It is recognized that natural and manmade hazards may not be independent of one another in any given disaster, and it is also recognized that emergency personnel are often called upon to meet emergencies outside of their primary field of service. Furthermore, planning for and responding to different hazards have certain common elements. To make maximum use of these commonalities, the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Director’) is authorized and directed to:“(1) initiate, within one year after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 19, 1980], studies with the objective of defining and developing a multihazard research, planning, and implementation process within the Agency;
“(2) develop, within one year after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 19, 1980], in cooperation with State and local governments, prototypical multihazard mitigation projects which can be used to evaluate several approaches to the varying hazard mitigation needs of State and local governments and to assess the applicability of these prototypes to other jurisdictions with similar needs;
“(3) investigate and evaluate, within one year after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 19, 1980], the effectiveness of a range of incentives for hazard reductions that can be applied at the State and local government levels;
“(4) prepare recommendations as to the need for legislation that will limit the legal liability of those third party persons or groups which are called upon to provide technical assistance and advice to public employees, including policemen, firemen, and transportation employees, who are generally the first to respond to a hazardous incident; which recommendations shall be provided to the appropriate committees of Congress within one hundred and eighty days after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 19, 1980];
“(5) prepare, within one hundred and eighty days after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 19, 1980], a report on the status of the Agency’s emergency information and communications systems which will provide recommendations on—“(A) the advisability of developing a single, unified emergency information and communication system for use by the Agency in carrying out its emergency management activities;
“(B) the potential for using communication and remote sensing satellites as part of the Agency’s emergency information and communication system; and
“(C) the type of system to be developed, if needed, including the relationship of the proposed system and its needs to the existing and emerging information and communication systems in other Federal agencies;
“(6) conduct a program of multihazard research, planning, and mitigation in coordination with those studies and evaluations authorized in paragraphs (1) through (5), as well as other hazard research, planning, and mitigation deemed necessary by the Director;
“(7) conduct emergency first response programs so as to better train and prepare emergency personnel to meet emergencies outside of their primary field of service; and
“(8) conduct a program of planning, preparedness, and mitigation related to the multiple direct and indirect hazards resulting from the occurrence of large earthquakes.