Domestic Federal Interagency Planning: Meeting a Homeland Security Need

Several reports appealed for an interagency planning capability to enhance preparedness, unify planning, and ensure a well-coordinated domestic federal response to catastrophic incidents. The White House Homeland Security Council's, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lesson Learned report suggested an enhanced interagency planning capability was required to address planning limitations at the national level, and called for the development of a federal planning and execution system. To address these recommendations, an interagency planning element called the Incident Management Planning Team (IMPT), was established to provide national contingency and crisis action incident management planning to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from natural disasters and terrorist acts. This article discusses domestic federal interagency planning and coordination, and the current domestic federal interagency planning capability for homeland security. The article aims to highlight the accomplishments of the Incident Management Planning Team (IMPT), discuss the tools available to assist domestic federal interagency planning, and articulate the current domestic federal interagency planning process.