Bush signs the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act

President George W. Bush signed the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (120 Stat. 1394) on October 4, 2006, restructuring FEMA after the agency's Katrina collapse. The law established FEMA as a distinct entity within DHS, designated the FEMA Administrator as the president's principal emergency-management advisor, and required Senate-confirmed administrators to have at least five years of executive leadership and emergency-management experience. The act also reabsorbed preparedness functions that DHS had stripped from FEMA in 2003.