Gary,
My reading of PD 5 echoes your take. Clearly NIMS will in effect "guide" the process evolution so, in my view the earlier in EM-TC standards development we acknowledge the constraint of realpolitik, the better accepted our standard will be.
I would also call everyone's attention to the "certification" language in PD 5, I believe in clause 15 (sorry ladies and gents I don't have it in front of me presently), based on my experience with various military and agency doctines the verbiage strongly suggests that formal certification of some kind, (probably to be defined under Phase 1 - April '03), will be a precursor to any inititive being included within the NIMS construct. If we do our work effectively enough, therefore, it is possible that initial EM-TC products "could" be included as elemental components of that certification. So, the compliance stakes are VERY high here.
As Gary's signature quote from Harry Truman suggests, it IS amazing what one can accomplish when setting one's ego aside and, as a group we do that more effectively every week. But we need to keep the time honored legal contract axiom "time is of the essence" in front of us as well, else we be rendered pragmatically obsolete before we're fully ramped up.
Rick