Rep. Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan) has pre-filed a bill that essentially merges the Office of Homeland Security and the Emergency Management Office into a new office of CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management for \u201ccentralized\u201d responses to major natural and man-made disasters.<\/p>\n
Currently, EMO and OHS have overlapping functions. Both also coordinate with the same federal, regional, state and local agencies in preparing and responding to different kinds of emergencies.<\/p>\n
House Bill 17-262 will be among the bills to be formally introducing during the House session on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Demapan said \u201cthere is a need for centralized coordination and the purpose of this act is to establish the CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management in the Office of the Governor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 22-page bill authorizes the CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management to be the \u201cprimary state agency responsible for response coordination of significant emergencies and major disasters within the CNMI.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also seeks to develop a comprehensive CNMI All-Hazard Emergency Operations Plan to provide for a state-level coordination, and appropriate plan to respond to incidents of state or national significance.<\/p>\n
Under the bill, the new office will be headed by a special assistant for Homeland Security and Emergency Management who will be appointed by the governor.<\/p>\n
The appointee shall meet certain qualifications, including a bachelor\u2019s degree in criminal justice, homeland security or emergency management; 10-year management experience in law enforcement, fire service or emergency management; meets the minimum requirements or credentials to pass a U.S. Department of Homeland Security \u201csecret\u201d clearance; and meets minimum FEMA National Incident Management System Certification or the Incident Command System. FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rep. Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan) has pre-filed a bill that essentially merges the Office of Homeland Security and the Emergency Management Office into a new office of CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management for \u201ccentralized\u201d responses to major natural and man-made disasters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}