Federal, regional, State, and local plans must be integrated and synchronized to give us a truly national response to a future catastrophic incident. To pursue this end, DoD has partnered with DHS to develop the Task Force for Emergency Readiness (or TFER) initiative. The TFER is under the direct leadership of the Governor's state emergency management structure and teams State civilian planners, National Guard planners, DHS Federal Preparedness Coordinators, and DoD Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officers to: (1) Produce State plans tailored to the unique strengths and vulnerabilities of each individual State; and (2) Facilitate the integration and synchronization of local, State, Regional, Federal, and private sector incident planning. The TFER initiative will enable merging bottom-up local/State planning with the Federal topdown approach to integrate the Federal-State planning process, thereby implementing the coordination envisioned by the IPS and achieving a unity of effort that mirrors our nation's principles of self reliance and the federal model of government. In short, each state's TFER will provide a focal point for catastrophic response planning, integrating all relevant capabilities - military and civilian - found within the public and private sectors. The strength of the TFER is in the fact that it will be a scalable, flexible organization whose responsibilities can be uniquely tailored to fit each State's needs. Typical task force functions might include: (3) Completing operational plans for identified catastrophic scenarios; (4) Promoting State deliberate planning and coordination; (5) Assisting in ensuring local planning capability requirements are addressed; (6) Offering a conduit to Federal response planning and capabilities (e.g. FEMA, DoD); (7) Aiding State-to-State coordination for regional incidents (e.g., a hurricane); (8) Supporting State crisis action planning; (9) Implementing exercise lessons learned to improve subsequent planning; (10) Informing State emergency manager dialogue and decision-making; (11) Supporting multi-level policy coordination; and (12) Informing logical, fiscally responsible decisions to address capability or capacity shortfalls. Initially, the TFER initiative will be tested in select pilot states with the intent of expanding the concept to all States and territories in the United States. (DOD, Paul McHale Senate Testimony, June 26, 2008, pp. 20-24)