WASHINGTON-Passage of a Senate bill to integrate wireless communications and other advanced technologies into the Cold War-era emergency alert system is hung up over a partisan dispute whether a new National Alert Office would reside in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or in a Federal Emergency Management Agency fighting to rebuild its reputation in the aftermath of its bungled response to last year’s deadly, destructive hurricanes.
When Democrats learned Republicans moved NOA to FEMA in the Warning, Alert and Response Network Act after its approval by the Senate Commerce Committee, according to a congressional source, they balked at having the bill fast-tracked in late May. That prompted Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to issue a statement urging passage of the bill, but giving no hint of any changes to it or the dispute with Democrats.
“Hurricane season will be upon us shortly,” Stevens said in late May. “The WARN Act will help ensure we are prepared for another busy storm season.” Hurricane season began June 1. Lawmakers included $156 million for development of an all-hazards alert system in a 2005 budget bill that’s now law.
The Government Accountability Office last week said the Pacific coast states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea, face the greatest tsunami threat, but “limitations in the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards may impede timely warnings to communities.”
The glitch in the Senate over the WARN bill is not unlike the situation elsewhere in the Bush administration three months short of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission’s review of emergency alert service will be one year old in August, and FCC spokesman Clyde Ensslin refused to comment whether the agency is anywhere close to approving upgrades to a system still largely dependent on television and radio. There is speculation President Bush soon could sign an executive order transferring some emergency alert service jurisdiction to DHS.
Though DHS has worked with mobile-phone carriers on a pilot project, prospects remain dim for putting a modern emergency alert system into operation anytime soon. Meantime, Holland and South Korea are moving forward with cell broadcast emergency wireless warning technology. Other countries in European Union could follow Holland’s lead.
The U.S. mobile industry, however, does not regard cell broadcast technology as a silver bullet.
The industry proposes short message service as a near-term emergency alert solution, though acknowledging the technology’s limitations. For the long term, cellular association CTIA proposes embracing as a model wireless priority service whereby the service description is defined by the government and industry. WPS was given high priority after 9/11, and today is being provided by most national cellular operators around the country.
“Do I think it [emergency alert reform] could have happened faster? No. I think it’s happening at the right pace,” said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs at CTIA.
