BY LAW, When a national emergency is declared the federal government is in charge of the response.

[Igel]

4. No, that's misunderstanding.

By law, when a national emergency is declared the president can claim authority, but must do so by naming the authority he is claiming.

When the President declares a national emergency, no powers or authorities made available by statute for use in the event of an emergency shall be exercised unless and until the President specifies the provisions of law under which he proposes that he, or other officers will act. Such specification may be made either in the declaration of a national emergency, or by one or more contemporaneous or subsequent Executive orders published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter34&edition=prelim

It was made fairly clear that one reason for doing this was to allow invoking the DPA. No emergency with this power claimed, no way to exercise this power. That was made clear a month ago. The feds *can* be in charge, but only if they want to. Notice how that DPA invocation worked out--most people don't like it, because one effect is that the feds can order a company to accept a contract and make that contract job 1. You made 1.5 million masks and you're going to ship them to Guam, the feds can force you to accept an contract this morning for 1.5 million masks to be shipped to Pocatello early this afternoon--and stipulate that's the first contract to be filled. (Sorry, Guam.)


We have had multiple national emergencies declared. That did not make the president all-powerful and put the federal government in the driver's seat in every respect.

The longest running national emergency dates from 1979 (renewed in 2018). Its about Iran. https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/NEA%20Declarations.pdf