SMART RESPONSE Act

Requires the President to waive requirements under the hazard mitigation grant program that a project be cost-effective and substantially reduce the risk of future damage, hardship, loss, or suffering resulting from a major disaster or specify alternative requirements if a state requests such waiver to facilitate the timely use of funds. Prohibits the President from waiving any such requirement relating to fair housing, nondiscrimination, labor standards, or the environment.

Allows an individual grant recipient to receive funds before performance of the project for which that individual is seeking a grant if: (1) the Administrator approves the project; and (2) the recipient certifies to the state, and the state certifies to the Administrator, that the grant will be used in the performance of the project.

Requires the individual grant recipient, after the expenditure of all grant funds, to submit a certification to the state grant recipient, and the state to submit a certification to the Administrator, regarding whether the funds were used in the performance of the approved project. Authorizes the Administrator to design and implement appropriate audit procedures and requirements.

Directs the Administrator to provide annual reports to specified congressional committees on the mechanisms that are being utilized to expedite funding distribution.

(Sec. 4) Directs the Administrator: (1) in coordination with the heads of appropriate federal agencies with responsibilities under the National Response Plan (NRP), states, local governments, and appropriate nongovernmental organizations, to submit to Congress regional evacuation and sheltering plans that address national interstate major disasters or emergencies, that incorporate all appropriate modes of transportation, that clearly define the roles and responsibilities of federal, state, and local governments in the evacuation plan, and that identify regional and national shelters capable of housing evacuees and victims of an emergency or major disaster in any part of the United States; (2) with the head of any federal agency with responsibilities under those plans, to implement those plans; and (3) in coordination with states, local governments, and appropriate nongovernmental entities, to develop a national database inventorying available shelters that can be shared with states and local governments.

Requires the Administrator to conduct an analysis comparing the costs, benefits, and health and safety concerns of evacuating versus sheltering individuals with special needs during an emergency or major disaster, considering: (1) areas with populations of not less than 20,000 individuals needing medical assistance or lacking the ability to self evacuate; and (2) areas that do not have an all hazards resistance shelter.

Directs the Administrator: (1) to provide technical assistance to states and local governments in developing and exercising evacuation and sheltering plans which identify and use regional shelters, manpower, logistics, physical facilities, and modes of transportation to evacuate and shelter large groups of people; and (2) in coordination with the heads of appropriate federal agencies with NRP responsibilities, to obtain and share with state, local, regional, and tribal governments information on evacuation statistics and monitoring from the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Evacuation Traffic Information System and other transportation data for planning purposes. Requires the Comptroller General to submit to Congress a report assessing the need to update that System to adequately address the needs of state, local, regional, and tribal governments.