The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is built on a structure conceived in the 1950’s when over- the-air broadcasting was the best-available technology for widely disseminating emergency alerts. It is one of several federally managed warning systems. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) jointly administers EAS with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in cooperation with the National Weather Service (NWS), an organization within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NOAA/NWS weather radio system has been upgraded to an all-hazard warning capability. Measures to improve the NOAA network and the new Digital Emergency Alert System (DEAS) are ongoing. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), working with the Association of Public Television Stations, is implementing a program that will disseminate national alert messages over digital broadcast airwaves, using satellite and public TV broadcast towers. This program, referred to as the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), is part of the Department’s response to an Executive Order requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security to meet specific requirements for an alert system as part of U.S. policy.
Legislation was passed at the end of the 109th Congress (the Warning, Alert, and Response Network Act, or WARN Act, as signed into law as Title VI of P.L. 109-347) to assure funding to public television stations to install digital equipment to handle national alerts. The law also required the establishment of a committee to provide the FCC with recommendations regarding the transmittal of emergency alerts by commercial mobile service providers to their subscribers.
Committee recommendations provided the structure for a Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS). In addition to presidential alerts, which clearly are a federal responsibility, the service would transmit emergency alerts generated by state, local, and other non-federal authorities. The Congressionally mandated improvements to DEAS were still incomplete at the beginning of 2009. The FCC fulfilled its obligations to establish the framework for CMAS but the federal administrative structure needed to support it has to be put in place. The federal agency responsible for completing work on both of these projects is FEMA’s National Continuity Program Directorate.
The 111th Congress may choose to pursue oversight of these programs, continuing the efforts of the 110th Congress, and to consider new measure to improve the nation’s capability to provide alerts and information before, during, and after an emergency. H.R. 2591 (Representative Diaz- Balart) would write requirements for IPAWS into law, by amending the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. H.R. 3028 (Representative Thompson) would give authority to the President to make grants for innovative programs that would benefit first responders in mitigating natural disasters.
