Executive Order 12148

Executive Order 12148 was an executive order enacted by President Jimmy Carter on July 20, 1979 to establish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The order combined several federal agencies tasked with emergency preparedness and civil defense spread across the executive departments into a unified entity that was established as a stand-alone agency, free of Cabinet interference, with authority as the lead federal agency in a presidentially-declared disaster.

The agency's place within the governmental structure was changed on March 1, 2003, when FEMA became part of the Department of Homeland Security's Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate.