At the end of August 1976, in the lingering patriotism of America’s bicentennial celebrations, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act, a bill meant to rein in past delegations of emergency power and ensure that the legislature maintains control over the use of such authorities going forward. President Gerald Ford, who had turned back Ronald Reagan’s challenge at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City earlier that month, signed the NEA into law on September 14.

The law was the culmination of a years-long process initiated to study the implications of terminating a 1950 national emergency proclamation, issued by President Truman during the Korean War, that was still in force and in use throughout the Vietnam War. The special committee soon realized that there were, in fact, four extant national emergencies, the oldest dating back to 1933. Dismayed that a majority of Americans had “lived their entire lives under emergency rule,” the committee was clear-eyed about where blame belonged: “This dangerous state of affairs is a direct result of Congress’ failure to establish effective means for the handling of emergencies and its willingness to defer to Executive branch leadership.” 

To remedy that situation, the NEA established procedures and limits for the use of powers authorized by statutes in the event of an emergency. It required the president to declare a national emergency and specify the statutory provisions he intended to use to address it. Through the bill, Congress adopted expedited procedures to terminate a declaration by concurrent resolution, a vehicle that passes both chambers but requires no presidential signature, and it directed each chamber to meet every six months to consider a termination vote. Absent termination or renewal by the president, an emergency would lapse on its anniversary.

Trouble arrived early. Ford signed the bill but questioned its central mechanism, calling the concurrent-resolution provision unconstitutional under Article I, Section 7, which requires that laws be sent to the President for his signature or veto. That view was largely vindicated in 1983, when the Supreme Court held in INS v. Chadha that a similar legislative veto provision violated the Constitution’s bicameralism and presentment requirements. 

When Congress responded in 1985, tucking a fix into the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, it swapped in a joint resolution, which also passes both chambers but requires the president’s signature, like any other legislation. As Cato’s then-Senior Vice President for Policy Gene Healy told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in 2024, “Presidents now enjoy broad power to wield emergency authority however they please unless and until Congress can assemble a veto-proof supermajority to stop them.”

Declaring a national emergency unlocks well over 100 statutory powers for the president. And as of the Brennan Center’s September 2026 tally, 52 declared emergencies are in effect. The oldest is President Carter’s November 1979 declaration of an emergency with respect to Iran, repeatedly renewed ever since. Congress has terminated exactly one emergency in fifty years: the COVID-19 declaration, ended by joint resolution in April 2023, weeks before the administration planned to let it expire anyway. A joint resolution terminating President Trump’s 2019 southern border emergency passed both chambers but did not overcome the president’s veto.

At fifty, the NEA faces a midlife crisis. Presidents use it to do an end-run around Congress on ordinary domestic policy. In January 2025, President Trump declared a “National Energy Emergency” to speed energy development and transportation. He then invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs keyed to declared—and dubious—emergencies related to synthetic opioids, migration, and “large and persistent annual” trade deficits. (The Supreme Court later held that tariffs were not authorized under IEEPA.) The Biden administration, for its part, relied on the COVID-19 emergency to trigger the HEROES Act, which lets the Secretary of Education waive or modify student financial assistance programs, and used that emergency power to cancel roughly $400 billion in federal student loan debt. The Court rejected that reading, too.

Because the relevant statutes generally require only that an emergency be declared, courts are reluctant to examine whether one actually exists. Courts police the scope of the power claimed, not the sincerity of the emergency invoked. That duty lies with Congress. During floor debate in September 1975, Representative Romano Mazzoli observed that by enacting the NEA, Congress would be deliberately forcing itself to grapple with the “vexing problems of national emergencies,” and that the “blame as well as the glory will be on the shoulders of the Congress in the years ahead.” 

“But that is as it is supposed to be,” Mazzoli rightly acknowledged; “that is the responsible course to take.” 

Fifty years on, Congress must repair what it built. Delegations of emergency power to the executive should be reserved for genuine exigencies rather than routine governance, and they should revert to Congress as quickly as possible. Workable proposals already exist. In the 118th Congress, the ARTICLE ONE Act and the REPUBLIC Act would each have a sunset declaration after 30 days absent an affirmative congressional vote. Both were reported out of committee on a bipartisan basis in September 2024. Neither received a floor vote.

For the NEA’s golden jubilee, this Congress should take up serious reform to ensure, as the 94th Congress tried to, that Americans born today don’t live their entire lives under a national emergency.