Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration

National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) Earthquake Consortium and State Support Program

The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) is the Federal Government’s coordinated ap-proach to addressing earthquake risks. The premise of the program is that while earthquakes may be inevita-ble, earthquake disasters are not.

FEMA’s Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administra-tion (FIMA) is responsible for the majority of the pro-gram’s general implementation activities. In this role, we work to translate the results of research and tech-nology development into effective earthquake risk re-duction plans and activities. One of the ways we do this is by operating a cooperative agreement program to assist States and Territories with their earthquake risk reduction efforts.

Oakland, CA, Oct 15, 2015 -- FEMA Region IX Regional Administrator Bob Fenton addresses the crowd at the Great California ShakeOut. Drills like this one in California are typical of the type of earthquake activities funded through the NEHRP Earthquake Consortium and State Assistance program. Photo by Adrien Ashlie Koch - Oct 15, 2015

Earthquake Consortium and State Support

The NEHRP Earthquake Consortium and State Support Program is designed to increase and enhance the effec-tive implementation of earthquake risk reduction at the state and local level, by making funding available through annual, non-competitive cooperative agree-ments.

Program Objectives

Promoting the implementation of earthquake hazard research results

Promoting better building practices

Providing assistance to enable individual, organiza-tional, and community resilience

Supporting the implementation of an earthquake education and public awareness program

Developing approaches to coordinate earthquake hazards reduction measures with measures for re-ducing hazards for other natural and technological hazards ("multi-hazard design").

Eligible Activities For detailed information on eligible activities, click here. Generally, funding is provided to:

Develop seismic mitigation plans;

Prepare inventories and conduct seismic safety inspections of critical structures and lifelines;

Update building codes, zoning codes, and ordinances to enhance seismic safety;

Increase earthquake awareness and education; and

Encourage the development of multi-State groups for such purposes.

Types of Funding Opportunities

In an effort to provide eligible States and Territories with multiple funding and project management options, as well as to allow for multi-State coordination of pro-jects, the Earthquake Consortium and State Support program utilizes two types of funding opportunities; Direct State Assistance and Earthquake Consortia & Partner Support. Direct State Assistance

This funding opportunity is provided to those States and Territories that have been determined to be at a moder-ate to very high risk of earthquakes.

“FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and Improve our capa-bility to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.”

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Federal Emergency Management Agency

NEHRP Earthquake Consortium and State Support Program

This determination is made and published annually by FEMA as the State Assistance Target Allocation Plan. The plan is based on the Seismic Design Category (SDC) per ASCE/SEI 7-10 Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures and the 2012 Interna-tional Residential Code (IRC) SDC maps. States with moderate earthquake risk (SDC C), are eligible for a baseline amount. A state with high earthquake risk (SDC D or above), will be eligible for the same baseline amount plus an additional award amount.

The additional amount is in proportion to the State’s An-nualized Earthquake Loss (AEL), which is from the FE-MA 366 HAZUS-MH Estimated Annualized Earth-quake Losses for the United States (not updated).

In addition, States and Territories must meet the statuto-ry 50 percent cash match requirement, and they must ensure that they who have the staffing capacity to man-age their anticipated level of involvement in FEMA-funded NEHRP projects and activities.

Funding is provided to eligible States and Territories through Cooperative Agreements that are managed by FEMA Regional earthquake program management staff.

About the 50% Cash Match

FEMA regulations, at 44 CFR 361.4, require States and Territories to provide a 50 percent “cash only” cost match for State assistance. “In-kind” matching is not acceptable.

Thus, every dollar FEMA provides to a State or Territory must be matched by one dollar from the State or Territory.

In order to demonstrate that States and Territories under-stand the conditions of the cash match requirement, and are prepared to meet that requirement, FEMA utilizes a Match Capability Statement. The statement must be signed by the State or Territory representative and re-turned to FEMA Headquarters prior to applying for assistance.

The cash cost match must be obligated by the end of the project period.

Earthquake Consortia & Partner Support

This funding opportunity is designed to facilitate the de-velopment and management of multi-State FEMA-funded NEHRP projects and activities. Funding is pro-vided to Earthquake Consortia & Partners through a Co-operative Agreement and applied to projects and activi-ties submitted to FEMA by eligible States, Territories and other Federal earthquake partners.

Unlike Direct State Assistance, this Cooperative Agree-ment is managed by FEMA Headquarters Earthquake Program management staff. This funding opportunity consists of two approaches:

State Support Projects, which are projects submittedby individual States and Territories and will be sup-ported by the appropriate consortia or partner

Earthquake Consortia & Partner State Assistance,which is non State-specific support provided byEarthquake consortia, partners and/or contractors.An example of this would be support for annualShakeOut drills.

Earthquake Consortia & Partner Support funding oppor-tunity applicants are not required to provide a 50 percent cash match.

How Funding Opportunities are Made Available

Each year FEMA publishes a Notice of Funding Oppor-tunity (NOFO) for both the Direct State Assistance and Consortia & Partners Support funding opportunities. The NOFOs are posted on Grants.gov and are available for public review.

Additional Information

General information about the National Earthquake Reduc-tion Program (NEHRP) - www.nehrp.gov

For general information about FEMA’s NEHRP efforts

FEMA Fact Sheet on NEHRP

FEMA Earthquake Publications

For information about federal earthquake grants and Coop-erative Agreements

Questions for FEMA Headquarters NEHRP program management staff can be emailed to: FEMA-NEHRP@fema.dhs.gov

“FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and Improve our capa-bility to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.”

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