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 WeatherService 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 a by the 20. 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 america