Why It Matters

Portions of all 50 states, plus territories and the District of Columbia, face varying earthquake vulnerability as annualized losses reach $14.7 billion per year, according to a new Congressional Research Service report.

The review of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) describes a coordinated federal effort to understand hazards and reduce risks, rather than prevent earthquakes, with implementation depending heavily on state, local, and private decisions on codes, retrofits, and emergency planning.

Authorization of appropriations expired September 30, 2023, while enacted funding totaled $165.2 million for fiscal year 2023 and $163.5 million for fiscal year 2024, compared with a National Research Council recommendation above $300 million annually for 20 years.

That gap frames choices for the Trump administration on monitoring, research, engineering guidance, and mitigation assistance, and for lawmakers weighing reauthorization proposals in the 119th Congress, including S. 320, H.R. 3168, and H.R. 2568, which can be followed by searching Legis1.

The Big Picture

Congress created NEHRP through the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977 and reauthorized it in 2018, maintaining a four-agency structure.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has served as lead agency since 2004, coordinating the United States Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the National Science Foundation across research, monitoring, engineering, and implementation.

The 2018 law removed prediction language and added a finding that well-funded seismological research could support full implementation of effective early warning, alongside definitions of community resilience as the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and adapt to seismic events.

An early warning system called ShakeAlert operates in California, Oregon, and Washington, offering seconds to minutes of notice for automated actions and protective behavior, with a review from October 17, 2019, through September 1, 2023, recording 95 alerts for magnitude 4.5 and larger events, one false event, and six poorly located events.

Federal products feed model codes through FEMA recommended provisions into private-sector consensus standards for state and local adoption, with a 2019 study estimating benefit-cost ratios of 12 to one for seismic code provisions and 13 to one for retrofits.

A fiscal year 2022 through 2029 strategic plan identifies eight focus areas covering subduction zone science, performance-based design for functional recovery, multisystem coordination, expanded early warning, lifeline guidance, implementer guidance, earthquake sequence characterization, and risk reduction for federal agencies, while a required biennial coordinated interagency budget has not been completed.

The Bottom Line

A May 4, 2022, Government Accountability Office assessment made seven recommendations on national risk assessment, tribal awareness, researcher communication, performance measures, resource leveraging, and dissemination, with work reported as underway.

A September 30, 2023, advisory committee report made six recommendations on the research-to-practice pipeline, functional recovery, scenarios, problem-focused studies, international lessons, and insurance research.

A joint NIST-FEMA publication from January 2021 offered seven recommendations and four options for Congress and the executive branch on reoccupancy and functional recovery time, pointing to incentives, federal building requirements, technical development, and education.

What to watch is whether reauthorization addresses functional recovery, sensor density, alert delivery, state, local, and tribal engagement, and performance indicators amid lapsed authorization and incomplete fiscal year 2025 through fiscal year 2026 totals.

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