Emergency Management and Technology

The Emergency Management and Technology Subcommittee is a specialized division of the House Committee on Homeland Security that focuses on disaster response and emergency preparedness. As a subcommittee, it conducts initial hearings and reviews legislation before matters move to the full committee, which alone can report bills to the House floor. The subcommittee's jurisdiction is narrow but critical: it maintains oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, the Office of Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Office of Health Security. The subcommittee concentrates on emergency preparedness, response, mitigation, resilience, and recovery; DHS grant programs; homeland security research and development; and protecting against and mitigating weapons of mass destruction and health security threats. Chair Dale W. Strong, a Republican from Alabama with over four decades of experience as a first responder, leads the seven-member panel alongside Ranking Member Timothy M. Kennedy, a Democrat from New York. The subcommittee has held multiple hearings in recent months examining FEMA's operations and the nation's disaster preparedness capabilities, reflecting the panel's active engagement with emergency management issues facing the country.