This is when I learned more about what a compact is. I was the president of the Washington State Emergency Management Association and having Washington state join EMAC was my legislative priority. It took two years and an earthquake to push it through the Washington state Legislature, but it did happen. The challenge was that it takes a vote of both houses of the legislature to have this state join an interstate compact. It wasn't important of course, until we had the Nisqually Earthquake and the legislature happened to be in session.
Thanks to then Sen. Jim Kastama who had introduced the legislation in the first place and held hearings on it, the legislation passed on the second go around. That is a tip to those needing legislative action in the world of emergency management to have your legislation drafted and ready to go, so you can take advantage of disasters when finally someone is paying attention and there is the political will to do something.
What got me thinking about EMAC was this Governing magazine article Let's Make a Pact: States Increasingly Problem Solve Together, which will provide you a bit more background on compacts and the variety of them that exists.
