(a) The International Emergency Management Assistance Memorandum of Understanding, hereinafter referred to as the "compact," is made and entered into by and among such of the jurisdictions as shall enact or adopt this compact, hereinafter referred to as "party jurisdictions." For the purposes of this agreement, the term "jurisdictions" may include any or all of the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut and the provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, and such other states and provinces as may hereafter become a party to this compact.

(b) The purpose of this compact is to provide for the possibility of mutual assistance among the jurisdictions entering into this compact in managing any emergency or disaster when the affected jurisdiction or jurisdictions ask for assistance, whether arising from natural disaster, technological hazard, manmade disaster, or civil emergency aspects of resource shortages.

(c) This compact also provides for the process of planning mechanisms among the agencies responsible and for mutual cooperation, including, if need be, emergency-related exercises, testing, or other training activities using equipment and personnel simulating performance of any aspect of the giving and receiving of aid by party jurisdictions or subdivisions or party jurisdictions during emergencies, with such actions occurring outside actual declared emergency periods. Mutual assistance in this compact may include the use of emergency forces by mutual agreement among party jurisdictions. (Added 2003, No. 121 (Adj. Sess.), § 84, eff. June 8, 2004.)