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Jennifer Rubin writes in the Washington Post that:

[the US President's] declaration of an emergency can be overridden by a simple majority of both houses

Is it true that a presidential declaration of emergency in the US can be overridden by simple majorities of both houses, i.e. the US House of Representatives and the US Senate?

Is it true that a presidential declaration of emergency in the US can be overridden by simple majorities of both houses, i.e. the US House of Representatives and the US Senate?

In theory, yes. In practice, probably not. In theory, the President could agree with Congress that the emergency is over. In practice, the President would likely object the resolution and send it back to Congress with his veto. In that case, it would take a 2/3 majority in both houses to override the veto.

As originally written, the National Emergencies Act of 1976 explicitly allowed a simple majority in both houses of Congress to terminate a Presidential declaration of an emergency. From https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/94/hr3884/text (emphasis mine),

SEC. 202. (a) Any national emergency declared by the President in accordance with this title shall terminate if —

1. Congress terminates the emergency by concurrent resolution ; or




2. the President issues a proclamation terminating the
   emergency.

This simple majority override ran into a severe problem with Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), which addressed a case concerning a law that allowed a legislative veto by a single house of Congress. The 7-2 Supreme Court decision on that case very broadly ruled unconstitutional not just that particular law but also virtually all other attempts by Congress to thwart by legislative veto what is very explicitly in the Constitution. As a result, Congress in 1985 modified the termination procedures of the National Emergencies Act to read (emphasis mine)

§1622. National emergencies

(a) Termination methods

Any national emergency declared by the President in accordance with this subchapter shall terminate if—

1. 
   there is enacted into law a joint resolution terminating the emergency; or


2. the President issues a proclamation terminating the emergency.

Concurrent resolutions are non-binding and are not subject to presidential veto. Joint resolutions on the other hand are subject to presidential veto.

Yes and/or no
From US Code Chapter 34: National Emergencies

§1622. National emergencies

(a) Termination methods

Any national emergency declared by the President in accordance with this subchapter shall terminate if—

(1) there is enacted into law a joint resolution terminating the emergency; or

(2) the President issues a proclamation terminating the emergency.

However, since it calls for a joint resolution that means it would be subject to a presidential veto. This could be overridden only through a two-thirds majority vote in both houses.

The other good answers are based upon the assumption that the President's authority to declare a national emergency solely derives from law, rather than directly from the constitution.

Prior to the existence of the National Emergencies Act (1976), presidents already declared national emergencies.

For example 27 May 1941 Roosevelt issued a PROCLAMATION OF UNLIMITED NATIONAL EMERGENCY:

I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, do proclaim that an unlimited national emergency...

So, if the President, apart from the later created National Emergency Act, has an authority to declare a national emergency, Congress would not have the authority to end the emergency.

According to Executive Power and Domestic Emergency: The Quest for Prerogative

The Western Political Quarterly Vol. 5, No. 4 (Dec., 1952), pp. 592-618:

executive prerogative has been a constitutional tradition since the founding of the Republic

and Lincoln and Truman:

[e]ach felt that he was exercising inherent executive power - prerogative - in combating a domestic emergency