# Executive Order: Achieving Efficiency Through State and Local Preparedness
Executive Order 14239 establishes a fundamental shift in national preparedness policy by emphasizing state, local, and individual responsibility over federal management. The order frames this approach as a "commonsense" solution that will enhance national security while creating a more resilient nation through decentralized decision-making. According to the order, empowering states to make infrastructure choices will benefit taxpayers by creating more efficient systems to address various threats including cyber attacks, wildfires, hurricanes, and space weather. This represents a significant departure from previous administrations' more federally-centered approaches to national resilience and emergency management.
The order mandates several specific policy reviews and new frameworks with defined timelines. Within 90 days, a National Resilience Strategy must be published articulating priorities for advancing national resilience, to be reviewed every four years. The order requires comprehensive reviews of existing critical infrastructure policies (within 180 days), national continuity policies (within 180 days), and preparedness and response policies (within 240 days), with recommendations for revisions or replacements. Notably, the order explicitly excludes policies related to "misinformation," "disinformation," or "malinformation" from these reviews, directing they be handled separately. Additionally, within 240 days, the order requires development of a National Risk Register to quantify threats to national infrastructure.
Implementation responsibilities are distributed across multiple high-level officials, particularly the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), who must coordinate most of the mandated reviews in consultation with various agency heads. The Secretary of Homeland Security is specifically tasked with proposing changes to federal preparedness frameworks within one year, addressing what the order characterizes as "bureaucratic and complicated" overlapping federal functions. The order claims these reforms will improve communication between federal officials and state and local governments, ultimately providing citizens with better protection through more efficient governance. Throughout, the order frames these changes as necessary corrections to perceived federal overreach and inefficiency in disaster management and infrastructure protection.