The OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee (TC), the Emergency Management Adoption TC and the Emergency Interoperability Member Section are pleased to present the 'Distribution Element' technical white paper. The Distribution Element (DE) is one of a family of Standards that support Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL). EDXL began in 2004 as a project of the Disaster Management eGov Initiative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a means to enhance inter-agency emergency data communications. This paper provides a basic introduction to the DE, one of the important OASIS EDXL Standards for emergency management and response.