[EAS] FCC BLU Alert Proposal

[Sean Donelan]

On Fri, 16 Jun 2017, Ed Czarnecki wrote:
> However, the activities of emergency managers are outside the 
> jurisdiction of the FCC.  So while the FCC has defined the existence of 
> EAS event codes, they are pethaps not able to tell the message 
> originators how to use them. 

Before 1999, the FCC Compliance and Information Bureau conducted a 
lot of outreach activies for the previous EBS and new EAS.  You can find 
reports of FCC staff meeting with local emergency managers and 
broadcasters all over the country; and publishing lots of answers to 
questions. Almost every emergency management agency also has FCC public 
safety licenses. People at the FCC interact with the emergency management 
agencies on a regular basis. Its was just different FCC bureaus.

After the 1999 FCC reorganization, responsibility for EAS moved to the 
FCC Enforcement Bureau.  The FCC Enforcement Bureau stopped doing
outreach concerning EAS and the emergency management community. The 
Enforcement Bureau's EAS activity seemed focused on Notices of Apparent 
Liability and Notices of Violations. Its not clear if that change was 
intentional, or unintentional in that the enforcement bureau's management 
didn't consider outreach and helping EAS participants as part of their 
enforcement mission.

The good news is things seem to be changing.

One of the good things about last year's national test was the FCC Public 
Safety and Homeland Security Bureau staff did a lot of work, and were 
willing to answer questions about the EAS Test Reporting System. I think 
the FCC staff learned a lot about problems from that experience.

This year FEMA created its own IPAWS advisory committee. But I can't tell 
from FEMA's web site whether or not the IPAWS advisory committee has met.
The FEMA IPAWS advisory committee is supposed to include state and local 
governments, emergency managers, industry, and consumer advocates.

NOAA/NWS has a lot of resources about public warnings for all types of 
disasters, not just weather.  There are National Weather Service offices 
all over the country. The NWS employees are in regular contact with local 
officials and broadcasters in every state.

SECCs are volunteer organizations. Some do a great job, but its not 
reasonable to put a lot of burdens on volunteer organizations.