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Power search · FEMA second appeals and CBCA arbitrations

Appeal Decisions Search

Builds Google’s advanced-search URL directly, with separate AND, EQUALS, OR and NOT parameters, aimed at FEMA’s second appeal decisions, the full text of the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals’ FEMA arbitration decisions, or both. Google’s filtering, personalization and auto-correction are switched off so more matching decisions come back.

Search in

FEMA second appealsDecision pages on fema.gov/appeal

CBCA arbitrationsFull text of the Board’s FEMA arbitration decisions (PDF)

BothOne search across appeals and arbitrations

Words and phrases

ANDAll of these wordsEvery word must appear (as_q). Quotes keep phrases together. EQUALSThis exact phraseAppears word for word (as_epq). ORAny of these wordsAt least one must appear (as_oq). NOTNone of these wordsExclude results with these (as_eq).

Words near each otherTerm A within N words of term B (added to AND).

Topics

Require every selected topic (AND) Match any selected topic (OR)

Filters (added to AND)

State or territory Disaster numberDigits only, e.g. 4337 PA category Outcome wordingMatches words in the decision. Published after Published before

Google switches

Show results Google hides as similar filter=0 No personalized results pws=0 No auto-correction of terms nfpr=1 Verbatim tbs=li:1 100 results per page num=100 (Google has ignored this since Sept. 2025; kept in case it returns) Words must be in the page title as_occt=title FEMA source: search all of fema.gov as_sitesearch=fema.gov

How the parameters work

Logic	Google parameter	Example
AND	`as_q`	overtime "straight time"
EQUALS	`as_epq`	force account labor
OR	`as_oq`	EMAC "mutual aid"
NOT	`as_eq`	snow
Site	`as_sitesearch`	fema.gov/appeal or cbca.gov/files/decisions
File type	`as_filetype`	pdf (CBCA decisions)
Page	`start`	0 = page 1, 10 = page 2, 20 = page 3

Why the CBCA needs special handling: its FEMA page is only an index. The decisions are PDFs in a separate folder, and every FEMA arbitration file name contains “FEMA,” so GovStar searches that folder for PDFs with FEMA in the address.
filter=0 usually adds the most results: Google stops collapsing near-identical pages.
Use Jump to results page to open several pages of results in separate tabs.
Outcome and date filters rely on the words and dates Google sees, so treat them as a guide. CBCA decisions often say the panel “grants” or “denies” rather than “granted.”
Google does not index every decision. If a search comes up short, use the CBCA or FEMA index pages linked below.

Second Appeals Tracker (status and timing) →FEMA’s appeals database CBCA FEMA arbitrations index Arbitration (CBCA)How to appeal Get help with an appeal