Executive Order 12148: The Order That Created FEMA and Its Transfers

Executive Order 12148, signed by President Jimmy Carter on July 20, 1979, carried out the operational work of standing up the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It reassigned presidential authorities that had been delegated to several older offices, handing them to FEMA’s new director, and it gave the director authority to set federal policy for and coordinate all civil defense and civil emergency functions across the executive branch. The order did not create FEMA itself; that had already happened earlier in 1979 through Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978.¹

The Order Versus the Reorganization Plan

Two instruments together produced FEMA, and they are often mixed up. Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 was the legal foundation. Under the Reorganization Act, the President could propose restructuring the executive branch, and the proposal took effect unless Congress rejected it. Congress allowed the plan to go forward, which formally established FEMA as an independent establishment in the executive branch and set its leadership structure: a Senate-confirmed Director, a Deputy Director, up to four Associate Directors, and ten Regional Directors. The plan also merged five predecessor agencies from four different departments into the new entity.²

Executive Order 12148 came next and handled the details the plan did not. It moved presidential functions that had been delegated to the old agencies over to FEMA’s director, delegated the President’s authority under several major disaster statutes, and defined FEMA’s coordinating role within the executive branch. Some accounts credit the order with transfers that actually originated in the reorganization plan; the distinction matters if you are reading the order to understand what it does and does not do.¹

The Transfers the Order Made

The first part of EO 12148 reassigned to FEMA’s director all presidential functions previously delegated to three agencies:

The Defense Civil Preparedness Agency in the Department of Defense (Section 1-101).
The Federal Disaster Assistance Administration in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, including functions that had been redelegated to the Department of Commerce for community readiness plans covering severe weather emergencies (Section 1-102).
The Federal Preparedness Agency in the General Services Administration (Section 1-103).

Section 1-104 transferred to FEMA all presidential functions under the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977, including those the Office of Science and Technology Policy had been performing. This gave FEMA a role in seismic hazard mitigation from the start, alongside its disaster response duties.¹

The Coordinating Authority the Order Granted

Section 2-101 of the order gave FEMA’s director broad authority over the rest of the executive branch on emergency matters. The director was directed to “establish Federal policies for, and coordinate, all civil defense and civil emergency planning, management, mitigation, and assistance functions of Executive agencies.” That single provision made FEMA the hub of federal emergency management rather than one participant among many.¹

Statutes the Order Delegated to FEMA

Alongside the transfers, EO 12148 delegated the President’s authority under several major laws to FEMA’s director, making the agency responsible for carrying out those statutes on the President’s behalf.

Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950

The Civil Defense Act gave the federal government its framework for protecting civilians from attack. When President Truman signed it, the focus was enemy assault: shelters, evacuations, and emergency services after a military strike.³ By 1979, “emergency preparedness” under the law had grown to cover any hazard and any measures taken before, during, or after a disaster to minimize effects on the civilian population.⁴

Disaster Relief Act of 1974

The Disaster Relief Act of 1974 created the basic disaster-response structure still in use: governors request presidential declarations, the President appoints a federal coordinating officer, and assistance flows to the affected area. That assistance included temporary housing, grants for individuals and families, loans to local governments that lost tax revenue, unemployment benefits for displaced workers, and emergency repairs to public facilities.⁵

EO 12148 delegated most of these authorities to FEMA’s director. The President kept a short list: the power to declare emergencies and major disasters, authority over repair of federal facilities, and control over food coupon and surplus commodity distribution.¹

Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977

This law established a national program to reduce earthquake risk through research, building standards, and preparedness planning. EO 12148 folded all of the President’s functions under the act into FEMA.¹

Why the Order Was Needed

Before 1979, federal disaster response was scattered. The Department of Housing and Urban Development ran disaster assistance and flood insurance. The Department of Defense handled civil defense preparedness. The General Services Administration managed federal preparedness planning. The Department of Commerce oversaw fire prevention programs. Each ran on its own leadership, budget, and priorities.

State and local officials facing a hurricane, earthquake, or major fire had to work through a maze of federal offices to get help. No one in the federal government could compel cooperation among the agencies handling housing, supplies, or civil defense. President Carter’s own message with the reorganization plan called for consolidation to “cut duplicative administrative costs and strengthen our ability to deal effectively with emergencies.” The reorganization plan produced the single agency; EO 12148 gave that agency’s director the authority to actually run coordinated operations.

What Has Changed Since 1979

The order remains on the books, but the legal terrain around it has shifted three times.

The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, signed November 23, 1988, amended the Disaster Relief Act of 1974 and became the primary statutory authority for federal disaster response. It codified the categories of assistance FEMA coordinates, clarified the presidential declaration process, and established the Disaster Relief Fund through which Congress appropriates disaster money.⁶

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created the Department of Homeland Security and moved FEMA into it. When DHS opened on March 1, 2003, FEMA lost the independent-agency status that Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 had given it, and Title V of the Homeland Security Act placed FEMA under the department’s Emergency Preparedness and Response directorate.⁷⁸

After Hurricane Katrina, the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 kept FEMA within DHS but strengthened its standing. The law designated the FEMA Administrator as “the principal advisor to the President, the Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary for all matters relating to emergency management in the United States” and gave the Administrator authority to make recommendations directly to Congress after informing the Secretary of Homeland Security.⁹

Two 2025 actions have reopened the question the 1979 order tried to answer. On January 24, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a Council to Assess the Federal Emergency Management Agency, directing it to evaluate FEMA’s disaster response over the previous four years, compare federal performance with state, local, and private sector efforts, and examine whether FEMA should act as a support agency supplementing state-led responses rather than supplanting state control. The council’s report was also to analyze “the principal arguments in the public debate for and against FEMA reform.”¹⁰ In Congress, the FEMA Act of 2025 (H.R. 4669) would pull FEMA back out of DHS and re-establish it as an independent agency, transferring all existing FEMA functions to the newly independent agency, giving it its own Inspector General, and requiring a liaison office to maintain coordination with DHS during and after the transition. The bill would essentially restore the structure that Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 first created and that Executive Order 12148 was written to make operational.¹¹

1
National Archives. Executive Order 12148 – Federal Emergency Management
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978
3
Harry S. Truman Presidential Library. Statement by the President Upon Signing the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 5195a – Definitions
5
Congress.gov. S.3062 – 93rd Congress (1973-1974) – Disaster Relief Act of 1974
6
Federal Emergency Management Agency. Stafford Act
7
Department of Homeland Security. Creation of the Department of Homeland Security
8
Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security Act of 2002
9
U.S. Department of the Interior. Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006
10
The White House. Council to Assess the Federal Emergency Management Agency
11
Congress.gov. H.R.4669 – 119th Congress (2025-2026) – FEMA Act of 2025