The Disaster Relief Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-288) is a United States federal law that established the process of presidential

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 disaster declarations. At one point, more than one hundred federal agencies were involved in handling disasters and emergencies. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 consolidated many of them into the new Federal Emergency Management Agency

Federal Emergency Management Agency

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...

 (FEMA) by Executive Order 12127.

In November 1988, the United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 amended the Act and renamed it the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act

Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act

The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act is a United States federal law designed to bring an orderly and systemic means of federal natural disaster assistance for state and local governments in carrying out their responsibilities to aid citizens...

(Public Law 100-707).

This act was further amended by the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000.