"NEP activities provide emergency responders and policymakers with the tools to plan, organize, conduct, and evaluate exercises as well as a disciplined approach to analyzing findings from exercises. The NEP not only provides opportunities to practice and test capabilities, policies, plans and procedures, but it also highlights potential shortfalls through the processes of after-action reporting and subsequent improvement activities. "Prior to the NEP, there was no formal approach to prioritizing, scheduling and improvement planning for exercises. This lack of coordination resulted in activities that competed for resources, contributed to exercise fatigue, and were based on conflicting standards for exercise design, conduct and evaluation. The NEP is designed to provide a framework for prioritizing and focusing Federal and State exercise activities to best utilize departments', agencies' and jurisdictions' limited time and resources, as well as to ensure Federal, State, and local exercises lead to significant improvements in policies, plans and performance. "The NEP is both a National and an interagency program. It serves as the principal mechanism for examining the preparation and efficiency of national leaders, their staffs, the organizations and systems they lead, as well as to examine and adopt policy changes. The NEP does not preclude or replace individual departments' and agencies' exercise programs. Rather, it is the overarching exercise program that unifies homeland security preparedness exercise strategies and links appropriate department and agency exercises to provide a single, comprehensive exercise program. "The NEP implements a strategic planning cycle to guide the Tier I exercises, or NLEs. Central to this cycle is the Five-Year Schedule, which will incorporate policy priorities into the strategic scheduling of NLEs, around which departments and agencies can establish supporting training and exercise activities to identify and refine issues beforehand. The Tier I NLEs will be executed on a four-year subject-specific cycle with rotating focus on: (1) Administration Transition Training; (2) Domestic Natural Disasters; (3) National Security; and (4) Domestic Terrorism". (FEMA, Statement of Dennis Schrader, October 2007, pp. 2-4) "The NEP requires Departments and Agencies to fully fund their respective responsibilities within the NEP". (FEMA, Statement of Dennis Schrader, October 2007, p. 7)