Summary of the National Response Framework

The National Response Framework (NRF) sets the strategy and doctrine for how the whole community builds, sustains, and delivers the response core capabilities identified in the National Preparedness Goal in an integrated manner with the other mission (p. 1). The NRF is a framework for all types of threats and hazards, ranging from accidents, technological hazards, natural disasters, and human-caused incidents (p. 3). The NRF is based on the concept of tiered response with an understanding that most incidents start at the local or tribal level, and as needs exceed resources and capabilities, additional local, state, tribal, territorial, insular area, or federal assets may be required (p. 48). Focusing on community lifelines allows emergency managers and their partners to account for these complex interdependencies and prioritize response operations to achieve high-impact, multi-sector benefits (p. 2). First, community lifelines are interdependent and vulnerable to cascading failures (p. ii). Second, community lifeline stabilization relies on businesses and infrastructure owners and operators who have the expertise and primary responsibility for managing their systems in emergencies (p. ii).

Download the Overview of the NRF .

Overview of the National Response Framework

Emergency Support Functions and ESF Coordinators

One of the most difficult aspects of assembling the NRF-PLAT was to extract policies without losing the complex, collaborative, and multifaceted nature of the NRF and, more fundamentally, the “whole-of-government” response to large scale disasters and emergencies. As developers, we used a particular set of definitions and rules, and have captured them here for reference. We acknowledge that other rules and interpretations could have been applied, and the results would be equally valid.

Fortunately, the NRF identifies categories of partners (e.g., communities, federal government) and components of partners (e.g., private sector entities, specific executive branch agencies). We used these as the basis for defining primary and additional partners and specific designees, and heavily leveraged knowledge and expertise we have gained from interacting with federal, state and local authorities.

The NRF contains a mixture of statements, some of which are explicit recommendations and some of which express the principles upon which the NRF was designed. These have been captured in the tool but assigned a “category,” defined in more detail below.

Questions specifically related to the taxonomy should be referred to Kristin Omberg (kristin.omberg@pnnl.gov), Justine Spencer (justine.spencer@pnnl.gov), and Yavana Ganesh (yavana.ganesh@pnnl.gov). These developers spent hours agonizing over the definitions and welcome additional input and perspective.

Primary Partner: A partner was deemed primary if the responsibility for managing and executing the main response was explicitly assigned (e.g., “The federal government shall…”). If the responsibility was assigned equally to more than one partner (e.g. “The Federal Government in coordination with State, Tribal, Territorial, and Insular Area Governments shall…”), all equal partners were listed as primary.

Specific Designee: If the text of the NRF explicitly delegates a responsibility to entity (for example, if a responsibility of the federal government is specifically assigned to the Department of Homeland Security), the specific designee was captured.

Specific Role: If a responsibility is to be performed by an individual serving in a specific role (e.g., “The Governor will…”), the specific role was tagged. Note that not every responsibility has a specific role assigned.

Additional Designee: An organization that works to support the specific designee in completing the assigned tasks was tagged as an additional partner/designee (“The Federal Government provides assistance to Local, State, Tribal, Territorial, and Insular Area authorities…”).

Category: In an effort to organize the NRF, each responsibility was assigned as a requirement, recommendation, value statement, or training opportunity. A responsibility could be both a requirement and a value statement/training opportunity.

Requirement: If the responsibility outlined was mandatory (“Governments at all levels must plan…”), it was assigned as a requirement.

Recommendation: If the responsibility outlined was suggested (“Elected and appointed officials may...”), it was assigned as a recommendation.

Value Statement: If the responsibility was neither a requirement nor recommendation but instead mentions the standards of the agency/organization (“Public sector government resources alone cannot provide all the solutions when responding to incidents.”), it was assigned as a value statement.

Training Opportunity: If the responsibility encompasses educational components that would ensure the best course of action for future response (“The response core capabilities are the activities that generally must be accomplished in incident response, regardless of which levels of government are involved.”) it was assigned to the training category.