Att and the Virginia Office of Public Safety. This is an hour and 40 minutes. It is precisely 10 00 a. M. Good morning and the subcommittee will come to order. Good morning. The subcommittee comes to order. The exciting efforts to deploy the nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network. Im glad to convene this hearing and i look forward to the attendance and a moment to from my different friend and Ranking Member mr. Schatz. In 2012 congress created the First Responder Network Authority to lead the development of a nationwide interoperable Public Safety Broadband Network in the United States. With the Communications Failures that plague Recovery Efforts during 9 11 and other National Emergencies including Hurricane Katrina there was and still is a clear need for a Reliable Communications network to support the central work of our Public Safety officials such a network would improve coordination on First Responders across multiple jurisdictions and enhance the ability of First Responders
Including michael and Virginia Deputy secretary of Public Safety curtis brown is one hour and 45 minutes. The subcommittee will come to order. Rder today we meet for an update. Ont first met and the excitingcitind efforts to deploy the nationwide interoperablenationwide public t Broadband Network. I look forward to the attendance in just a moment or two and mr. Ranking member. Congress created the First Responder Network Authority to lead the Development Authority of a nationwide interoperability Safety Broadband Network in thed United States. The Communications Failures tham plague the murecovery efforts during 9 11that plagu and othern emergencies including Hurricane Katrina there was and still is the need for a Reliable Network for the Public Safety officials. Such would improve the coordination among firston on fn responders across multipleross e jurisdictions and enhance the ability of First Responders to lifesaving Services Last y quickly. The committee convened for an update on
February 23 has come and gone and the annual report has not been given . Im not sure the question you are asking. To whom is it referred . I them with the gao. Oh. You are are all over saying it, right . You are the accountability office. We have done our first audit which is what im here talking about today sir. What im concerned about what it alarm you all that they might not be able to meet the person that needs as far as personnel . Thats all they have been able to hire. We understand and someone else enter this . I can certainly respond to that. First of all the annual report actually has been issued. There was a bit of the time delay but you should have access to that at this point and it does require significant review youre absolutely correct on on that and maybe theres an opportunity. But i mean this is what upsets people. You are talking to someone from the private sector. No simply doesnt make sense but im not an expert on government process so im not sure. Sioux this is a N
Senator as you know there were originally seven Pilot Projects that we looked at. For them were approved in three of them are not approved including the 70 Million Dollar mississippi grant. We were deeply disappointed as well because he wanted to try to make this work but at the end of the day the state in nta couldnt agree on terms because the states plan didnt provide the necessary level of detail we needed to meet the statutory requirements. As you know under the btop program there were specific statutory requirements that this had to meet and the mississippi plan that came forward was not a viable alternative that medbee statutory requirements. One of the things that ntia is committed to the. To requirements from 2012 . I believe from the original btop program and my understanding is the Mississippi Program didnt provide broadband so that was one of the challenges of this. But look we wanted to try to make this work or at the Firstnet Team worked very hard and long hours with missi
First net is their first priority. Because this is no pra jorty of comment about people that we work with, but first net is a secondary item for them. They have a fulltime day job and we pile on top of that. We probably dont get the urgency that we feel about things. So to the degree we can take accountability and responsibility for those functions well obviously follow all the rules and regulations but we would have an opportunity to move more quickly. Id like to see what we can do about improving that and also taking responsibility from commerce and obviously e we wouldnt do that until such time were prepared. We went through that process with our finance organization. Initially, they provided support for us. Today we do a lot of that work ourselves. So i think we have demonstrated we can bring in the right resources with the right talent and training, put the controls in place to cause people to feel comfortable to fullfill that. Id love for you to submit more of that for the record