PREPARE Act of 2015

Preparedness and Risk Management for Extreme Weather Patterns Assuring Resilience and Effectiveness Act of 2015 or the PREPARE Act of 2015

This bill directs the President to establish the Interagency Council on Extreme Weather Resilience, Preparedness, and Risk Management (Council). The Council shall:

• establish government-wide goals and priorities for, and develop, recommend, coordinate, and track implementation of priority interagency federal government actions related to, extreme weather resilience, preparedness, and risk management;
• support regional, state, local, and tribal action to assess extreme weather-related vulnerabilities and cost effectively increase extreme weather resilience, preparedness, and risk management of communities, critical economic sectors, natural and built infrastructure, and natural resources;
• facilitate the integration of meteorological and extreme weather science;
• assess the specific recommendations relating to extreme weather in all relevant provisions of the Government Accountability Office's High-Risk Series, identify the feasibility of revising federal programs to implement such recommendations, and develop a plan to address such recommendations;
• develop or adopt a framework for evaluating the progress and success of extreme weather resilience, preparedness, and risk management-related efforts that is complementary to any national indicator system developed as part of the National Climate Assessment;
• develop or adopt performance metrics that allow tracking of the actions taken and progress made toward meeting and implementing the established government-wide goals and priorities;
• provide recommendations to the Council on Environmental Quality and OMB on how agencies should update agency extreme weather plans and remove barriers to state and local extreme weather resilience, preparedness, and risk management in agency regulations, guidance, and policy;
• make information available online for tracking implementation of agency extreme weather plans and government-wide goals and priorities and on recommendations relating to extreme weather in all relevant High-Risk Series provisions;
• issue guidance to agencies on developing agency extreme weather plans and agency regulations, guidance, and policies to remove barriers to state and local extreme weather resilience;
• designate one or more agencies to establish a website that provides information on risks related to extreme weather, preparedness, resilience, and risk management to support state, local, tribal, and private decisionmakers; and
• publish biannually an inventory of all regional agency offices, centers, and programs that assist with extreme weather preparedness and risk management at the state or local level.

Each agency shall submit biannually to OMB and to the Council a comprehensive plan that integrates consideration of extreme weather into its operations and overall mission objectives. OMB shall consolidate and submit such plans to Congress.

Annual agency performance plans shall include the most recent agency extreme weather plan.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov