Hawaii False Missile Alert Likely Again to Be in Spotlight at House Homeland Security Hearing
A Tuesday House Homeland Security Communications Subcommittee hearing is likely to mirror a recent Senate Commerce Committee one in focus on the Jan. 13 false missile alert in Hawaii, but some witnesses are likely to contrast that incident with industry and other states’ best practices, communications sector officials and lobbyists said in interviews. The false warning already drew congressional scrutiny, particularly from Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and other members of the state’s delegation (see 1801160054, 1801170050, 1801240046 and 1801250061). A planned Feb. 16 House Communications Subcommittee hearing on the FCC budget is expected to partially focus on the Hawaii incident and other public safety communications issues (see 1802050025).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief Lisa Fowlkes, CTIA Senior Vice President Scott Bergmann and NAB Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny are expected to largely repeat the testimony they gave at the Jan. 25 Senate Commerce hearing, though Fowlkes likely will note developments in the FCC investigation since then, said industry lobbyists. The FCC determined after the hearing that the false warning stemmed from lack of safeguards and human error, including a now-fired Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee who repeatedly confused drills and real alerts (see 1801300053). The HEMA employee told NBC’s Nightly News with Lester Holt Friday that he believed the drill was a real emergency and blamed the incident on a “system failure.” Copies of most witnesses’ written testimony weren’t available at our deadline.
“We know more” about the Hawaii incident “than we did at the last hearing,” said Venable communications lawyer Jamie Barnett, a former FCC Public Safety Bureau chief. “Clearly, this was a human error, emphasizing that controls and safeguards were not in place.” House Homeland Security will likely “hear about the damage that false alerts do to the efficacy of alerts in general” since they “cause doubt about any future alerts and perhaps complacency,” Barnett said: An “additional tragedy” of the incident “is that it takes away from the highly useful and effective alerts that went out to people in the path of wildfires and hurricanes” in 2017 and this year.
Wireless emergency warnings “have proven themselves, but we need the system to keep getting better,” Barnett said. He added that governance of emergency alerts is still “very loose, very distributed necessarily and it is underfunded. The solution to false alerts is to fund better exercises, assessments and controls at the state and local level. There needs to be better oversight that protocols are adopted, personnel trained and exercises evaluated. That takes money, and I do not hear anyone talking about more resources.”
Matheny will again say broadcasters “were on the case” to transmit both the false alert and the subsequent “All Clear” message, but “must rely on emergency managers for validation of the emergency.” Broadcasters worked during the 38 minutes between the false alert and the follow-up emergency alert system message to “confirm and report that it was a false alarm as soon as possible,” Matheny said in his written testimony. He will also highlight future congressional actions on issues important to the broadcasting industry -- activation of FM chips in cellphones, additional funding for spectrum incentive auction repacking and ATSC 3.0 -- that NAB believes will help improve emergency alerts in the future.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Director-Continuity Communications Antwane Johnson will likely adhere to talking about the agency’s current work to update the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), which includes the EAS and WEA system, rather than specifically address the incident, lobbyists said. IPAWS can tout successes in alerting residents about hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the October wildfires and January mudslides in California, a lobbyist said. Johnson also may update lawmakers about FEMA implementation of 2015's IPAWS Modernization Act (see 1507100038), the lobbyist said.
New York City Emergency Management Department Assistant Commissioner Benjamin Krakauer and Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency Director Peter Gaynor are likely to focus on their jurisdictions’ best practices on emergency alerts, though they also may offer input on possible nationwide improvements, communications sector lobbyists said. Krakauer can tout recent advances for New York City’s Notify NYC alerts system, including September's release of its location-based mobile alerts system and its plan to offer multilingual alerts to subscribers by mid-2019, one lobbyist said. Gaynor can note Rhode Island’s implementation of its CodeRED alert system and the state’s 2017 update to its EAS plan, a lobbyist said.