The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (“the Stafford Act”) authorizes the President to issue two types of declarations that can potentially provide federal aid to states and localities in response to a terrorist attack

1. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (“the Stafford Act”) authorizes the President to issue two types of declarations that can potentially provide federal aid to states and localities in response to a terrorist attack (e.g., the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and the 2013 Boston marathon attacks). The two types of declarations are (1) a “major disaster declaration,” and (2) an “emergency declaration.” For role-playing purposes, you are the senior deputy administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In this role you are the chief FEMA liaison to the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”). 2. It was learned and confirmed in the past three hours that five days ago a domestic terrorist group “poisoned all the major water supplies and reservoirs” of Chicago, Illinois. This “poison” is described as the bacteria, “necrotizing fasciitis,” otherwise described in this case in layperson terms as a biological weapon for types of bacteria that can cause the “flesh-eating disease.” Symptoms from this disease can occur within 24-hours if the epidermis (i.e., the outermost layer of skin on the body) is compromised, for example, through cuts or scratches. It is forecasted that fatalities from this disease can potentially exceed 3.153 million, because even with treatment, 1 out of 3 people dies from this disease. You have been tasked with finding academic-based legal and social science research for creating a pre-disaster mitigation program that would not be subject to annual appropriations from Congress. The three issues you need to address from your research are: (1) Does this Chicago event meet the criteria for the President to declare this “man-made catastrophe” an emergency disaster or a major disaster? (2) Can FEMA and DHS make a good-faith argument that this Chicago event qualifies for pre-disaster mitigation funding or is recovery going to be limited to post-disaster mitigation funding? (3) Should FEMA and DHS make recommendations to focus only on Stafford Act authorizations, or should the recommendation also include considerations for the President to declare a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act? . Your position paper needs to be based on research from U.S. based academic peer reviewed articles from scholarly journals. Therefore, the assignment requires a minimum of three academic peer reviewed articles from scholarly journals. DO NOT USE as sources the textbook, nor .org, .gov, and .com publications. 4. Your “position paper” must have (i) a cover page, (ii) subject matter content or text that SHALL NOT be less than 850 words and not exceed 950 words. See the SAMPLE for guidance on how to APA-format your position paper for APA Level 1 headings. DO NOT pay attention to the subject matter of the sample. The subject matter of the Sample is irrelevant. Rather, PAY ATTENTION to the formatting of the Sample, so that you can learn what is called “APA-Level 1 formatting,” that is critical for you learning how to write your papers for this course. 5. DO NOT USE titles and sub-titles from Samples as titles for your paper, nor in your headers. YOUR TITLES NEED TO BE ORIGINAL, as based on your academic research, AND titles CANNOT CONTAIN WORDS LIKE “Week” and “Position Paper.”