Committee approves two emergency-management bills: alignment with FEMA timelines and tribal inclusion

Delegate Dougie McLaughlin presented two emergency-management bills.

House Bill 347 would change the local emergency-management plan review cycle from four to five years to align local planning with FEMA and state mitigation timelines. McLaughlin said he had consulted the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM), which recognized room for process improvement but took no formal position. Committee members asked whether an emergency carve‑out exists; McLaughlin and others noted there is no such carve‑out in current law.

House Bill 349 would explicitly allow VDEM to include federally recognized tribes in preparedness, response and recovery activities by making tribal participation voluntary and permitting memoranda of understanding. Jackson Martingale, a student with the University of Virginia School of Law’s state and local government policy clinic, told the committee the bill fixes a gap in Virginia law, enables tribes to participate in cooperative frameworks with localities, and respects tribal sovereignty by making participation voluntary.

The committee reported HB 347 by a vote of 18 to 0 and HB 349 by a vote of 19 to 0.