Transcripts For CSPAN3 Emergency Alert System 20180130

Alerts like we saw with the hawaii Ballistic Missile warning earlier this month. Ensuring state and local governments have the proper safeguards to properly alert the public of an impending emergency is absolutely critical. False alerts not only create unnecessary panic, they undermine the Emergency Alert system leading to public distrust and what happened in hawaii must be addressed to make sure it never happens again. It is essential that americans have an Emergency Alert system they could trust and i believe they do. There is much that is working well with the Emergency Alert system. In fact it is arguably a model Public Private program through the warren act. Industry partners including those represented here today have been investing to improve the system and working collaboratively with government and Public Safety officials to carry out the mission. We special did not want to overlook the successes but as recent events have shown, there are problems that must be addressed. Todays hearing is the first of two on Emergency Alert systems. The near future will hold a hearing in january to address the january 13th ballistic missal false alarm and to discuss what we have done today. We warn our citizens first from the risk of a soviet attack and later commanded to include Natural Disasters like fires and floods and tornados and tsunamis. We have continued to build on this life saving alerts, and include amber alerts. Soon well have blue alerts which could be issued when there is a threat to a Law Enforcement officer. From the beginning our Emergency Alert system have harnesses the immense resources of the communications and broadcast and television and radio and cable and satellite tv and mobile phone networks to reach the American Public as quickly as possible. Here is how the system works or should work. Our alert system relies on federal state and local officials authorized by fema to decide when an alert is appropriate and what it should communicate. These alerts are then sent to fema. When fema receives an alert, it validates that it is from an authorized entity before forwarding it to the broadcaster mobile phone Service Providers and others who in turn send at letter out on television, radio and mobile phones in the affected areas. The federal Communications Commission regulates the interface between those sending the messages and the Communications Companies that deliver the messages to us. Ensuring people get the information they need and alerts are credible and make sense to the recipients is on going but it is fundamental that the message must be credible. Messages like hawaii risk of undermining the alert system by reducing peoples confidence in alerts. We dont want to prevent authorized officials from communicating alerts to the public when they see fit we must ensure that such officials are better trained. There are additional improvements we can ubd ta undertake. There is no question that the National Weather Service Watch and Warning System saves lives but it could also be enhanced. That is why i included provisions in the Weather Research and forecasting innovation act of 2017 which became law last spring that require the National Weather service to use the latest behavioral science and Stakeholder Feedback to improve the watch and Warning System. We should make sure that Lessons Learned inform and improve future alerts. The fcc is taking steps so make improvements through the use of better gio targeting of messages which is being considered at its current proceeding. That is targeting messages to those who need to receive them and not sending them to those who dont. This helps avoid alert fatigue. And it also addresses the concerns expressed by some local officials during the California Wildfires last year that an overly broad alert could result in traffic jams with those unnecessarily leaving homes and hindering the evacuation of those who really truly do need to leave. As were here today, the goal of providing timely information to our communities is also advanced by private citizens. Like those amateur or ham Radio Operators that keep people connected after tragedies like hurricanes. Im welcoming lisa foalks and mr. Scott burgman and the wireless association. Mr. Sam sam matheny matheny. Thank you. Matheny, executive Vice President and chief technology at the National Association of broadcasters and mike lisenco. Thank you for being here. I look forward to todays discussion and i will now recognize the Ranking Member, senator for any opening remashes and i think he could speak personally to the impact of this issue. Thank you, mr. Chairman. For many people in hawaii, one of the most harrowing hours of their lives started just a few minutes after 8 00 a. M. On january 13th, 2018. Cell phones across the state lit up with a warning that a Ballistic Missile atab was imminent. For the next 38 minutes both residents and visitors panicked. People were terrified as they scrambled to get in touch with loved ones. I know, because i was home in honolulu that morning and i got dozens of texts with screen shots of the push alert asking me what was happening. Meanwhile within a minute or two, officials at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency had spoken to the Pacific Command and confirmed that there was no missile attack. Only nobody told the rest of us. The people of hawaii may be relieved about the false alarm but they are also angry. All of this was avoidable from the false alarm itself to the series of mistakes and multiple junctures surrounding the incident. Human and bureaucratic errors made the crisis worse. But there are also inherent flaws in the system itself. Were here today because of problems in our Emergency Alert system from hawaii false alarm to the recent California Wildfires. So i want to thank the Ranking Member for holding this hearing and agreeing to hold a field hearing in hawaii in the near future and thank the fcc including miss fowlkes and the department of Homeland Security to help determine what happened and how to fix it. What happened in hawaii raises basic policy questions. Right now any city, county or state can choose to participate in this program on missile alerts. And when they do, they gain the technical ability to get the word out but that does not make them experts in knowing when a missile is coming. That rests with the department of defense. And it is increasingly clear to me that if we get all 50 states and all of the territories and 3007 counties across the country participating in this program, the likelihood of another mistaken missile alert as a result of human or bureaucratic error is not zero. Local officials have led on Disaster Response and recovery but if the federal government knows a missile is coming, it is worth asking if they should be the ones to tell everyone. States are laboratories of democracy. They should not be the laboratories for missile alerts. Which is why this is an important question for congress to consider. We have lively debates about federalism and about the role of local versus federal government. But a missile attack is federal. A missile attack is not a local responsibility. Confirmation and notification of Something Like a missile attack should reside with the agency that knows first and knows for sure. In other words, the people who know should be the people who tell us. That is why im introducing legislation to make it clear that the authority to send missile alerts should rest with the departments of defense and Homeland Security. These agencies have to work with the state and local Emergency Management agencies when they get the word out so the public is safe and informed. Thank you again, chairman thune and Ranking Member nelson for your leadership on this issue and look forward to hearing from the witnesses on where we stand and what we can do better. Thank you, senator. And thank you for sharing your experience and we all look forward to working with you to make sure Something Like that never happens again to your constituents or anyplace or anybody else in this country. So Ranking Member, senator nelson is here. Your opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And by the way, i thought yesterdays hearing down at the auto show was outstanding about automated vehicles. So thank you. I think there is a lot of good come out of that hearing. I hope youre right. Very interesting. If you were told that a Ballistic Missile was inbound and your loved ones were spread out, what in the world would go through your mind . Its exactly what went through the mind of senator shots. Regrettably, he knows the answer to that question and he knows it is very real and its very personal. He was there, he received the alert. And its because of that personal connection to this situation and the leadership that he has shown in the aftermath that im going to be here simply to support him in this. Nobody should have to go through what the folks of hawaii did, but the flip side of that is we want to make sure that there is a system in place so if there is a inbound nuclear warhead, our people are alerted. When disasters occur, americans rely not only on the Emergency Alerts, but also the 911 system. But the infrastructure is aging. And frankly it has been left behind in the digital revolution. Congress must make modernizing the 911 system a national priority, which is why ive worked with senator klobuchar to introduce the next generation 911 act of 2017. And i hope this is something we need a template for moving ahead on bipartisan things and this is a good bill to start moving ahead on. Thank you senator nelson. Something hopefully this committee can Work Together and get done for the good of all of the people in this country and of course most specifically for the people of hawaii. We do have a great panel and we look forward to hearing from you this morning and well start with miss lisa fowlkes is from the federal Communication Commission which has jurisdiction over all of the integration of all of these forms of communication, Scott Burgman and mr. Mike lisenco from amateur Radio Relay League and sam matheny, executive Vice President and chief Technology Officer at the National Association of broad evers. So well start with you, mrs. Fowlkes and well make sure your testimony is part of the written record but give us time to ask questions. So please proceed. Welcome. Thank you. Good morning chairman thune, Ranking Member nelson and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to dus our nations Emergency Alerting systems. The false Ballistic Missile warning issued on january 13th by the state of hawaii was absolutely unacceptable. It resulted in widespread panic and the extended period it took to correct the error nearly 40 minutes compounded the problem. Looking beyond the immediate consequences of the mistake which were serious in and of themselves, this cry of wolf damaged the credibility of Emergency Alert alert messaging, which can be dangerous when a real emergency occurs. The commission acted swiftly to open an investigation into the matter. That investigation is ongoing but based on current information it appears the false alert was a result of two failures. First, simple human error. Second, the state did not have safeguards to or process controls in place to prevent the human error from results in the transmission of the false alert. Last week the fcc sent two employees to interview representatives of the huh high Emergency Management agency and other stake holders. The hawaii imagine vender is helping to alert the other a letter Origination Software and changed the protocol to require two individuals to sign off on the transmission of tests and live alerts. We are quite pleased with the level of cooperation we have received from the leadership of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency thus far. We are disappointed, however, that one key employee, the person who transmitted the false alert, is refusing to cooperate with our investigation. We hope that person will reconsider. Moving forward, the commission will focus on ways to prevent this from happening again. Federal, state and local officials throughout the country need to Work Together to identify any vulnerabilities to false alerts and do what is necessary to fix them. We also must ensure that should a false letter nonetheless occur, a correction is issued promptly in order to minimize confusion. Emergency alerting systems provide timely and life saving information to the public, and we must take all measures to bolster and restore the publics confidence in these systems. While the incident in hawaii is very present in our minds we cannot lose sight of the fact the wireless Emergency Alerts or wea has enhanced public safe. It has beenued toisho over 33,000 Emergency Alerts. In california it was used four times in response to the 2017 wildfires in Northern California and 16 times for the Los Angeles Area wildfires. Wea was used in all areas affected by the 2017 hurricanes. The commission has taken significant steps to enhance alert capabilities by leveraging advancement in technology and in september 2016, the Commission Adopted rules to enable wireless alerts to contain more content and to enable support for alerts written in spanish. When the wea programs launched in 2012, participating wireless providers were generally required to target alerts to a county or counties affected by the emergency. As of last november, all participating wireless providers are now required to transmit alerts to a Geographic Area that best approximates the area affected, even if it is smaller than a county. To further improve wea, next tuesday the commission will vote on an order that will require participating wireless providers to target alerts with an overreach of no more than onetenth of a mile and require carriers to preserve wea alerts for 24 hours. In closing we look forward to partnering with the Emergency Management professionals from your jurisdictions on the alerting capabilities that they need to use americas public alert and Warning System with confidence during times of crisis. Thank you and i look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you. Mr. Bergman. Chairman thune and Ranking Member nelson and members of the committee. On behalf of ctia, thank you for the opportunity to testify about the critical and successful role of wireless Emergency Alerts. Cti commends this committee for the focus on this issue and for your leadership on it over the last decade extending back to the passage of the warren act in 2006 which created the wireless Emergency Alert or wea program. A partnership between the Wireless Industry, government and Public Safety officials. Since its launch five years ago, wireless Emergency Alerts have become a critical resource for hundreds of hundreds of millions of americans who rely on mobile phones every day. Today wireless providers serving more than 99 of u. S. Subscribers voluntarily participate in wea. More than 33,000 alerts have been sent helping to locate those in danger and warn of imminent threats or dangers. Cti members are deeply committed to ensuring it is a trusted and effective resource for the American Public so the recent false alert in hawaii underscores the importance of the functionality and integrity and credibility of our nations Emergency Alert system. With that in mind, my testimony will address the vital role that wea plays, our ongoing effort to enhance the capability and the importance of maintaining the system integrity. A decade ago this committee recognized the value of wireless Emergency Alerts to reach nearly every american. Now, has more than half of american households are wireless only, wea has become an essential tool for Public Safety officials to reach americans wherever they are. Wea is part of our broader National Alerting system. Federal, state, and local authorities transmit emergency messages to fema. They distribute them to the various National Alerting systems and wireless providers provide wea messages to the targeted area as determined by alert authorities. Wireless providers do not control message content and do not exercise discretion over whether to transmit messages. Because local authorities can target wea alerts to a particular area, theyre extremely effective at reaching those americans directly impacted by an emergency. We, as unique sound and vibration help ensure that everyone is aware of the alert. Wireless Emergency Alerts have helped to return abducted children, theyve warned millions of people in the path of Severe Weather events like flood, tornadoes, and wildfires, and theyve helped Law Enforcement catch terror suspects in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and 2016 Chelsea Bombing in new york city. And we continue to expand weas capabilities. In the past year, the fcc has adopted rules to expand the content that authorities can send to consumers, adding additional characters, Spanish Language, blue alerts, and download able content from embedded links, as well as support for additional state and local testing. Weve supported these enhancements because our members are committed to the proven lifesaving success of wea. Next week the fcc plans to adopt an order that further enhances weas geotargeting capabilities. Today wea alerts can be targeted down to the cell sector level, a significant improvement over the initial county level targeting. Given the expanding Public Safety mission for wee, cti supports the fcc proposed geotargeting framework which can help Public Safety minimize overalerting through innovative, device based solutions. Significant standards, deployment and testing work till need to be done to support this capability. For this reason, well be challenging the fccs propose time line of november to 2019, but the Wireless Industry will work intently do so. Finally, the false a first alert hawaii underscores the Public Confidence in our National Alerting systems must remain our highest priority. Alert originators must send warnings appropriately and judiciously, and they must provide messages to the targeted area. We commend this committee from Lessons Learned from this event and we appreciate the call for additional best practices. There will be many Lessons Learned, but this event also demonstrates that the technical capabilities of the wea system work. For this reason policymakers and the public should have confidence that in the event of a real emergency authenticated information can be disseminated rapidly and effectively through the wireless Emergency Alert system. Cti is proud of the Critical Role that wea plays in our National Alert system and is committed to working collaborative to main taping Public Confidence. Thank you for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to your questions. Mr. Lisenco. Good morning. Chairman thune and Ranking Member and distinguished members of the committee. It is a great privilege to address you this morning in my capacity as a member of the board of directors of the american Radio Relay League, the National Association for amateur radio. Arrl has 175,000 members throughout the United States and we represent the interest of the 750 licensed amateur or ham Radio Operators in the u. S. Amateur radio is an adventurial pursuit. There is also a very serious side to amateur radio. Its far more than a hobby. With ow license from the fcc comes a responsibility to promote Emergency Communications during times of disaster. The arrl understands u. S. Military, fema and dhs. We provide all the Emergency Communications for the American Red Cross and Salvation Army. To quote former fema administrator craig few gate, quote, as much as we think we are indicates technology, things break. Seeing how amateur radio in a disaster in a crisis often times is the one thing that was still up and run, a ham transmitting can mean the difference between life and death. End quote. Amateur Radio Operators are included in Emergency Operations plans in every state of the union. The role played by ham in disasters was in full display in fall of 2017 which saw four major hurricanes make landfall in the United States and its territories. These caused significant damage to florida, texas, puerto rico, and the Virgin Islands. In advance of, during, and in the aftermath of each one trained Radio Operators using Radio Stations in their homes and portable radio facilities responded in large numbers. They reported critical weather to the National Weather service and the National Hurricane center. They drained dozen of their brethren in puerto rico and the Virgin Island after the hurricane to provide restoration services. For the u. S. Military, fema and dhs and First Responders. They provided health and welfare communication wheres no other method of communication was available. They provided all of the communications for the red cross and the Salvation Army. The red cross requested an arrl dispatch an additional 50 amateur Radio Operators equipped with Emergency Communications kits outfitted free of charge by arrl to help restore communications in the immediate aftermath. And as discussed in our written testimony, they did a multitude of other things all at no cost to the public or to the federal government. In hawaii, our teams are prepared to assist in the case of any emergency whether natural or manmade. For example, in the immediate aftermath of maria a Radio Operator was highlighted in hawaii for his work in connect in connecting a hawaii family with relatives in puerto rico. He did so using an effective outdoor antenna and a station in his residence which he would use in a disaster in maui. After the january alarm, nbcs left field reported that, quote in the case of a electronic pulse from a blast, 90 of the people will be without communication and ham radio is one of the ways that you will be able to hear what is happening throughout the islands whether or not people are okay, who is alive, end quote. While arrl and the amateur Radio Community rarely need anything from the federal government, what we must have is an effective outdoor amateur radio antenna in order to practice our vocation on our properties. The ability to practice our craft is crucial to our being ready to perform when needed in a crisis. To do that, we must have some sort of effective outdoor antenna. The restricted communities undermine the ability of the Radio Community to be ready when disaster strikes. These restrictions prevent any outdoor antenna of any size or height. Today 90 of all new Housing Starts are done done all without antennas. What theyve done with the parody is strike a Necessary Balance between a hams desire to install an antenna and the hoas right to say what size they can be. It is important to know the bill is different than the legislation proposed by Ranking Member nelson in 2015. At that time the distinguished senator from florida expressed reservations about the legislation stating that he supported amateur radio but, quote, there must be a happy compromise, unquote. Based on his stated concerns, arrl began intense negotiations with Community Associations institute, the only National Association for homeowners associations lasting several months. These discussions culminated in a happy compromise endorsed by cia and arrl as well as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army and the compromised bill passed the house by vote twice. We hope that this committee will extend its support to the wicker blumenthal bill as 1534 to ensure that the ham Radio Community will continue to be relied upon when the disaster strikes. I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the role of amateur radio in a disaster. I look forward to answering any questions. Mr. Matheny. Good morning. Chairman thune, Ranking Members nelson and schatz, and members of the committee. Im sam matheny and im the chief Technology Officer at the National Association of broadcasters. On behalf of the thousands of free, local television and radio broadcasters in your home towns, thank you for inviting me to testify on the Emergency Alert system. And how broadcasters fulfill their roles as first informers and how innovation will allow broadcasters to do even more to keep viewers and listeners safe during emergencies. Broadcasters take seriously their role as the most trusted source of news and emergency updates. Whether its preparing listeners and viewers for the coming storm, directing them to needed supplies and shelter during the disaster, or helping rebuild in the aftermath, local stations are part of the communities they serve. And broadcasting is sometimes the only available communications medium in an emergency when Wireless Networks fail. Morning consult recently found that the American People turned to broadcasters in times of emergency by a factor of more than three to one. Broadcasting is unique for the following reasons. First, broadcasting covers virtually everyone. Broadcast signals reach more of the u. S. Population than any other communication medium. Broadcasting is localized. Local broadcast stations can deliver market specific information as well as National Alerts. Broadcasting has no bottle necks. An Emergency Alert can reach millions of people simultaneously without concern over network congestion. Broadcasting is redundant. There are numerous independently operated stations in each market that deliver alerts. Broadcasting is resilient. Stations often operate with backup equipment, generators, and fuel supplies to keep stations on the air. Broadcaster information is actionable. Radio and television can provide enough information to enable people to understand what is happening and what steps they should take. And finally, broadcasters are trusted. They are members of the local community and speak not just as an authority but as a neighbor. But broadcasters do more than just deliver messages to the public. Broadcasters are also the backbone of the Emergency Alert system. Working with the government since the 1950s, broadcasters have operated and evolved a nationwide Wireless Network to deliver Emergency Alerts. This daisy chain of broadcast stations ensures that Emergency Alert can be delivered independent of Internet Connectivity and even when Power Outages disrupt other forms of communication. In fact, broadcasters serve as primary entry points for Emergency Communications to the public and are thus part of solution from beginning to end. Because broadcasting plays such an Important Role in this commit Critical Communications infrastructure, it is vital that the Government Support and foster broadcasting. Id like to briefly outline three key areas for your consideration. First, the next Generation Television standard, atcs which was recently approved by the sec has many features that will approve Emergency Alerting including the ability to wake up sleeping devices, more precise geo targeted alerts and sending rich multimedia files such as weather radar images, evacuation maps, and even video files with detailed explanations about the emergency and what to do. New regulatory hurdles should not be placed in our way as we deploy next gen tv. Second, broadcasters are in the final and most complicated phase of the incentive option. The repack phase. Nearly 1,000 television stations will be moving to new channel assignments and this will also impact over 700 fm Radio Stations and towers. Broadcasters need the time and money to make the moves successfully and and without impair the publics ability to access Emergency Alerts. I ask for your support of the viewer and listener protection act sponsored by senators moran, schatz, and eight of their colleagues and urge its pass as no station should be forced off the air due to a lack of funds on unreasonable time constraints. And third, broadcast vers been working with the Wireless Phone manufacturers and Service Providers on marketbased solutions to activate fm chips in smartphones. Our market efforts have been successful with one very notable exception, apple. We believe apple should be encouraged to activate the fm tuner in future models of their iphone as it will improve peoples access to Vital Information in times of disaster. In conclusion, in emergencies large and small, our nation and your hometowns benefit from a strong and vibrant broadcast industry. Fema calls broadcasting a redundant, resilient, and necessary alerting pathway. I agree. Thank you for having me here today. I look forward to answering any questions. Thank you, mr. Matheny. Appreciate all of you talking about the Important Roles that each of the organizations that youre here on behalf play in this overall process. Id like to start with ms. Fowlkes and ask you if you could describe or explain to us the role the fcc plays in the Emergency Alert system and how that interacts with the larger what they refer to as the eye pause communication system. Kind of just how does the fcc thats sort of where this committees jurisdiction and interest is, how do they relate in this whole sequence of events . The fcc is responsible for the distribution part of the eas and wea. In other words, we adopt and administer rules that apply to the communication Service Providers that participate in those two if those two systems. For example, with respect to wea, we have rules that would apply to the participating wireless carriers in terms of how theyre infrastructure is to react when it receives the alert. Certainly issues like geotargeting are the types of things that we would govern. With respect to the eas, how their capabilities their eas equipment must have in order to receive and transmit an eas alert. We do not have authority over the alert origination piece, which is the part of the system where Government Agencies decide whether to issue an alert, what the alert is going to what information the alerts going to include, the target area. Thats not within our purview. Fema oversees the integrated public alert and Warning System. So basically kind of think of it as three pieces. The alert origination piece, the ipaus peace, which is fema, the distribution by the Communication Service provider, he they are participating under rules that are adopted and administered by the fcc. Do you see any needed change in the rules based on this incident . Thats something that i really cant answer. The fcc doesnt have a position on that. I think in terms of that, it wouldnt be so much changing a rule, it would be something that would have to change in terms of our authority. Certainly if congress decided it wanted to make changes, we would stand ready to provide Technical Assistance with any draft legislation and the obviously if congress enacted some legislation wed obviously implement it. Well, do you have is the fcc to that point ever exerted jurisdiction over authorities to require that there are best practices used to make sure there are adequate safeguards in place to prevent false alerts . No. And do you think i mean, do you believe the commission has the authority or tools that it needs 10 to sure that an incident like the one that happened in hawaii never happens again currently . Given the fact that the problem was not was on the alert origination piece, the fcc does not have authority over in that area. Right. Okay. So just to ask, i guess, the obvious question, at least the one intuitively that i thought of when i heard about all of this, that is so you describe this as a threepart process and the fcc is on the distribution part of it. The origination alert, then the fema clearinghouse function. It seems to me why, then this is a Ballistic Missile threat. I mean, this is a dod this is like nuclear war type thing. Why was a state agency involved in that alert . And i understand, you know, we have a lot of experience in my part of the country with weather alerts. The National Weather Service Works closely with fema and all those alerts go out if theres a potential tornado threat, that sort of thing. But it seems to me at least in this case im still at a loss as to how if theres an originating origination of the alert and then sort of a clearinghouse, how that got so messed up. Does anybody want to take a stab at that . Well, from the fccs perspective, we really cant give an opinion on that. We are not involved in any way in deciding who issues what alert. That is a decision thats on the alert purely on the alert origination side. In terms of this specific incident, i would have to refer you to fema and dhs. Okay. Mr. Bergman, could you just briefly talk about the Wireless Industrys role in that Emergency Alert system . And i know you talked about it generally in terms of the role that you all play, but particularly in light of this recent discussion and whether its been a success, in your view. So thank you, chairman thune. I think time and again weve seen over the last five years that wireless Emergency Alerts are ar lifesaver. Theyve helped return kids who have been abducted. Theyve helped folks avoid tornadoes that are rolling through their town. And now were starting to see them used for blue alerts to help identify and locate suspects. And there are a couple of key reasons why. The geotargeting, right. Wireless Emergency Alerts are the only tool in our toolbox right now that help find you where you are and get that message to you right then. And now as we continue to improve wireless Emergency Alerts weve given the ability to access urls, embedded links and contents so you can get that information and act on it and thats a powerful combination. Senator schatz. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ms. Fowlkes, thank you for everything that you and the fcc have been doing. I have a number of questions im going 0 give them to you all at once and you can take them for the record to the extent that youre still undergoing the investigation in hawaii, but whatever you can answer would be great. I think the first question is, you know, who gets an alert and who doesnt. And in that category you have the people who turn off the push notifications. So my first question, and, again, im going to try to run through them in the interest of time, if on television a tv broadcast tv or cable tv watcher doesnt have the opportunity in settings to turn off those alerts, we presume that everyone must know over those over the airwaves, why do we allow people to turnoff alerts of that magnitude . Maybe a blue alert, an amber alert is another matter. But in terms of a missile, an incoming Ballistic Missile, it seems to me that we should have a system that doesnt give anybody discretion about whether or not they get told that an alert is coming. Thats number one. Number two, is my understanding is that although this is a voluntary system with the providers, the push alerts that is, that 99 we still have about 99 coverage, i just want to confirm that is true. And then number three is we now have a bunch of people who are watching tv in different ways. And we still depend heavily, as we should, on our broadcast partners, tv and lets not forget the importance of radio especially in Rural America. But, we also have cord cutters who are on youtube or hulu or whatever it may be on their ipad and no alert comes over that system. So im wondering where the fcc has done any thinking about how to make sure people who are watching television in a nontraditional way get those alerts. On the first question which i believe you were referring to the opt out option, under the warren act, people can opt out of all but an alert thats issued by the president. So the ability to and i should point out with wea, unlike some other types of subscriptionbased alerting systems, its an opt out function versus an opt in. But with the exception of anything thats coming from the president , the statue allows wireless carriers to offer the option to opt out. And one of the questions we have into the National Security council is why is this not just very clearly either by executive order, executive memorandum or by practice why is an incoming missile not absolute the kind of thing that would be that would ride on that president ial alert . Because although in the drafting of the warren act im not sure that that specifically was contemplated. This seems to me to be the highest priority alert and there fore perfect for president ial alert. Thats the question that the fcc, again, would not be able to answer. Not your lane, i got it. In terms of carriers. The second question whether which was about whether it was voluntarily . The second question was carriers and i believe we have about 99 cover range even though its voluntary program. And the last question how do we reach cord cutters . How do we reach people who are watching tv in nontraditional ways, not cable, not broadcast . Thats a very good question and thats something that the fccs, you know, thats something that we can certainly look at within our authority. So thats what i was going to ask is that could you get back to us about whether you need additional authorities to try to move that along or whether you have existing . And if you do have existing authority, id like to know what youre going to do to kind of solve that problem. If you dont, then i think its incumbent on the Congress Committee to try to fix that. And then just a quick clarification. Did the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency need fema to sign off to a correction to the first push notification . No. There was some they did not need permission from either fema or the fcc. And then my final question for ms. Fowlkes is one of the challenges with our broadcast partners ksak is the Radio Station thats responsible getting out emergency information, they couldnt get on the phone with Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, they couldnt get on the phone with pay com. The governor was getting threw to dod, i was having difficulty getting through to the governor. What do we do about the phone line problem when everybodys panicking and trying to communicate with each other, text messages, you know, spotty and we need to have phone conversations. Seems to me that the fcc at least in their investigatory process has to assess the extent to which we had problems not just in terms of the systems for communicating with each other in terms of who calls whom, but also that literally people who really needed some sort of red phone to be able to talk to each other were not in a position do so at the technical level. Thats something that we can take back and look at as part of the investigation. Thank you. Thank you, senator schatz. Next up, senator klobuchar. I want to thank senator schatz for his leadership. I cant imagine what that must have been like in your state. I had of course many minutes to go to hawaii, i wonder why, and i had my state director was actually there when this happened and told the story of how he had in a hotel condo with no basement, didnt know what to do. Theyre taking things like anything they can find for an emergency packet. And when you think about that story repeated for kids and how scared they were, that clearly changes have to be made. So i i wanted to focus on the legislation that weve been working on with senator nelson and i think its very important that we upgrade. And im cochair of the next gen 911 caucus. First of all, i introduced last congress with senator fisher there are is more on the rural focus, the rural spectrum accessibility act and it was included in the mobile now act that passed the senate. Mr. Bergmann, how can spectrum, disaggregation and other incentives be used to increase wireless coverage in rural areas . So thank you, senator klobuchar. We commend you and appreciate your work on that role of spectrum accessibility act. As anyone from Rural America knows there are real challenges in make sure we have service out there. In the hardest to serve areas. Geography is challenging, topography is challenging. Sparse population makes it difficult. We need to do things to make it easier to serve out there. And by creating incentives to put spectrum to use in rural areas, we can give providers greater incentive and lower the barriers to building out networks. And thats a perfect tiein to our focus here today making sure that as you talked about that we have the most recent 911 service, that we have wireless Emergency Alerts, all of that is dependent on making sure we can build out to those rural areas. So we believe that legislation will help advance that goal. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Fowlkes, ensuring that the right people receive an Emergency Alert as senator schatz has pointed out, the fcc will be voting soon on an order that would require wireless providers to target alerts within one tenth of a mile. How will the fcc verify that the wireless alerts being sent out satisfy these new requirements . At this point, because the proposal is hasnt been voted on by the commission, i cant get into more details about what the order may or may not say. Could you talk about as senator nelson and i work to pass this bill, how would inner operable between systems increase effectiveness . Advanced Alert Systems . Thats an issue i will have to take back. Okay. The order of the fcc will soon consider that theyll soon consider that will allow local officials to better target Emergency Alerts. The fcc order will require participating providers to shift from a networkbased approach to one that also uses the location capabilities within cell phones to target necessary messages. This will make sure someone outside a disaster area receives an unnecessary alert. How will providers work with Device Manufacturers to ensure this new functionality . Thanks, senator. Thats really the heart of the fccs order that will be considered next week and something the Public Safety has identified as the single most important improvement to wireless Emergency Alerts that we can have. If you sort of turn back the clock when wireless emergency clock, when wireless Emergency Alerts were first launched, you could target to the county level. Today now weve improved that, you can target to the cell sector, the individual cell tower. What this capability will allow us to do is not only use the targeting of the network, but also use intelligence in the device to figure out whether the device is within that target area thats identified by the alert authorities. So we think this is going to be a really significant improvement, that it will help address that overall alerting and benefit Public Safety and consumers. Mr. Matheny, broadcast networks have been a reliable way, and these broadcast all the time in minnesota for flood. Broadcasters are often able to continue operating during and after Severe Weather. With new technology broadcasters may soon be able to deliver Additional Information to viewers on mixed mobile and hand held devices. What level of targeting will this new capability provide . And what additional alerting measures can broadcasters make available . So i believe thank you, first of all. And i believe youre speaking of the next jen tv standard and the advanced alerting capabilities therein. Thats a nice way of describing what i said in too simple of words. Thank you, yes, thats exactly what i was talking about. The next gen tv standard allows for waking up devices, so if a device is asleep it can be woken up, a distinct feature that was designed in. Once the device is woken up you have the ability to do targeting. The standard has just been completed, and the actual implementation of that is still being developed. But it will be similar to the what mr. Bergmann just described in using the location of the device to determine if its in the affected area. We are still talking about a oneway broadcast delivery of the alert. And additionally the next gen standard allows for sending multimedia content, like an evacuation map, a tornado track map. You could think of even a video file that would come down and tell you explicitly what is happening. And that would be a video on demand file. This would be in addition to the normal coverage that our stations provide. Very good, thank you very much. Thank you, senator co bkobuc this has nothing to do with the vikings, or hawaii, that doesnt have an nfl team. Or south dakota, for that matter, then you decide you can take pot shots at my team. Let us not forget that catch. Weve got to go back to the good stuff. I have senator udall next, but senator sullivan has to preside on the floor. Could he ask his questions next . Thank you, senator udall. Ill come clean, we dont have an nfl team either. Thank you, senator capito. I had a couple questions, but im going to ask them at the same time for ms. Fowlkes. It relates to, in a very kind of a a big event that occurred in the alaska just on tuesday morning, very early in the morning, a 7. 9 magnitude earthquake hit in the gulf of alaska. As a result of this earthquake many of my constituents in coastal communities were alerted to the threat of a tsunami and told to relocate inland. Many did, it was pretty much in the middle of the night. How however, some of our carriers were not able to send the notify cation because of the lengthy and complicated process required by the fcc to set up Emergency Alerts on their systems. This is particularly the case with regard to some of our many of the carriers in alaska are small companies. So going through the lengthy process, complicated process that the fcc puts a big burden on them, are there things that you are looking at with regard to streamlining the process to take into account some of the Smaller Companies that can participate . And also related, there have been reports that several coastal alaska Radio Stations did not get their eas signal after the earthquake at all, or got it 30 minutes after the wireless alerts went out on cell phones. Can you speak to that and what youre trying to do on those issues . I know i asked a couple questions. I thank my colleagues again for indulging me here. Its an important issue for my state and others. Im not sure what they mean by a long process of the fcc. Under the fccs rules, if a wireless carrier wants to participate in wea, they send us a notification saying that theyre electing to participate in part, which may mean some of their Geographic Service area, but not others. Or in part could also mean theyre not offering wea on all of their cell phones. Or they can elect to participate in full, which basically means theyre participating across all their devices, and all their Geographic Areas. Once theyve done that, the only thing for them to do is what other carriers would be required to do, is to have the wea to be able to offer the weacapable phones and to be able to make sure that their network is set up to receive wea alerts. But theres other than the election itself, there isnt some drawn out process with the fcc that they would have to go through. Okay. Well, maybe what we can do is work with you in some of our smaller carriers who have had concerns. Then on the question on the Radio Stations . Thats something we are we actually are looking into the tsunami alert that occurred up in alaska. Thats something that we can certainly look into and include in our investigation. Good. Because if we can learn from this, i mean, fortunately there was no tsunami. But it was very scary for hundreds if not thousands of my constituents. It would be good to learn from this so we can be ready next time. Thank you. Thank you, senator sullivan. Senator udall. Thank you, chairman thune, and thank you to you and senator schatz for focusing on some of these important questions. My understanding some of your questions probably could have been answered by fema. And fema is not at the at this hearing, and i know that you requested them. But it seems to me we should try to get some answer. Some way. Im happy to participate in a letter or however you want to do that. But i think we need the answers to your questions, based on the answers weve received from this panel. Which they dont seem to have the information, especially ms. Fowlkes. Fema is who we should be directing things to, dont you think, on some of those questions you were unable to answer, you said you didnt have authority . To the extent youre asking about anything other than our authority or our regulation of the communication Service Providers, participation, you would agree. Ms. Fowlkes, its my understanding that the states are required to file Emergency Alert systems plans with the fcc. There are a few tribal nations whose reservations across at least one state line in the case of new mexico. We have the navajo nation, which is in three different states. Are tribal nations under that same requirement of filing . No. The tribal nations do not have to file separate eas plans. What typically happens is to the extent that there are parts of tribal nations in states, those states take into account the need of those tribal nations. Thats certainly how the new mexico state eas plan is set up. Good, good, thank you. Its important to every bureau of the fcc to engage directly with tribal nations. And have you had the opportunity to work with tribal nations on their unique Public Safety needs . Certainly. For example, the Public Safety and Homeland Security bureau oversees an Advisory Committee, the Communications Security reliability and operaability council. We had a separate committee of 911 centers focused on next generation 911. We had representatives of tribal nations on that committee as well. And as all of you probably know, its very important to get these alerts out. If you have wireless. But many of these tribal nations dont have it at all. So youre dealing with an additional, huge hurdle in terms of getting Emergency Alerts and those kinds of things into tribal nations territory. Mr. Matheny, i appreciate the work that our local broadcasters do every day, but particularly in times of threats of Public Safety, such as during wildfire season, which we have in the southwest, and weve seen at various places around the country. As youre aware, broadcasters in pneumon new mexico rely heavily on translators to serve Rural Communities. Im concerned that the ongoing spectrum repack process could leave these rural consumers behind. Its my understanding that the current allocation of 1. 75 billion is inadequate to meet the needs of the broadcasters relocating. Is there a better estimate of the amount of money needed including if funds needed to ensure that translators do not go offline in rural areas . Thank you, senator udall. You are certainly correct that 1. 75 billion was allocated. Thats the number that chairman pie testified to. Yes, so chairman pie has testified that there is not enough money. Yeah. And so he is on the record with that as well. And we certainly dont believe theres enough money either. Based on the initial results of the cost estimates submitted by tv stations, the real number is going to end up being around 3 billion. And so theres a substantial disconnect in the Funds Available and whats really going to be needed. We are certainly keen to see the viewer and listener protection act. That senators moran and schatz have sponsored to take hold and get approved because we think its going to be necessary to make sure that stations stay on the air and are able to continue to operate, including translators. And in the context of this hearing, that certainly means that Emergency Alerts are still going to be available to those populations. Yeah. And im also an original cosponsor of that bill. I think we have to make this investment. I dont think theres any doubt about it. Ive got a couple additional questions, but ill submit them for the record. Thank you to the panel very much. Thank you, senator udall, and your point is a good one. We did attempt to get fema here. They need more lead time. In light of what happened, they need it. But i do think there are questions that obviously fcc, as this Jurisdiction Committee theme is dhs, but only they and others can answer. Im hoping that well be able, by the fulltime the fietime thn hawaii occurs, to get the parties involved in the discussion and engage and hopefully on the some of those questions. There still, to me, are unanswered questions. There are attempts legislatively to cure the problems we had this time around. Senator capito. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank the Ranking Member. And i know its been a difficult several days and weeks since this occurred. And im kind of going to go on the fema thing. I want to get this question on the record, ms. Fowlkes. Im pretty sure you dont know the answer to this question, or you dont have it. But i think its the one question that many people, when they read the story, at least at a cursory level sort of wondered. And that is how is it that a single Government Employee could trigger an alert without any kind of meaningful mechanism to sort of override or, you know, do you want to delete . Do you want to delete . Was there any do you have any light to shed on that basic question . Thats actually one of the issues that were exploring as part of our investigation, what hawaiis process what happened and what hawaiis process was. I think well all be interested in hearing that. Mr. Matheny, were the warnings broadcast over tv . Yes, they were. In a scrawl kind of a thing . How was that presented . There were crawls on tv and then it was an audio played on radio. I actually was talking with somebody yesterday who was there in a hotel room. And they must have missed the first scrawl on the tv. But they did get the Warning System through their phone. Both of them. They were visitors. I wanted to tell senator schatz that the hotel they were staying in was right on top of it. They were a Warning System through the entire hotel with directions as to what they should do, encouraging everybody to come in. Im sure frantic, but to go to the basement. So i would say, since you have so many tourism and so many people staying in hotels, thats good to know that your Tourism Industry is reacting quickly to Something Like this. So thats one of the best practices that came through. And so let me ask i also want to thank mr. Matheny for the broadcasters, when we had our thousand year flood two years ago. Im convinced we would have lost more lives than we did had we not had Rapid Response through our broadcasters, and certainly through social media as well. Thank you for the broadcasters for staying on the story. It wasnt a oneday story for us, and it wasnt treated as such by the broadcasters. And thank you for recognizing that. I think that is one of the key elements of broadcasters is that they are local and part of the community. Right. And committed to helping prepare weather and recover. Mr. Bergmann, let me ask you a simple question. If youre in a no service area on your phone, do you get these alerts . You need to be within the Coverage Area in order to receive a wireless Emergency Alert which does put a premium on the conversation we had earlier about making sure were doing everything we can to make coverage available in a rural areas. This is a major issue for us, not just on the wireless side, but also on the broad band side. In our state, we have particular challenges because of the rural nature, but also the geographic nature of the state of West Virginia makes it difficult. But when i can drive eight miles outside of my capital city and lose coverage, theres still a lot of work that needs to be done. I know you know this. I wanted to reemphasize that. Lastly ill tell a little story on december the 7th, 1941 my uncle was stationed at the show field barracks in hawaii when pearl harbor was attacked. And my mother was 15 at the time. And the one story that she told us that was kind of interesting, especially in this day and time when youre talking about instantaneous messages and instantaneous retraction of messages within 40 minutes, which sounds like a lifetime. She told me that if it werent for the ham Radio Operators, her parents would have never known that their son was okay. But it took days for it to come across the country. And im sure some of those messages were not quite as positive as the one that my grandparents and my mother received that day. So mr. Ly necessa linesco. Thank you very much, senator. Amateur radio was used to achieve normalcy in hawaii in fact the Emergency Service in hawaii activated a uhv and vhf repeater system. They monitored the alerts and the cancellations. Ironically, 20 hours earlier they had drilled with the hawaii state Emergency Management. This kind of scenario. And so 20 hours later there it was right in our face. We had operators present at the Emergency Operation sistcenter, at the state warning point. The false alarm was on variation mechanisms within 13 minutes and amateur Radio Operators passed that along. The full false alarm notice came 38 minutes from the initial alarm. Amateur Radio Operators were trained in hawaii to listen to specific types of siren wailings, and each one would determine what kind of emergency there was. There was no siren. That led to a tremendous amount of confusion. They also received reports from a coast guard vessel relaying the cancellation notice before the official cancellation notice came out. Amateur Radio Operators knew pretty much earlier than anybody else as to what was going on and did start sending that message along. The other issue, if i could take a few more seconds, that i think is real in relaying the story of the folks in hawaii visiting, the skepticism over this is a test, and this is real, even though it was explained that it was it was real, i do think if we perfect the system we wont have this testing fatigue, where youre getting tested and you know nothing is really happening. Thats our Immediate Response sometimes. And so i think the better the system gets, and more reliable, the less frequently it needs to be tested. And or you can test it in different places and dont have to test it always at the same site. Will really go to this sort of mentality of this is a false alarm, not really happening, im going to wait it out and wait and see what happens. So i encourage all your efforts in that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, senator capito. Senator markey. Thank you, mr. Chairman, very much. I refer back to an earlier conversation. There is actually a professional team in massachusetts, and it will be playing in about ten days in a game out in minnesota. I just want everyone to be on notice to be. Can we get it done more quickly than 2019 . How can we telescope the time frame to get this done . Its obviously a big problem. Thanks, senator. And we do think that additional capability, having the additional characters will be helpful, let us pass on more information to consumers, like Public Safety, explain situations better to consumers. We are certainly an industry about overdelivering. So weve hit every deadline, so far, in terms of warrant active implementation. We want to try to do that again here as well. You could set a goal of completing it in 2018 . Well, you know, i wouldnt want to get ahead of the fccs current deadline, which is may of 2019. I can tell you well be doing everything we can to hit that deadline, and if we can, beat it. We already saw that headline is too far out. We definitely need obviously to deal with the problem. So lets just talk, for example, about what could happen at a meltdown at the Pilgrim Nuclear power plant in massachusetts, which is at the bottom of the list of best managed Nuclear Power plants in the United States, and of course people in cape cod would have to actually ride past the plant to evacuate. So it gets a little bit more complicated. So i guess my question to you would be when this event just occurred in hawaii, the message was Ballistic Missile threat inbound to hawaii, seek immediate shelter, this is not a drill. What would be the message that went off, the emergency what would be the information that was communicated to people if there was a Nuclear Power plant meltdown and where would they be told to go . Would they be told to shelter in place . Told to evacuate. Here there was no Additional Information. Where do you go . What do you do . People were running crazily around town. If there is a nuclear meltdown, we have 100 plants in america, and its clear an accident can happen. It is possible. Should there be more information that is part of the message which is sent out so it not only warns people, but gives them guidance with more than 90 perhaps with as many as 360 characters, you know, so that theres guidance that families receive. Well, one of the the main reason why the commission expanded the character limit of the wea alert from 90 to 360 was because of the need to provide more information. In addition to which the commissions also adopted rules that would allow for the wea alerts to include embedded references. Originally the rules did not allow telephone numbers or url link into the wea alert. The commission has now given the advancement in technology decided to allow those to be included. Theres certainly other issues that are before the commission that we are considering in terms of other types of information, or Additional Information that can be provided. Yeah, so i think thats very important, and i think it has to be tailored because people would want to know, do i shelter in place, or do i just run crazily out into the street and head towards what could be the problem . And i think thats really one of the big issues that has been identified. And were going to have to clarify that. And just going back to the hawaii incident, i dont know how much thought has been put into this question of state control versus federal control because obviously the north koreans could also make a miscalculation if they think we are preparing for nuclear war. If they think that the United States might have a hair trigger response capacity, you know, that is going to be triggered by this emergency evacuation plan that has been triggered. So has anyone thought through that reality, that the north koreans could completely misinterpret what is going on and actually move them closer to their own hair trigger just to prepare because the United States might be actually on the verge of attacking . Has anyone thought through that issue as well . From the fcc standpoint, were as you know were focused on the communication distribution side. Thats another issue where i would have to refer you to fema and dhs. Yeah. I think decisions like that should be made by the president , and by the pentagon, and not by state officials. I think its absolutely imperative that it be put in that larger context of understanding how the north koreans might be responding. Because its already too close, the hair trigger between our two countries, too many threats have already been issued. So a misreading of that by the north koreans could have actually resulted in a much more catastrophic situation. So thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator markey. Senator cantwell is next. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member, thank you for holding this hearing. When it comes to the Pacific Northwest i guarantee you with tsunamis and earthquakes and volcanos, flooding, worried about we pay a lot of attention to disaster issues. And im reminded, having been on the committee for some time, our former colleague senators stevens and inua spent a lot of development on what is the buoy system, what is our earliest detection on the waves so we can have this information. And now noah is working on the Additional Information to get the information to hand held devices. It is i think we need to be thankful that weve made the investment in technology. I think the question becomes who in the federal government owns the protocols for making sure that the coordination happens at the state and local level if so many of the partners in the development of that communication, or the communication itself, for example, the weather service, who i know isnt with us this morning, how do we make sure that that, you know, information is there . So for us, out on the long beach peninsula, this issue is a very big issue. We have established warning sirens and warning information. But and i think the scientists at noah would tell us which is what we should be developing. But now we have a very rural isolated community trying to figure out how to deal with the tsunami. Many people may remember the story that the new yorker wrote a few years back, the big one. I never heard from so many of my friends around the United States when that article appeared because they all woke up and said this is really whats going to happen. So we train constantly, constantly on this as a coordinated effort between Homeland Security, our National Guard, our local responders. But who owns at the federal level thinking through what this communication protocol should actually look like, and how we establish safeguards within the protocol so that these kinds of mistakes, or information gaps are avoided in the future . Because we want to continue with the information. Thats for sure. Does anybody have a thought on that . Ms. Flowers, mr. In terms of the Communications Service provider side, certainly the fcc, works with the Service Providers. We have rules that apply in terms of how theyre supposed to react in terms of receiving and transmitting the alerts. On the alert on the alert origination side on the fema side id have to refer more to them. I will say that just in terms of general coordination the fcc has, at times, coordinated well, not just at times. But regularly coordinates with fema in terms of things such as testing or dealing with some of the issues that go to our rulemaking. To give you an example with respect to the eas, theres a lot of states on the particularly on the western side of the country who do tsunami and earthquake tests. And they want to use the live code eas, which under our rules you cant use unless its an actual emergency. We have, working with broadcasters and other eas participants, waived our rules to allow the broadcasters, the Cable Operators to transmit that live code test as part of the broader tsunami exercise that fema may be doing with a state or local government. This isnt im not trying to stump the panel. Its more that i think we have a gap here. And i know in our state because the National Guard and the tech sector are so strong theyve established what they call hygiene issues for cybersecurity. Here are the ten things that you should follow for good cybersecurity hygiene. Somewhere it seems to me that we need this protocol list of heres what Emergency Response should look like, and here are the safeguards that should be in place. Whether youre talking about a county or a state or, you know, the federal system. Because were going to keep marching ahead. We need the information. We desperately want this kind of when its an earthquake, you only have, you know you might only have minutes to respond. And because as i said this article about the big one in the northwest, we want to see the state and information. We also want to make sure like the things that happened in hawaii also have new safeguards for false alarms. And i remember senator inoway talking about a previous moment in hawaii history prior to this technology where they had i think it went on for hours, he said they thought a tsunami wave was going to hit. So this went on for hours and hours. Thats why we developed the buoy system. The buoy system did work the other night in kodiak, and it gave people even though it went off it gave people to understand from the science level that the wave was not going to be that great. We want the technology, but we need protocols as to how its used and to make sure there are safeguards for the public. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator cantwell. Senator cortez masto. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. I do wish fema had been here. I think they would have been an integral part of this discussion. I echo a lot of concerns from my colleagues ive heard today and appreciate your candid comments as well about the challenges we still have moving forward. But the good things happening with the alerts. One of the things i do have concerns about sometimes, particularly in the state of nevada where we have a very diverse and growing population, are language barriers. I know ms. Fowlkes and mr. Bergmann you talked a little bit about this, and the actions that were taken in 2016 to enable Spanish Language alerts. Can you talk a little bit more about that, and describe how that works to ensure understandable alerts are sent to everyone . And not just Spanish Language alone. In nevada, particularly in southern nevada, we have a large filipino population. Thats a barrier for those who do not speak spanish. Can you talk about language barriers and how you address those and what the gaps are in what we should be doing to keep that in mind when were talking about reaching out to everyone in our communities when there is a crisis, or a concern of national a Natural Disaster . As you noted the commission back in 2016 adopted rules to facilitate Spanish Language wea alerts. We do currently have the broader issue that is pending before us that were still considering regarding other languages. And to what extent wea alerts, we should be looking at wea alerts in other types of languages. Not there yet, though . Not there. Its pending. And then mr. Bergmann, if you dont mind, talking a little bit about how particularly with spanish, how you overcome that barrier with technology. I certainly agree with you and think thats an important improvement. Its one were working diligently to implement. Just would flag again the addition of urls, plays an Important Role as well too. We think often of weas bell ringer, giving them the opportunity to get more information. Together those two tools will be valuable for consumers, particularly for those who speak languages other than english as well. Thank you, and besides language barriers, and i echo my colleagues again, theres geographic barriers, particularly in nevada, and across the country that are still struggling to have Broadband Access and access to be able to use the technology thats out there thats providing this information. I though this is an area where weve talked, and will continue to support to bring resources, and funding to our Rural Communities to connect them. But to me this is just a crisis as well, that they are not connected right now. And its a focus for many of us. Let me ask you this. Cybersecurity. Is there any concern about hackers, hacking into an alert system in any manner whatsoever . Have we seen any of that . Is it something youre thinking about, or making sure youre addressing in the infrastructure . The fcc has addressed the issue of cybersecurity, particularly with respect to the eas through its Advisory Committee. You may or may not recall that back in 2013 a hacker gained access to eas equipment at various broadcast stations across the country. We conducted an investigation. We asked our advisory and we asked your Advisory Committee to come up with best practices that eas participants could use to make their equipment more secure. In addition to which, the fcc, through its Advisory Committees has developed best practices for really all the communication sectors to address Security Risk management, specifically how to implement the framework. Best practices are there, but theres no guarantee theyre going to be adopted. We have various we have taken steps to strongly encourage communication Service Providers to implement those best practices. We also work with industry organizations. And many of the organizations have done a lot to encourage members to implement those best practices. Were still at the stage of encouragement and not necessarily mandated these are being implemented . Yes. Thank you. I appreciate the conversation today. Thank you, senator cortez masto. Senator duckworth. Thank you. I wanted to thank the chair and the Ranking Member for todays hearing. I also want to thank our witnesses for participating in this very important discussion. As a graduate of the university of hawaii, go rainbows, no one else . No one else in the room. Theres never anybody from not even you, not even you. What does that say . But hawaiis recent false alarm is a fascinating test case, i think, for federal and local policymakers, on one hand it worked the way it was supposed to, it was a false alarm, but the execution worked as was designed. A message sent by an alerting authority and effectively disseminated to the population, on the other hand it was sent in error, terrifying the entire state for nearly an hour. I actually landed in south korea on my way to the dmz when i when it popped up on my phone saying this had happened. And so, you know, the situation really exposed some gaps in the training processes and ergonomics of the software of the alerting authority. Mr. Bergmann and mr. Matheny, the questions raised and identified in the hawaii case focus more on alerting authorities and fema than the fcc and the alertingdy disseminay fors. Yes, i would. I agree with the way you outlined it. The broadcast infrastructure worked. The transmission worked. The message did get out. Unfortunately in this case it was a mistaken message. And so i think that as weve been discussing today, it requires us all, in particular on the fema side, to revisit who can generate an alert, and how that alert is generated. But as it relates to the dissemination and the transmission, i think, as youve stated, that piece of the process worked as designed. Senator duckworth, i would agree as well, too. On the wireless side the alert was delivered exactly as intended. And i think one of the key focuses of this hearing is making sure we have public trust and confidence in the system. And i think we can certainly say we have that on the delivery side, understanding the committees appropriate focus on making sure the trust extends across the entire system. But the system performed well on the wireless side. Thank you. So i want to sort of contrast that with something that my colleague senator sullivan talked about, the recent tsunami warning in alaska. I think thats more of an appropriate test case where an Emergency Alert was sent to a wide swath of residents, many who were in the danger zone, but then a lot of folks who were outside of the danger zone, and probably did not need to be alerted. The alaska example exposes a potential gap in the wireless Emergency Alert systems effectiveness in large rural environments. And i had this situation in illinois where i have chicago, a couple major metropolitan areas, but then large Rural Communities. So my understanding is that in anchorage, residents received an alert at 12 36 a. M. , even though they were not in the danger zone geographically. And i can appreciate alerting authorities and ering on the side of caution. But it seems more likely that boundaries combined with Technology Limitations played a role in those folks in anchorage receiving the alert. Ms. Fowlkes, senator sullivan touched on this. Has the fcc done away has it done any afteraction analysis of alaskas recent tsunami warning to determine the weas effectiveness in this instance . We are in the process of looking into it, yes. Do you have an idea how long that review would take . I cant give you a specific timeline. As always, my team moves very carefully and very expeditiously. Wonderful. Mr. Bergmann, what can you tell us about the effectiveness of geotargeting technology, where are the gaps . Which emergency is least suited and where should the industry and congress focus our attention . Is there an issue with somebody who has the gps locator thank you, senator. You put your finger on one of the most important improvements, poised to make, improving the geotargeting. The example you talked about, this is exactly why we think about alerts, is trying to target it to the folks who are actually in danger and not overalerting. So there are two components to that. One, weve implemented now, which is taking advantage of greater capabilities within network to go below the county level. So that alert originators can draw the polygone, the Geographic Area they want to reach. They can do that today. The next step would be taking advantage not just of the network, but also of the capabilities in the device. So there, turning on features like location, is obviously critically important to that. We want to make sure that you can take advantage of that Location Information in order to appropriately geotarget it. Now, the i think a comforting piece of information there is if the geotargeting is turned off, theyll still receive the message. Its not as if the consumer would not receive the message in that circumstance. Thank you. And im out of time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator duckworth. Senator wicker. Mr. Lisenco, thank you for being here. Page 9 of your written testimony you talk about the hawaii amateur Radio Operators during the recent false alarm. How were these operators able to disseminate a cancellation notice about hawaiis Ballistic Missile false alarm before others were able to do so . And can you explain how amateur radios were able to provide that notice before others . Senator wicker, first let me start by thanking you for your continuing support of amateur radio, and your bill as 1534. Thank you. And i might point out that senator blumenthal is a cosponsor of that. Yes, sir. I appreciate his bipartisan support for this. Thank you. As i hadearlier, ironically, amateur radio members in hawaii had just been drilling 20 hours before the actual false alarm. So everything was fresh on their minds. Now, because they are able to work outside of the local infrastructure and they were not participants within the actual initial notification, they got word out through various vhf and uhf repeaters about the false alarm. Within 13 minutes after the initial alarm. They were picking up information from various sources, including a coast guard vessel that was just outside of the area. And as a result, because they didnt because they were able to disseminate that information freely within the 13 minutes they were able to get that word out right away. Whereas there was a lot of confusion in the area as well because they were taught to listen for a certain type of siren warning that never came. So they were dependent upon information that they were gleaning from within the community itself. Okay. Well, let me then switch to katrina. Okay. Why, in situations like hurricane katrina, are the amateur radios so much more resilient, and able to be there as a backup to the more wellknown forms . Well, for a number of reasons. First of all, were not dependent upon the infrastructure to operate. If power goes down, were able to use generators, solar power panels, batteries, what have you. And because we understand how radio works, were able to adapt very quickly in any situation. Whereas most First Responders are using the technology that they really cant adapt to a given situation because they dont have a basic understanding. Were able to walk into a situation, take notice of the surroundings, what kind of operation would be effective at that point, and then move along those lines very quickly. The big thing is, is that when all else fails we really are able to provide Emergency Communications as required. Okay. So things are okay. But why is the new legislation so important . What would it give us that we dont have . You have to remember that amateur radio is unique in that we are disseminating geographically throughout the entire country. Very often what will happen is well have amateur Radio Operators within ask outside of a disaster area. That gives us a unique ability to disseminate information from within a disaster zone that others dont have. And the fact that were not dependent upon the infrastructure then gives us the ability to work outside of it. So that, for instance, during sandy, im before it if you cant tell from my accent, im from brooklyn. We had devastation throughout the coast of both new jersey and new york going out to long island. Flooding was so severe that we had people stuck in their homes obviously waiting for help. We had amateur Radio Operators who were inside of the flood zone, and were able to send messages to First Responders outside of the flood zone as to where people needed help. Very often in an emergency of that nature its as important to know where you need help and where you dont need help so you dont waste the resources that you have, which are limited during a disaster. So you dont want to send a First Responder to the wrong address when theres nobody there to save. And we learned that its that dissemination of a resource that is a strong point for us. Thank you. Thank you, senator wicker. Senator schatz, anything else for the good of the order . Well, i think we pretty well covered the subject today with the folks that are here. And as i mentioned earlier, there are some folks who are not here who could shed considerable light on some of the other aspects of the way this process works. Its clear to me, at least, and i think most of the members of this committee, that we need to make some changes, at least with respect to the kind of alert that was issued in hawaii. When its a Nuclear Attack, i think the chain in that alert system needs to be modified to reflect the seriousness of the threat, not that any of them arent serious. But obviously this is a very different this was a very different sort of threat. But thank you so much for the work that your various organizations do, and alerting the public, and encourage you to continue to work to develop and refine those processes. And technologies. So that we can become even better. And hopefully more efficient in seeing that people have the notifications they need in the face of various disasters that come our way. So thank you. We will keep the record open. For members who, on the committee, who would like to submit questions for the record, for a couple weeks. And would ask the witnesses as soon as they can to get those responses in. Preferably in a couple weeks time so we can close out the record of the hearing. And we, again, appreciate all of you being here today. With that, this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] those are roles, each of those respective roles are things well look at. If there are things that can be refined and it takes legislation to do that, well certainly take a look at it. Fema officials and others to gather more information, or whats your next step . I think it is. Theres there will be, we think, at least, there will be a dhs authorization bill moving at some point. If there were an opportunity to legislate in the space, it would probably be in conjunction with that bill. But were going to have another followup hearing in hawaii. We havent stated the date on that yet. But so well get hopefully be able to get fema and some other folks that werent able to be here today at that hearing and well continue to sort of drill down and figure out what needs to be fixed, and how to do that. Whats the best way to do that. Can you give us a rough sense how soon the field hearing might be . Not a specific date. Were still discussing it, trying to figure out when we can do it to maximize the opportunity for members to attend, which getting to hawaii usually means its got to be over a congressional work period break. Well figure that out and let you guys know when we know when that is. The false alarm. You heard senator cantwell talk about tsunami alerts, theres other Alert Systems that work just like hawaii. Yeah, and thats why i think that, you know, we have to figure out, in this case, what my understanding the way it worked is, that fema, through this ipod system can delegate out, in this case to a state agency, some of that responsibility for, you know, the alert. And then and whether or not that process needs to be modified is something well take a look at. I mean, clearly in the event of a Nuclear Attack, thats norad, thats president ial, what senator schatz is trying to take into account in his bill. That makes sense to a lot of us. We definitely need to figure out how we keep what happened this time from happening again. And were still trying to put all those pieces together. The jurisdiction of your committee . Probably not. His bill will be under his. You would not have a markup then. We probably wouldnt unless there was something in it that triggered our jurisdiction. If it has the fcc components in it, then it would come under our committees jurisdiction. Well take a look at what hes proposing and see if there are other things as we take into consideration what weve heard today, and then at the subsequent field hearing, and see if there are other things, like i said, that we can do that refine and make the system work better and hopefully avoid the what i think was a very, you know, potentially catastrophic situation. But if nothing else, certainly embarrassing situation. I wondered that framework you were talking about for best practices, maybe that would be under your jurisdiction, so maybe you might have a piece of it. Thats true. Thats why i asked the question today of the fcc. And, you know, clearly they dont have the authority right now to do that. Thats something we would have to take a look at. Folks, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. [inaudible conversations] the fcc is meeting on tuesday. One of the items on their agenda, making improvements to the Emergency Alert system. Watch live on cspan. Org at 10 30 a. M. Eastern. This fcc meeting comes after a false alarm Emergency Alert went out this month in hawaii. Congressman greg walden who chairs the house, energy and Commerce Committee spoke earlier about that fathers and mothelse hawaii. Were running out of time. But the recent false alarm in hawaii brought attention to all of our Emergency Alerts, and even a conversation regarding 911 and next generation 911. What would you like to see happen . Well have the commission before the committee next week, is that right . Full commission. February. February. All right. False alarm. False alarm. Well, i guarantee you a couple things. One, you mentioned im an amateur Radio Operator, im not active. Im the only chairman in the that wired in because my wife and i owned Radio Stations for 20 plus years and i pretended to be an engineer at times. So i know a little bit about that. And i go back far enough to remember when it was the emergency broadcast system, and it was an orange book that slid right there in the control room next to the operator, and inside was a pink, i think it was a pink envelope. That had authentication codes in it in case of a national emergency. And those got changed out, ill say, every month, there was a period of time, new envelope, destroyed the old one, never opened it. It was like ripping the thing off your mattress. Seriously, this was very well thought out. I cannot imagine a scenario where me sitting at 18 pushed the wrong button ask we have a Nuclear Attack coming. I dont know how that would have happened. And so i think this needs evaluation. I talked to chairman pie that night. And we discussed it. Its a matter of great seriousness. There could have been loss of life as a result of this because, you know, we had we had an interesting thing when i was in the radio business, fortunately i had a retired guy who came back to work, just wanted to do saturday morning shift. Tom was a great guy, cool head, and they were doing a mock drill in oregon. And the whole shtick was that one of the major main stem bands across the Columbia River has been breached. If that happens, portlands under a whole bunch of water. Theyre going through all the drills and emergency casualty stuff, this is all a drill and he gets the call saying okay, now its your turn to activate the Emergency Alert system and notify he said no, no, no, i dont think im going to push the button and say bonneville dams been breached. I think thats orsen wells stuff. And so he refused to do it. But it can get to that level. And wherever we are we have to be cognizant safeguards are in place and in these dangerous times in places like hawaii or guam. I look forward to working with our First Responder community and a broadcasters and states and fcc to see what went wrong and how do we make sure it doesnt happen again. How are we on time . One or two questions . Ill take them, you answer them. Works well. Over here. We do have microphones and there are people watching on the internet, apparently. I thought this was all off the record. A lot of tweets