The California Emergency Services Act, among other things, establishes the Office of Emergency Services within the office of the Governor, under the charge of a Director of Emergency Services appointed by the Governor. The act and other existing law set forth the duties and authority of the office and the director with respect to specified emergency preparedness, mitigation, and response activities within the state. Existing law requires the director to establish a Curriculum Development Advisory Committee to advise the office on the development of course curricula including criteria for terrorism awareness curriculum content to meet the training needs of state and local emergency response personnel and volunteers. Existing law requires this basic terrorism awareness training to include, among other things, an overview of conventional, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats, threat and hazard recognition, and gathering, verifying, assessing, and communicating incident information. Existing law requires every agency responsible for development of terrorism awareness training and every agency that employs or uses first responders to give a high priority to the completion of that training.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would require the Office of Emergency Services to create an antiterrorism task force. The bill would require the task force to share information with federal law enforcement agencies.