, views, and information concerning disaster assistance among Federal agencies, State and local governments, and private organizations having disaster assistance responsibilities and interests; (4) facilitating cooperation among Federal, State, and local governments with special concern for the maintenance of local initiative and decisionmaking with respect to emergency restoration and rebuilding programs; (5) promoting the participation of Federal agencies in providing Federal assistance for rebuilding efforts; (6) encouraging research on means of preventing disasters and ameliorating the effects of those that occur; (7) reviewing, from time to time, the effectiveness of the Federal disaster assistance programs and suggesting needed changes. (c) Consistent with law, the Department of Housing and Urban Development shall provide staff and other assistance to the Council, and executive departments and agencies shall furnish to the Council such available information as the Council may require in performance of its functions. (d) Nothing in this order shall be construed as subjecting any Federal agency or officer, or any function vested by law in, or assigned, pursuant to law to, any Federal agency or officer to the authority of the Council or of any other agency or officer or as abrogating any such function in any manner. SEC. 4. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is designated and empowered to exercise, without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President all other incidental authority relating to matters described in sections 1 through 3 of this Executive order that has been vested in the Office of Emergency Preparedness or the Director thereof by the President by letter, memorandum, or other form of directive, or otherwise. SEC. 5. (a) The Secretary of Defense is designated and empowered to exercise, without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President, all of the authority vested in the President by section 210 of the Act concerning the utilization and availability of the civil defense communications system for the purpose of disaster warnings. (b) The Secretary of Agriculture is designated and empowered to exercise, without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President, all of the authority vested in the President by section 238 of the act concerning food coupons and surplus commodities. SEC. 6. (a) Executive Order Nos. 11526, 11575, 11662, and 11678, and section 1 of Executive Order No. 11725 are hereby superseded. (b) This order shall be effective thirty days after the date of its issuance. RICHARD NIXON Chapter I EXECUTIVE ORDERS PRESCRIBING As a previous report of the Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency (Sen. Rept. 93-549) has shown, at least 470 statutes delegate extraordinary powers to the Executive in time of emergency. The following Executive Orders specify how the President has ordered that these powers are to be exercised by the various parts of the executive branch. In general, these Executive Orders enumerate the duties and responsibilities of the various Departments and Agencies and establish the procedures which are to be followed when a national emergency is declared. It should be stressed that this listing of Executive Orders reveals only a small portion of Presidential commands, by whatever names they are called, which may, during time of legally declared emergency, require compliance by individuals inside or outside of the Government, and which may also involve the expenditure of Government funds. The general structure for emergency government outlined in the Executive Orders presented here is supplemented by detailed regulations issued by each Executive Department and Agency. These emergency regulations are compiled by the Office of the Federal Register and are collectively published as the "Code of Emergency Federal Regulations." How useful this publication may be is open to question. The most important Departments of Government during time of emergency-Defense, State, Justice, Commerce, and the Office of the President, among others have never submitted their regulations for inclusion in the "CEFR". Many of the regulations which are in fact published are, moreover, dated or so hypothetically drawn as to be of little likely utility in actual time of emergency. If the emergency were of truly crisis proportions, it may therefore be doubted whether these regulations would meet the exigencies of the crisis. A selective examination of the "CEFR" regulations does, however, demonstrate how regulations drawn up for emergency contingencies could jeopardize fundamental rights and values. In Section VII of the then Post Office Department's emergency regulations (appended at the end of this section) a comprehensive plan for censorship of all international mail is established, pursuant to Executive Order 11490, Section 601 (a) (2). Neither the regulation itself nor the Executive. Order cites any statutory authority whatever for this sort of drastic infringement of a citizen's right to privacy. Although the censorship is presumably designed for use only during wartime, it is on its face designed for any emergency declared by the President and might in deed be thereby activated. And as this Special Committee's studies have shown, Presidents in the past have declared "national emergencies" for many reasons unrelated to war, and the states of emergency thus created have often lasted far beyond the circumstances which gave rise to them. The possible dangers presented by these regulations for emergency postal censorship are, then, quite real. They may, moreover, be indicative of other, similar dangers to civil liberties in the present structure of delegated emergency powers. CODE OF EMERGENCY FEDERAL REGULATIONS-15-1-7 (Excerpt from the Post Office Department's emergency regulations) VII. An Executive Order [11490] has been issued directing the Department of Defense to institute censorship of communications crossing the borders of the United States, or any of its territories or possessions. Censorship stations are being activated as follows: District station No. and location 1: Gardner, Mass- 2: Poughkeepsie, N.Y. 3: Williamsport, Pa--‒‒ 4: Lynchburg, Va_____ 5: Bristol, Tenn.. 8: Ocala, Fla---- 10: Texarkana, Ark_ 7: Oshkosh, Wis. 9: Battle Creek, Mich. 11: Fargo, N. Dak. 13: Grand Island, Nebr__ 14: Modesto, Calif___ 15: Bakersfield, Calif__ 16: Yakima, Wash__ 17: Tucson, Ariz_. Area of responsibility Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Missis- Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Texas. Illinois, and Missouri. Indiana and Michigan. Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Post offices in that portion of California served through the following sectional centers: Burlingame, Eureka, Oakland, Palo Alto, Redding, Sacramento, Salinas, San Francisco, San Jose, San Rafael, Santa Rosa, Stockton, and Vallejo. Post offices in that portion of California served through the following sectional centers Alhambra, Bakersfield, Fresno, Glendale, Huntington Park, Indio, Inglewood, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Mojave, North Hollywood, Oceanside, Pasadena, Pomona, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Ana, Santa Monica, Van Nuys Ventura, and Whittier. Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Mon- Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. Hawaii, and Guam. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. A. All outgoing international mail on hand and hereafter deposited at post offices (except that bearing United States national censorship clearance) shall be forwarded to the postmaster at the censorship station listed above which has responsibility for the State or portion thereof in which the post office of mailing is located. B. All incoming international mail, and territorial mail not bearing United States national censorship clearance, on hand and hereafter received at exchange offices or other points of entry shall be forwarded promptly in pouches labeled to the censorship stations listed above which have responsibility for the State or portion thereof to which such mail is addressed. Following treatment at censorship stations the mail, which will not be individually endorsed to indicate clearance, will be turned over to the censorship station post offices for merging with mail of domestic origin for onward transmission to the offices of address. At such point this mail of foreign origin will, of course, lose its identity as having been processed at the censorship stations. It is to be assumed by all distributors through whose hands it thereafter passes that all such mail has been cleared by censor and it must not be further intercepted or delayed en route or at the office of delivery, but will be delivered promptly as addressed. Postmasters where censorship stations are located are directed to cooperate fully with postal inspectors and district postal censors in charge of censorship stations, in implementing the censorship program. Separate instructions are being issued to those postmasters relative to operation of the censorship program. |