Enhancing Stakeholder Support and Outreach for Preparedness Grants Act

The bill would amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to add new outreach and technical assistance requirements to two major terrorism-preparedness grant programs: the Urban Area Security Initiative and the State Homeland Security Grant Program. FEMA would be required to engage stakeholders on an ongoing basis — before, during, and after grant awards — including by conducting annual surveys of state, local, tribal, and territorial entities about grant effectiveness and FEMA's outreach efforts. FEMA would also be required to publish summaries of that feedback and explain how it was incorporated into future grant funding notices.

The bill would not change funding levels for either grant program or alter eligibility rules. It would add two reporting obligations: the Government Accountability Office must submit a report to FEMA and Congress within two years of enactment evaluating the outreach, and FEMA must submit its own report to Congress within three years describing actions taken and survey results.

State, local, tribal, and territorial governments that apply for or receive grants under the Urban Area Security Initiative or the State Homeland Security Grant Program would be the primary beneficiaries of the new outreach and technical assistance requirements. FEMA administrators would face new obligations to survey those entities, compile feedback, and report to Congress. The Government Accountability Office would be tasked with an independent review.

Jurisdictions that have struggled to navigate complex homeland security grant applications would gain formal channels for feedback and technical help throughout the grant cycle. If FEMA is required to explain publicly how stakeholder input shapes future funding notices, smaller or less-resourced communities — which historically have less grant-writing capacity — could see more accessible and responsive grant processes.

FEMA would implement the requirements through its existing grant-management infrastructure, adding annual survey mechanisms and feedback-summary processes to both the Urban Area Security Initiative and the State Homeland Security Grant Program cycles. The Administrator has discretion to determine additional feedback mechanisms beyond the mandatory annual surveys. The Comptroller General would independently assess FEMA's compliance and effectiveness within two years of enactment and report to FEMA and the relevant House and Senate committees. FEMA would then submit its own self-assessment report to those same committees within three years of enactment, covering survey results and actions taken.