[EAS] new legislative activity on EAS/WEA

[Ed Czarnecki]

Following up on the emergency alert bills introduced into Congress last
week.  Here is a link to Rep Gabbard's bill in the House - it is more or
less a clone of Senator Schatz' bill in the Senate.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6427/text/ih?overvie
w=closed
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6427/text/ih?overvi
ew=closed&format=txt> &format=txt

 

Section 3 would make WEA alerts mandatory for both alerts issued by the
President and now by the Administrator of FEMA.

 

Section 4 deserves a very (very) close reading, particularly by SECC chairs
and members.  It "encourages" state chief executives (governors) to get
involved with SECCs by reviewing their composition and governance, getting
SECCs to meet at least once a year and produce updated state EAS plans, and
order the FCC to approve/disapprove a submitted plan within 90 days.  Also,
curiously, the bill would require the FCC to notify a state governor
directly of such action.  There are a host of issues this raises, including
potentially a much expanded role for the FCC, and direct involvement by
state government in SECC work . so much for volunteerism.

 

Section 5 would make FEMA create best practices and recommendations (within
6 months) for alert issuance, avoiding false alerts, and retracting false
alerts.  It would also require FEMA to create a plan for EAS and WEA
participants, and state/local/Federal officials to be in contact with
eachother regarding an alert has been distributed to the public.  

 

Section 6 would require the FCC to do a rulemaking to create a system to
receive reports of false alerts.

 

Section 7 would require the FCC to do a rulemaking to modify EAS to repeat
EAS messages "while an alert remains pending" - not just for national
alerts, but for "any other entity under specified circumstances as
determined by the Commission, in consultation with the Administrator".  Note
a difference here between the Gabbard bill (which would impact all EAS
Participants), and the Schatz senate bill (which just impacted TV and
cable).  So what does this mean?  Keep repeating an alert until expiration
time?   Sounds like a great way to get everyone to opt out of carrying any
EAS message.

 

Section 8 would order a feasibility study of how to "offer" emergency alerts
to Internet streaming services.  Which, again, is currently available via
IPAWS OPEN or the IPAWS public feed, if streaming services actually wanted
to pick up such data.

 

 

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Edward Czarnecki, Ph.D.

Senior Director - Strategy and Government Affairs.

585-765-2254 ext 122 | fax 585-765-9330
Reston VA | Lyndonville NY
 <http://www.digitalalertsystems.com/> www.digitalalertsystems.com 

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