Reading Room Document

Disaster Assistance and the Supremacy Clause

As an agency of the United States, acting pursuant to a valid delegation of the President's statutory authority to provide disaster assistance to states, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is not subject to state regulations or prohibitions which would impede the performance of its federal functions. However, the Supremacy Clause cannot be relied upon by FEMA to shield it from all state regulation of or objections to its disaster relief activities. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/22691/download.

June 26, 1981