The FCC adopted rules recently to improve the delivery of emergency alerts on mobile phones, TVs, and radios.The June 17 FCC action in a report and order and further notice of proposed rulemaking in PS dockets 15-94 and 15-91 was taken pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, which directed the FCC, in consultation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to adopt regulations to strengthen emergency alerting (TR, Jan. 8).A news release noted that the report and order (1) "[c]ombines the current 'Presidential Alerts' category,which is non-optional on devices that receive Wireless Emergency Alerts, with alerts from the FEMA Administrator to form a new non-optional alert class called 'National Alerts'"; (2) "[e]ncourages all states to form State Emergency Communications Committees, which help administer alerting on the state level, or to review the composition and governance of existing committees, as well as require certification of annual committee meetings"; (3) "[p]rovides a checklist of information that should be included in annual state Emergency Alert System plans and amends the process for Commission review of those plans"; (4) "[s]pecifies that government agencies may report false emergency alerts to the FCC's 24/7 Operations Center"; and (5) "[c]larifies how alert originators can repeat their alert transmissions."In the further notice, the FCC solicits comments on additional possible EAS improvements recommended by FEMA.
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