Calls the growing partisan nature of the u. S. Senate. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning, Oklahoma Republican congressman steve russel will join us to discuss the latest on the deal to avoid a Government Shutdown and the governments waste watch report. Were live from jackson, mississippi, for the next stop on the cspan bus 50 capitals tour. Joining us will be Mississippi Attorney general jim hood to talk about key policy issues his state. Then new York Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney on efforts to avoid a Government Shutdown this week and volatility in u. S. Financial markets. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern wednesday morning. Join the discussion. Following last months false alarm missile alert in hawaii, a house panel looked at the reliability and accuracy of Emergency Alerts. Well hear from representatives from fema and the new york and rhode island Emergency Management agencies as well as Wireless Technology industry officials. Congressman Daniel Donovan of new york chairs this Homeland Security subcommittee hearing. The subcommittee on emergency preparedness, response and communications will come to order. The subcommittee is meeting today to review our ability to timely and effectively alert and warn the public in the case of an emergency. I want to welcome our witnesses here this morning on an issue that is vital to the protection of americans. Effective and reliable alerts and warnings. The numerous disasters and terrorist attacks that weve witnessed over the past few months have illustrated that timely communication is critical in an emergency situation. And the ability of critical information, the availability of critical information can help individuals protect themselves from harms way. While some of us grew up in an Emergency Alert warnings through television, radio and im old enough to remember when they told to us get underneath our desks because there was a siren warning. Many alerts today are also received through mobile devices, the internet and even social media. Considering the Technology Advances that have been made over the past decade, we have High Expectations for what our phones, tablets and computers can do. At the very least, we expect that the alerts that come through our devices are timely, accurate and only sent when necessary. During the Chelsea Bombing in 2016, the new york city Emergency Management department sent out three messages to the chelsea neighborhood. One, two alert individuals to shelter in place. Two, once the situation was cleared, and the third one, to solicit the publics help in locating the suspect. These are messages helped these messages helped protect individuals 59 a time of uncertainty. It was also reported that they were received far outside the target area. While it is difficult to obtain 100 accuracy, i am glad that the fcc voted last week to require the delivery of alerts to 100 of the target area identified by the alert the alert system with no more than 0. 10 of a mile overshoot. This kind of accuracy will help to deter warning this will help determine excuse me this will help to deter warning fatigue. Unfortunately, there have been erroneous Emergency Alerts sent to the public that undermines the confidence in the system and the messages that are shared. We saw an example of this just this morning when an alert that was supposed to be a test instead warned multiple locations on the east coast that a tsunami was on its way. In addition, erroneous Emergency Alert issued by the state of hawaii on january 13th, 2018, warning residents and visitors of a Ballistic Missile threat inbound to hawaii. Has caused the same concern of ours. Because this incident occurred due to human error, im interested in hearing about the training, certification to message originators to ensure proper use of the system. In addition, im interested in knowing more about the safeguards that should have been in place and what, if anything, needs to be done on a federal level to make sure that this never happens again. In addition to improve the response to terrorist events, i encourage the fcc to take action on multimedia alerts, many want feedback and multiling waual alerts. Directly to recipients phones during the Chelsea Bombing or if recipients were able to respond to the message to report that they saw the chelsea bomber, it may have led to a faster apprehension of the suspect. However, enhancements to the system will be meaningless if basic awareness of how to use the system is not met. Considering the current threat environment in the united states, evidence by many incidences over the past few months, including two terrorist attacks in new york city, one in october and the other in december of 2017, 9 accuracy and efficiently of wireless Emergency Alerts is critical. That way when an imminent threat alert is sent, americans can and will act according to protect themselves and their loved ones. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to share their expertise with us and i look forward to our discussion. The chair now recognizes my friend, the recognizing member of this subcommittee, the gentleman from new jersey, mr. Pane, f payne, for an Opening Statement that he may have. Good morning. And id like to thank chairman donovan for holding todays hearing to assess the state of our nations alert and Warning Systems. Our ability to issue timely Emergency Alerts and warnings is an essential component of the national preparedness. We know when people we know when the public is warned early and given enough time to protect themselves and their property, we can limit the human toll and mitigate damage to our communities. Since the federal government began pursuing a National Alert capacity capability over 50 years ago, we have leveraged advances in technology to push alerts out to a Larger Population for the public more quickly. At the same time, the federal government has undertaken efforts to educate the public about alerts, warnings and how important it is to respond to them. Ultimately, for the public alerts and the warnings to be effective, the public has to be able to trust them. This is why last months false Ballistic Missile alert in hawaii was so troubling. Im concerned that a single employee was able to issue an alert in the first place and that it took nearly 40 minutes to issue a false alarm message over that platform. That said, false alerts are not limited to hawaii. During a routine test of the Emergency Alert system last month, a false alert announcing an emergency in morris county, new jersey, interrupted programming for certain cable subscribers last month. After Hurricane Irma hit florida last year, an alert issued, an error by state employee, directed residents to boil their water, causing hours of confusion. What these incidents have taught us is that we need enhanced training and guidance for state and local governments that are authorized to issue Emergency Alerts through femas integrated public alert Warning System or ipaws. False alerting can be false alerting can be very dangerous as it can lead to alert apathy, confusion and unnecessary panic. Nevertheless, we should not allow these incidents to cloud the success of otherwise trustworthy Emergency Alert and Warning Systems. Wireless Emergency Alerts have been partially effective in keeping people out of harms way, whether used to warn of inclement weather or a manmade attack. To date, 33,000 wireless Emergency Alerts messages have been disseminated. The majority of these messages have been weatherrelated and were instrumental in saving lives during last years unusually active Hurricane Season and unprecedented wildfires. But it is important to note that the wireless Emergency Alerts were also sent after the Boston Marathon bombing and the Chelsea Bombing in new york to help Law Enforcement catch the terrorist suspects. As we evaluate the existing alerts and Warning Systems, id be interested to learn what efforts are underway at the federal, state and local level to integrate emerging technologies into alerts and warnings procedures. I look forward to engaging both panels about what has been working well with ipaws and to gave where improvement is needed. With that, i thank the witnesses for being here today and i look forward to your testimony and i yield back the balance of my time. The gentleman yields. Other members of the subcommittee are reminded that Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. We are pleased to have two very distinguished panels before us today on this important topic. On our first panel, mr. Antoine johnson sieve serves as the director of continuity and communications at the federal Emergency Management agency. In this capacity, he overcies the integrated public alert and Warning System. Serves as the chief of the federal Communications Commissions Public Safety and Homeland Security bureau. In this capacity, she manages the commissions responsibilities related to lears and warnings, 911 systems and Public Safety communications. The witnesses full written statements on the record and the chair recognizes mr. Johnson for his fiveminute Opening Statement. Thank you chairman donovan, Ranking Member payne and members of the subcommittee. My name, as mentioned, is Antoine Johnson and im the director of Continuity Communications at fema. On behalf of secretary nielson and administrator long, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the integrated public alert and Warning System also known as ipaws. And how it is used to save lives across the country. An effective and timely public alert and Warning System is critical to communicating threats to the public, providing people with guidance during times of crisis. At fema, we manage iment paws and its two main components, warnings and communications from the president in the event of a catastrophic emergency through the National Public Warning System and manage geotargeted alerts sent from state, local and tribal authorities during emergencies such as those last year. Allows those alerting authorities to send emergency members to people in their geographic jurisdiction by Emergency Alert system broadcast through radio and tv. Wireless Emergency Alerts to cell phones. Broadcast from noaa weather radios and other internet connected serves. Today iapaws serve more than 26,000 radio tv and capable connections, 63 cellular carriers, gateways reaching millions of cell phons. Connections to noaa dissemination systems, 73 internet venders that tap into the alert feed and we established a in session between ipaws and canadas multiagency Situational Awareness program for the exchange of disaster information between our countries. Since inception of the system in 2012, there have been nearly 3 million messages disseminated through ipasws which cover everything from a Natural Disaster to a active shooter help communicate critical lifesaving information to the public. For example, after a camp manager in windsor, connecticut, received a wireless Emergency Alert on her mobile device, she evacuated 29 children from a soccer dome just before an ef1 tornado touched down and ripped the roof off. In 2016, new york sent a new york city sent a wireless Emergency Alert with an electronic wanted poster to identify a suspect in connection with bombings in manhattan and new jersey. The suspect was captured within hours. Last year, wireless Emergency Alerts were used by officials to issue warnings and evacuation orders in texas, florida, california and california in response to hurricanes and wildfires. Significantly, since 2012, 47 kidnapped children have been returned with to their loved ones after an amber alert was issued through the system. And members of the community helped Law Enforcement locate perpetrators. In addition to managing the ipaws program, fema helps train users and create guidance in for alerting authorities and Software Tool venders. Its important to note while fema mansion the ipaws system, we rely on our state and local partners to originate communications to their jurisdictions as they are the boots on the ground that are best able to communicate the threats they face and provide specific protective action information related to their area. Following the direction from congress and the ipaws modernization act of 2015, fema has established a subcommittee to the National Advisory council. The subcommittee includes members from state and local, tribal and territorial governments, Communications Service providers, organizations representing individuals with limited needs and others. This subcommittee is consulting with ipaws users and experts to consider new and developing technologies that may be punishable to ipaws and the nation. The subcommittee will develop recommendations on matters related to common alert and warning protocols, standards, terminology and operating procedures. Through this subcommittee, we are looking at recent uses of the system, including use during the 2017 Natural Disasters as well as the false alert in hawaii to identify Lessons Learned. In addition to this wholistic review, there are some key areas in which the ipaws program is focussed to the future. Engaging venders of ipaws Capable Software to screens for consistency. And collaboration with the partners, we continue to promote adoption and use of ipaws by Public Safety officials and we make sure that state and local, tribal and government officials are aware of our ipaws lab for testing to ensure they can maintain proficiency and understand the proper use of the system. I look forward to continuing to work with congress and provide updates as we move forward with recommendations to continue to modernize the system and our procedures. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before you today and i am happy to respond to any questions the subcommittee may have at this time. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Johnson. The chair now recognizes ms. Fowlkes for five minutes. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss our nations Emergency Alert systems. As i recently testified before the u. S. Senate committee on customers, science and transportation, the false Ballistic Missile warning issued on january 13th by the state of hawaii was unacceptable. It resulted in widespread panic and the extended period to 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 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, however. The fccs Public Safety and Homeland Security bureau prepared a preliminary report at the commissions january 30th open meeting. I have included the presentation made at the open meeting with my written statement for the record. But briefly, as the bureau reported, it appears that the false alert was the result of two failures. First, simple human error. Second, the state did not have safeguards or process protocols in place to prevent that human error from resulting in the transmission of a false alert. 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 alert nonetheless occur, a correction is issued promptly in order to minimize confusion. Emergency alerting systems provide timely and lifesaving information to the public and we must take all measures to bolster and restore the publics confidence in these systems. The commission is also looking into the recent tsunami alerts issued following the 7. 9 magnitude earthquake in the gulf of alaska on january 23rd to better understand how the wireless Emergency Alert system or wea performed. While the Alert Systems in alaska and other places are still in our minds, wireless Emergency Alerts have greatly enhanced Public Safety. In the last five years, wea has been used to issue over 35,000 Emergency Alerts. Since wea was first deployed in 2012, the commission has taken significant steps to enhance alerting capabilities by leveraging advancements in technology. Just last week, the Commission Voted to require participating wireless providers to deliver alerts in a morning geographically precise manner, specifically participating wireless providers must deliver wea alerts to the target area specified by the alert originator with no more than 0. 10 of a mile overshoot by november, 2019. This rule will help channel alerts to americans who actually need them while reducing overalerting and equally importantly, this rule will give alert originators the assurance they need to rely on wea as a valuable tool to help save lives. The recent order also requires that wea alert messages remain available in a consumer accessible format on wireless devices for 24 hours after receipt or until the consumer chooses to delete the messages. Unenhamts include Spanish Language alerting and increasing the length of alert messages from 90 to 360 characters. These will strengthen the wea system and keep americans safer. We also continue to work to add vance the integrity and the utility of the traditional Emergency Alert system. Just this past december, for example, the Commission Adopted a new blue alert code that will allow state and local officials to notify the public of threats to Law Enforcement and help apprehend dangerous suspects. Blue alerts may be sent over both the eas, which delivers warnings to the public via radio and television and wea. Over the past several years, the fcc has also worked closely with fema to conduct nationwide tests of the eas to assess its reliability and effectiveness. The most recent test was conducted last september and our initial Analysis Shows improvements in most areas from the previous year. In closing, we look forward to partnering with Emergency Management professionals, industry and our federal partners on the alerting capabilities that they need to use to alert americas public alert and Warning Systems with confidence during times of crisis. Thank you and i look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you, ms. Fowles for your testimony. Were going to try to get to everyone testimony and allow all our members. I ask unanimous consent to have ms. Jackson lee from texas sit on our panel with us. No objection. Welcome, ms. Jackson lee. I have a question for both of you. In any order which youd like to speak about it. As i mentioned in my Opening Statements, its vital that the public have confidence in our Alert Systems that they receive from their government. And i fear that the erroneous alert that occurred in hawaii may erode that trust and lead some people to opting out of the system. As you continue to review what happened in hawaii, do you have any recommendations now . I know your investigation is in its initial stages, but are there any recommendations you can share with us now after what youve been able to review on what we can do to prevent that from happening again . At this point, the bureau and the comission have not announced any specific recommendations. Our as you say, our investigation is ongoing and the plan is once weve completed that investigation, we may have recommendations to share. Thank you, congressman. From the fema perspective, we are conducting an after action review of the events of january 13th, and i think there are a number of things that we can do to ensure that the erode of Public Confidence that has resulted from this mishap on january 13th is improved over time. One of the things that we can do and that we are doing within fema is taking every step that we can take to ensure that this does not happen again. Secondly, i think there is the opportunity for us to work with the Software Tool venders that provide these applications to state and local governments for their use, to improve those tools, in fact, we have met with and talked to the vendor that provides that Software Application to the state of hawaii as well as 47 other state and local governments. They will be rolling out this week improvements to their system or their software to prevent against these types of errors from occurring in the future. Secondly, we are revisiting our training to ensure that our training adequately addresses the type of error that took place on january 13th, so that Emergency Management officials are properly prepared to respond to that type of event, even if when its an error. Thirdly, we would suggest that there be a broad Public Information campaign both on the part of state and local government to inform citizens of what these technologies are and what they mean to the public when these messages are received, but we also think there should be a broader overarching Public Information campaign that would include things like testing, exercising to make sure that we include the whole of community in our exercise program so that the entire community is better prepared to deal with any threat to Public Safety that they may face. I understand that you havent completed your investigation. I know some of the recommendations are things weve been reading about would include not having one person make the determination that this alert should be issued. Having the alert be in two different place so even if it is one person, they would have time, theyd have to go to multiple locations to send the alert. Why the same mechanism of issuing the alert wasnt used in hawaii to allow the public to know that it was a test, apparently it was not pushed through the system that was the recalling of the alert wasnt pushed through the same system that sent the alert. It was used other mechanisms such as social media and what not. As my friend don payne said, it took nearly 40 minutes for that to happen. There was something i read where people are saying maybe the federal government is the only ones that should be allowed to issue such an alert. Could you speak on any of those items here before the committee now . Thank you, congressman chairman donovan. Wed be happy to speak on those issues. The event of, you know, what took place on january 13th at 8 07 in the morning was certainly a tragic event. I think what were seeing now, as you mentioned the twofactor validation of a message, weve seen that take place in some of the more in major cities. In fact, i think the next panel will speak to some of those best practices that are emerging throughout the community. Those types of things where you have twofactor or twoperson validation of a message before its sent works in our major cities where their Emergency Operation centers are wellstaffed and they have the personnel to perform that function. It doesnt work as well in rural areas where the chief of police in a Single Office may be the person responsible for sending that message to the public and response to any threat to Public Safety. But i do think that where appropriate, we will see those types of best practices emerge within the community. Twofactor authentication. Additional software checks or validation checks in the software being used by our state and local partners. I think what well see in addition to that is better training. Very thorough review of the procedures, the policies and procedures that are employed to send these messages, and fema will be prepared to work with our state and local partners in every aspect of that. In fact, i see that there is a natural progression from the guidance that we issued in 2015, the software venders, wherein the initial offerings of those tools that were made available to state and local government, for example, did not include a cancel function. Although the tool would allow them to original a message, there was no ability to cancel the message. So in 2015, we worked with the Vendor Community and issued recommendations to them on things that they could do to improve their Software Applications. We are likewise doing the same thing with the Vendor Community and looking at other opportunities that they may have to improve their tools to ensure that those types of errors that occurred on january 13th do not occur again. Thank you very much, mr. Johnson. My time is running out. Can you tell me in 15 seconds, you were talking about how were going to expand the ability, have multilingual alerts. Be able to push out photographs. Weve expanded at mount of characters that can be on an alert. Do we have a timeframe for those things . Are some of those things in place right now . In the future, how long would you see that coming to fruition for us . The rules that the Commission Adopted regarding the engines tension of the character limit from 90 to 360 as well as the requirement that participating wireless carriers support spanish alerts would go into effect in may of 2019. The geotargeting rule that was adopted just last week would go into effect in november of 2019. In the reason f and the reaso for this is to allow time for the industry to do Standards Development testing and then whatever upgrades they need to their networks and devices. Thank you very much. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey, mr. Payne. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Johnson, you know, in light of the incident in hawaii, is fema considering implementing any additional requirements, such as ongoing training, multiperson alert verifications or false alert plans . Are state and local governments seeking to become alert originators as well . Thank you, Ranking Member payne. With regards to the requirements for a state and local territorial or tribal government to gain access to ipaws, there are basically four steps that any alerting authority would go through in order to become an alerting authority. First, they must have a valid software that interfaces with ipaws. And that software has to meet certain Development Requirements that we have established with the Software Tool providers. It has to go through testing. And should have demonstrated that it is capable of processing a common alert protocol. The second requirement that we have for state and local officials is that they enter into a memorandum of agreement with fema to establish whats called a common a common operating group or a c. O. G. That group is similar to a distribution list that allows the state and local government to share information inside of the system. The third step if they wish to become a Public Alerting Authority, they have to enter into a memorandum of agreement that defines the Geographic Area that theyre requesting this Public Alerting Authority for as well as the types of messages that they intend to send through the system and the dissemination channels over which that information would go. The last step is our thats required of the state and local governments is that they take our is247 a course, ipaws training add mince sistered since 2013, we know there have been well over 20,000 people that have been that have taken that training. In addition to that memorandum of the requirements of the m. O. A. , we also require that every person that interfaces with that software that touches ipaws also take that ipaws i. S. 247 a training. We make serves available through our lab that is located in indian head, maryland, so that they can maintain proficiency in the use of the software. That affords them to opportunity to create test messages in a safe environment and return the results to them so that they have a clear understanding of how that message will appear over radio, television, as well as wireless Emergency Alerts on mobile devices. Are you are you planning additional requirements with respect to ongoing training and that type of thing, you know, w with this, you know, the human error that was the cause for the false alarm in hawaii . What is the redundancy that we can look for so we take that out of the equation as much as possible . Thank you, congressman. One of the things that ill share is that we were already undergoing a complete review of our training courses that are hosted by the Emergency Management institute. We will likewise double back and conduct additional reviews of that training to ensure that these types of scenarios or similar type of events that occurred in hawaii on january 13th, as well as others that weve observed across the country, are properly factored into our training offerings and we will look into making additional training beyond our i. S. 251 course that is a more advanced training that we encourage alerting authorities to take. We are looking into revamping that and considering Refresher Training on annual basis as well. Okay. Well, mr. Chairman, time is just about up. So ill yield. The gentleman yields. The chair recognizes ms. Jackson lee from texas. Let me thank the chairman and the Ranking Member for their extended courtesies and thank the witnesses for their presence here today. Although we are asking questions in a very calm manner, this had to be a hairraising on fire incident. In fact, it could have generated enormous loss of life by peoples own panic. I guess if it had continued long, most of us remember visib visibly seeing a panicked parent putting his child in a manhole. That will be a constant memory. Certainly if it was a real incident, we know that people would be seeking any way to save their lives. One of the things that i wanted to take note of is if you all can comment, though youre here on the communications aspect, working with state Emergency Centers on how people do evacuate. I did not get a sense from the video that people were even evacuating in any sort of orderly manner or even knew what to do. But ill put that on the table as a concern. But let me indicate that the individual employee has broken his silence and said that he didnt it was real. He didnt hear any words exercise, exercise, it was real. And he maintains that. Id like you to respond to that, but i also want you to respond to these questions that as i understand the facts, that once the mistake was realized, the employee who initiated the real world alert was prompted to send out the cancel message on something called alert sense, but at no point did the employee assist in the process. Has any of your agencies looked extensively as to why that did not happen . And then secondarily, since this is such a massive notice and hawaii is so potionsitioned in pacific and i understand there is a call to the Pacific Command or that it is wellconnected because he indicated that there was a missile alert that there were no safeguard measures to withdraw the alert. If you would answer the questions about the employee not respond to employees but that there was there is representation that it was a it was an incident without the exercise exercise. How that could be possible. Number two, how it could be possible if youre prompted was that discovered that you were prompted to send out a cancel message on alert sense . Or is that automatic so the person or employee who was obviously in shock, whatever their condition was, that the alert goes out automatically. That it should be cancelled. And then, were there no safeguard measures to withdraw the alert . If you could answer those, i would appreciate it. With respect to the employees statement that there was no exercise, exercise, exercise at the front and end, we actually sent agents to hawaii to speak to personnel in the hawaii Emergency Management agency, and from the information that they have given us, as well as other discussions that we have had, including other people that were in the room, there was at the beginning and at the end exercise, exercise, exercise. Now, the warning officer who is transmitted the alert has refused to talk to the fcc. But in a in discussions with hawaii Emergency Management, he submitted a written statement in which he claims he didnt hear the exercise, exercise, exercise at the beginning or the end. Now, the problem with the alert was wasnt the exercise, exercise, exercise, the problem was with respect to their script. It said this is not a drill. Which wasnt consistent with hawaiis Emergency Management agency. He claims, at least according to that statement, that thats all he heard, and so he thought it was a live event and ergo initiated a live alert. With respect to cancellation and correction, just to explain the cancellation piece only stops the alert from retransmitting. So, for example, on wea, if you have your cell phone off and they issue a cancellation then your phone wont get it. So the cancellation in and of itself, which they were able to do, didnt solve all of the problems. The bigger problem was that from the preliminary findings that weve made is that hawaii Emergency Management agency never contemplated the possibility that they would ever issue a false alert and so they did not have protocols in place, Standard Operating Procedures to address that. With respect to the wea and eas, they had to figure out what code to issue. They talked to fema personnel on what was about a 45second phone call. Then somebody had to go log in and actually write the correction message. Because they did not have a template for that. So that was really the problem with the delay in issuing the correction. They never contemplated that they would ever have a false alert, so in this instance when it happened, they werent prepared for it. Do you wish to comment . Thank you. Your question about an automatic withdrawal of the information from or the message from the system. Right. Because they had to write, as she said, they were sending out emails and posting it on their personal facebooks as one of the way they were explaining. The cancellation took place within minutes. As she described, that automatically takes the message out network so that its not rebroadcast. That is a deliberate action that the employee had to take to cancel that message within the network. The followup message to sinned out a corrective kind of a corrective action type message was also a deliberate action that the hawaii Emergency Management agency was not prepared for. Typically, we exercise for success when it comes to the types of messages that we send and the deliberate actions that we would wish the public to take. In this case, i would say that if there was any confusion on the part of emergency on hawaii Emergency Management as to their authority to send that message or if there was any question as to the type of message that should be sent, and in this case it was a Civil Emergency message that was issued to correct the error that had occurred at 8 07. When there is that type of uncertainty in the community, that points back, in my opinion, to some of our training offerings and thats where were going to address this through training and increased awareness and working with our federal, state and local partners. Those are all deliberate actions on their part that they must take and be prepared for in terms of addressing any type of error that occurs with some errant message that is put out in the system. Im going to yield back. I want to thank the let me thank the witnesses and the Ranking Member and the chairman for their courtesies. I want to pose this question on the record, not for an answer. Maybe getting pieces of this. But to me it appears that this should be raised to a federal level establishing protocols. This was i think one of the more frightening incidences that happens in a state when a state is left to their own devices and protocols, of which they did not have, and this could have been catastrophic. So i yield back. With that question posed. Thank you so very much. I want to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony. Members of our subcommittee may have additional questions for the witnesses and i would ask that you would respond to those in writing. This panel is now dismissed and the ask the clerk to prepare the witness table for the second panel. Thank you both very much for sharing your expertise with us. Thank you. Id like to welcome our second panel to todays hearing and thank all of you for your participation. Serve as the assistant commissioner for strategy and Program Development at the new york city Emergency Management department. He currently serves on femas National Advisory Council Integrated public alert and warning committees. Id now like to yield to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. Payne, to introduce our next witness. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I have the distinct pleasure of trucing director peter t. Gainer as the director of the rhode island Emergency Management agency and was appointed by the governor in january of 2015. As the director, he serves at the policy adviser to the governor on Emergency Management matters and serves as the liaison between the federal Emergency Management agency and all local Emergency Management officers throughout the state. Welcome, sir. Mr. Scott burgman serves as Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Cellular Communications Industry Association and is responsible for coordinating federal regulatory issues for the association affecting the Wireless Industry, including spectrum, broadband and Public Safety policymaking. Mr. Sam mathine i had it, sam, is the chief technical officer at the National Association of broadcasters. He is also a member of the fcc communications security, reliability and interoperable council and a member of the academy of Digital Television pioneers. The witnesses full written statements will appear on the record. I thank you all for appearing today and sharing your expertise with us. The chair now recognizes for five minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about Emergency Alerts and warnings. We take this issue very seriously in new york city. And have invested considerable resources in it over the past decade. Thanks in part toe funding from the urban Area Security initiate. New york citys optin emergency Information System notify nyc began in 2007 and to date has sent out more than 10,000 emergencies. Maintains a around the clock. The majority of our messages are translated into the top 13 languages spoken in the city, including american sign language, nearly 675,000 people have enrolled in notify nyc and we have begun to see large increases through our recently released mobile application which allows users to get messages base on their Current Location and streamlines the enrollment process to promote user adoption. While were very proud of notify nyc and continue to market and promote it across the city. In a city of 8. 5 million residents is not enough. To expand our reach during the most critical emergencies, new york city relies on the federal wireless Emergency Alert system. New york city helped test the system with fcc and the Wireless Industry in 2011 and is actively assisted eight times since 2012. Three times during hurricane sandy, two announcing travel bans in response to severe winter weather, and three, related to the terrorist bombing in chelsea. Our experience with wea during emergencies we appreciate the attention that the fcc has paid to our concerns, adopting rules that permit the inclusion of links and telephone numbers, improved geotargeting requirements and will soon allow longer messages and messaging in spanish. The new rules are not as comprehensive we would hope. Therefore we feel the effectiveness of the system is still limited. Missing is multimedia alerting, and multilingual alerting beyond spanish. Further, the law still permits to consumers opt out of wea messages, which we strongly oppose. We must have the ability to embed multimedia and wea messages, this major gap was demonstrated when the nypd needed the publics assistance in locating the suspected chelsea bomber before he detonated another device. The wea included the suspects name, age, instructions to call 911 if seen, and a statement, see media for pic. No capability to include images in weas, recipients needed to find a different source to see the suspects photo. To quote a recent letter, we cannot continue to rely on the public taking this extra step. The Law Enforcement community can no longer afford to depend on a wireless Emergency Response system that is lagging far behind what technology can offer. The Chelsea Bombing highlighted this weakness in the emergency system. Millions of new yorkers were given no other additional option because they had to take time to find a photo. In surveying new yorkers after the fact we found only 45 of message recipients took the extra step to look for the photograph. To dos wea system is directional. Nor does it offer the public the ability to respond to a wea, to provide information back to us. The ability to rapidly collect and aggregate deidentified, but location specific information would allow for more firefficie deployment of sca deployme deployment scars scarce resources. A common tenant is all emergencies begin and end locally. The local alert originators need the unfettered ability to reach messages poorly targeted messages lead to consumer opt outs and prevent people from receiving much messages that may save their life. In closing, the wireless Emergency Alert system is one of the greatest advances in public alert and warning in our countrys history. It has been used thousands of times across the country to protect lives and property. It is a cornerstone element of our public alert and warning strategy . New york city. However, the capability offered by wea has not kept up with advances in technology and how people use their mobile phones. Wea needs further enhancement to support todays threats and hazards. New york city looks forward to working with congress and our Wireless Industry to improve this important tool. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Krakauer, the chairman recognizes Ranking Member payne, its a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the critical importance of reliable alert notification Communication Systems at the state, local and federal levels that we depend on to successfully achieve our mission. These systems, plans, policies, shape their use in the personnel that train, maintain and operate them are a core function of preparedness response. Im the chair for the states Interoperable Communications committee responsible for ensuring alert communication and systems are properly governed, aligned and integrated. I submit a full statement. I want to briefly describe for the subcommittee first a snapshot of the warning state of rhode island, second what we have done since the hawaii false alert. And finally some insights and recommendation for a stronger, more resilient alert and warning Communications System nationwide. First, let me describe our system from the local level up. In 2015 the state of rhode island invested in a commercial mass knowfication system called code red. Using the Emergency Management performance grant we purchased on behalf of all communities, 39 communities and selected state agency a singular common system in order to improve operational efficiencies authorizing trained agents at the local level to watch any Public Safety related alert within their jurisdiction. The state has the capability to launch on behalf of my single municipalities, multiple in august of 2017 we completed a long overdue update of the states Emergency Alert system plan and system. We have spent Significant Energy to make sure plans, procedures, equipment, training, safeguards and testing are up to date and fully operational. This remains an ongoing priority for the state. We continue to rely on other core federal systems such as femas national Warning System and National Radio system to ensure we have multiple communication paths. Since january 2018, the hawaiian false redoubled efforts, redundancies, training, authorized users, the functionality of equipment, interoperablity, potential gaps of all alert, warning and Communication Systems. We have revalidated our internal launch and approval process to ensure prescripted messages is across all platforms, to include recall messaging. This process continues today. In new england, at both the state and federal level, we are in the process of reviewing past practice for alert and warning procedures, such as those outlined in femas national Warning System Operations Manual to make sure that the published guidelines and instructions are logical, executable, and reasonable after what happened in hawaii. As outlined in the manual, threats posed by national or manmade disasters or attack make it imperative for state to have access to reliable means of communication with which to warn the public of impending mrnls so they may take preventative actions. We support the premise and are working diligently to make sure we have a safe, reliable Warning System. In conclusion, in addition to reviewing and validating our systems, we have created a technology trap. This problem is similar to the military with their gps and digital mapping. Will our soldiers be able to navigate with a pencil and a paper map and a compass should the gps can we communicate in a world where a cyberattack, power disruption or National Hazard takes out lidge tall and warning communication nerables. Are we ready to communicate and warn in an an logic world. Can we communicate out cell phones or the internet . The harsh reality of this is if you cannot communicate, you cannot govern. First, we should ensure fema clearly defining responsibility between all levels of government for alert and warning. Second, develop a National Operations how to better use systems like the general mobile Radio Service and the Travelers Information Service with a focus on how to network these systems with state and federal systems in order to enhance our ability to communicate, alert and warn the public. Third, encourage additional Training Exercise at every level to ensure leaders and operators are familiar with every detail of every communication, alert and Warning System, procedures and short falls. I would encourage a more robust and fundamentals of communicating in a degraded environment. And finally, review the dhs security Clearance Program to ensure the right decisionmakers throughout every level of the Emergency Management system have the correct clearance level so matters like threat breaches and seamlessly, rapidly and securely occur. Thank you, chairman donovan and subcommittee members for the opportunity to prepare in front of you today. Thank you. The votes are called. Well try to get to the chair recognizes mr. Bergmann. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the critical and successful role of wireless Emergency Alerts. Cti and the Wireless Industry commend congress for passing the warn act which established the wireless Emergency Alert or wea. A partnership between the Wireless Industry, government and Public Safety officials. Since this launch five years ago, wireless emergency alers have become an essential tool for americans, hundreds of millions of americans who rely on their mobile phones every day. Today wireless providers who serve over 99 of u. S. Subscribers participate in wea voluntarily. More than 33,000 wireless Emergency Alerts have been sent. Helping to locate those in danger, and warn of imminent threats or disasters. Cti members are deeply committed to ensuring that wea remains a trusted, secure and effective resource for the american public. So the recent false alarm in hawaii underscores the importance of our collective efforts to ensure the functionality and the integrity of our Emergency Alert systems. With that in mind, my testimony today will address the vital role that wea plays, the ongoing efforts to improve capabilities and the importance of maintaining the systems integrity. A decade ago congress recognized the value of wireless Emergency Alerts to reach americans wherever there are. As more than half of american households are wireless only, wea is an essential tool. Federal, state and local authorities transmit emergency messages to fi ma. Fema authenticates and format es those messages and sends them out to the various different alerting systems. And wireless providers deliver authorized wea messages to a particular Geographic Area as determined by alert authorities. Wireless providers do not control the content of messages and do not exercise discretion over whether to send them. Because local authorities can target specific Geographic Areas, theyre impacted by an emergency. And weas unique sound and vibration help ensure everyone can be aware of the alert. Wireless Emergency Alerts have helped to address terrorist threats, locate suspects, like in the 2013 boston bombs and the 2016 Chelsea Bombing, theyve helped return abducted children and have warned millions of people in the path of Severe Weather events. We continue to expand and improve weas capabilities in. Past year the fcc expanded rules to add content, additional characters, Spanish Language, blue alerts, and downloadable content through embedded links, as well as supporting additional testing by state and local authorities. The Wireless Industry has supported these enhancements was our members are committed to the proven lifesaving success of wea. Just last week the fcc adopted an order that further improves weas geotargeting capability. Today wea alerts can be targeted down to the cell sector level, i go significant improvement over the county targeting. Innovative device Space Solutions to further target the alerts. The Wireless Industry is undertaking significant standards testing and deployment work to support this capability. The fccs deadlines are aggressive, but the Wireless Industry will work intently to implement them. Finally, the false alert in hawaii underscores the Public Confidence must maintain or must be our highest priority. Alert originators must send warnings appropriately and judiciously. Fema must authenticate messages quickly and accurately, and providers must deliver them to the targeted area. We commend this committee, and chairman pie, at the fcc, were working quickly to identify Lessons Learned from the false alert. And we appreciate commissioner rosen worths call for additional best practices. There will be many Lessons Learned, but this event demonstrates the technical capabilities of wea function. Policymakers and the public should have confidence that in the event of a real emergency, wireless Emergency Alerts can send information rapidly and effectively. Let me also stress that the Wireless Industry is keenly focused on the security of our networks including those that support wea. Through a combination of technologies, policies and best practices, we work closely with our government and Public Safety partners to further our common goal of a trusted wea system. Cti is proud of the political role we play, and were committed to working collaboratively to maintain Public Confidence. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions. Thank you, mr. Bergmann. Chairman recognizes mr. Matheny. Chairman donovan, Ranking Member payne, members of the subme, my name is sam matheny, im the chief Technology Officer at the National Association of broadcasters. On behalf of the thousands of local broadcasters in your towns, thank you for inviting me to testify on the Emergency Alert system, how broadcasters perform their role as first informers. Keeping viewers and listeners safe during emergencies. Broadcasters take seriously their role as the most trusted source of news and emergency updates, whether its preparing listeners and viewers for the coming storm, directing them to needed supplies and shelter during the disaster, or helping rebuild in the aftermath, local stations are part of the communities they serve. And broadcasting is sometimes the only available communications medium in an emergency when Wireless Networks fail. Morning consult recently found the American People turned to broadcasters in times of emergency by a factor of more than three to one. Broadcasting is unique for the following reasons. First, broadcasting covers virtually everyone. Broadcast signals reach more of the u. S. Population than any other communications medium. Broadcasting is localized. Local broadcast stations can deliver market specific information as well as National Alerts. Broadcasting has no bottlenecks. And Emergency Alert can reach millions of people simultaneously without concern over network congestion. Broadcasting is redundant. There are numerous independently operated stations in each market that deliver alerts. And broadcasting is resilient. Stations often operate with backup equipment, generators, and fuel supplies to stay on the air. Broadcaster information is actionable. Radio and television can provide enough information to enable people to understand what is happening, and what steps they should take. Finally, broadcasters are trusted. They are members of the local community and speak not just as an authority, but as a neighbor. But broadcasters do more than just deliver messages to the public. Broadcasters are also the backbone of the Emergency Alert system. Working with the government since the 1950s, broadcasters have operated and evolved a nationwide Wireless Network to deliver Emergency Alerts. This daisy chain of broadcast stations ensures that Emergency Alerts can be delivered independent of internet connectivity, and even when Power Outages may disrupt other forms of communication. In fact, broadcasters serve as primary entry points for Emergency Communications to the public, and are thus part of the solution from beginning to end. Because broadcasting plays such an Important Role in this Critical Communications infrastructure, it is vital the Government Support and foster broadcasting. Id like to briefly outline three key areas for your consideration. First, broadcasters are in the final and most complicated phase of the incentive auction, the repack phase. Nearly 1,000 television stations will be moving to new channel assignments, and this will also impact over 700 fm radio stations on colocated towers. Broadcasters need the time and money required to make these moves successfully and without impairing the publics ability to access Emergency Alerts. I ask for your support of the viewer protection act, and the radio Consumer Protection act, and urge their passage as no station should be forced off the air due to lack of funds or unreasonable time constraints. Second, broadcasters have been working with the Wireless Phone manufacturers and Service Providers on marketbased solutions to activate the fm chips that are in smart phones. Our market efforts have been successful with one very notable exception, apple. We believe apple should be encouraged to activate the fm tuner in future models of their iphone as it will improve peoples access to Vital Information in times of disaster. And third, the next Generation Television standard, atsc 3. 0, which was recently approved by the fcc, has many features that will improve Emergency Alerting, including the ability to wake up sleeping television sets. More precise geotargeted alerts, and sending rich multimedia files, such as radar weather images, evacuation maps and even video files with detailed explanations of the emergency and what to do. New regulatory hurdles should not be placed in our way. In conclusion, in emergencies large and small, our nation and your hometowns benefit from a strong and vibrant broadcast industry. Fema calls broadcasting a redundant, resilient, and necessary alerting pathway. I agree. Thank you for having me here today, and i look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you, mr. Matheny. The subcommittee now stands in recess subject to a call of chair. Well reconvene right after votes. Thank you. The subcommittee will come to order. I thank if witnesses for their Opening Statements. I now recognize myself five minutes for questioning. Mr. I wanted to ask you about new york city issuing a wireless Emergency Alert during the Chelsea Bombing, as you testified about in your Opening Statement. Thank you. How effective was the tool for new york city, and our Public Service agencies . So i think it was a very effective tool. Our first two messages were highly targeted to several square block area in the chelsea neighborhood. The first message was at the request of nypd directing people in the area to shelter in place. When that secondary device was discovered. The second message went to the same area, and directed people to shelter in place order had been lifted because the bomb squad from nypd successfully contained the device. The challenge, we received anecdotal reports from other parts of manhattan, one case in new jersey, to people far outside that target area did receive that message. That concerns us from a warning fatigue perspective, people who receive messages that are not aimed for them or not intended for them are more likely to opt out of the system. Which is why weve been encouraged in the fccs rules on geotargeting. The citywide message that went out the following monday led to his capture. It would have been more successful, however, if we were able to embed an image in that message as opposed to indicating the public should go to the media to see the picture. And, you know, as you know i live in new york city as well. Were unique compared to some other Geographic Areas of our country because we have subways. Define difficulties of the alerts effective in the subways . I forget how many millions of riders we have every day. And because of our subway system, that is also a target for potential terrorist attacks. Do you find that the alert system is adequate in the uniqueness of trying to push those messages out to people who might be riding on our subways . If youre able to get Wireless Service in your device, which is the case in most subway stations, you should receive the wea message. The challenging part would be if youre in between stations where theres not Wireless Service, i know the mta is working on improving that, that said we are working through our watch command with the rail control center. If we need to get a message to the mta, we talk to them directly dozens of times of day. Mr. Bergmann, can you talk about uniqueness of subway riders are protected as well as people aboveground . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Certainly happy too. We continue in the Wireless Industry to be supportive of the wireless emergency program, recognize the Important Role it plays. You talked about the importance of that, that it played in the Chelsea Bombing. And in response to that were continuing to do things to make wea Even Stronger by improving the geotargeting, building in the ability to access embedded links so you can get pictures, and actionable information. Thats very much a focus for us. In terms of coverage, our members, i know, have worked closely with the subway authorities, and have Wireless Service now in i think all 284 of the stations in manhattan, queens and the bronx. As mr. Krakauer said, that challenge is inside the tunnels and getting access to the tunnels. Chains run, you know, 24 7 to make sure that you can deploy there. But Wireless Infrastructure sitting is one of our top priorities, Building Infrastructure out there to get as much coverage and as much capacity as possible, one of our top priorities. In my last minute, would you talk a little bit about right now i could send you a photograph of my 2 1 2yearold daughter. Mr. Krakauer can shoot out a photograph of the chelsea bomber. What are the obstacles . Are we going to be able to overcome those . Weve certainly strengthened our capability to send an embedded link so you can get the picture. Sending it in the message involves additional capabilities. Part of the way we built wea is using a different technology, Cell Broadcast Technology, we did that to make sure we could get the message to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, within seconds, not within minutes. Thats different than a typical text message you and i might send. If i send it to three people in this room, you might get the text message right away, and somebody else might get it five minutes or an hour later. We want to make sure the message gets there immediately. My limited understanding, my vcr, still flashes 12 back home, and you have to tell younger people in the audience what a vcr is. Its the less amount of data in the message will get it out quicker, the more complicated the data is, or the more space that it will take up, the slower the message delivery is . You put your finger on it. I would think about it in two ways. One is, the technology was built using this Cell Broadcast Technology that wasnt built to incorporate that multimedia. Thats an additional capability that we have to build out. And the second piece is just making sure that were being cognizant of congestion on networks, looking to send out a message to 8. 5 million in new york city, we want to make sure those networks are available to contact Public Safety, or to contact their loved ones in the case of an emergency. Since we only have two other members to ask questions, im going to take liberty to ask you one more. Are we able to overcome our alerts take priority in messages, as youre saying the system might be clogged with people sending texts to one another. Are our alerts able to take priority over nonemergency messages . Thats exactly right. Thats why we built this specific technology to make sure wireless Emergency Alerts get there quickly. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey, mr. Payne. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Gaynor and mr. Krakauer, in the days following false alert in hawaii last month, we realize that we dont necessarily train for mistakes. How are you adjusting our training and exercise policies to ensure that people working for you understand what to do if there is a false if a false alert does go out . Thank you, mr. Payne. We have a generally robust Training Exercise Program Within the agency, and with our extended partners. This is an opportunity to look at, unfortunately, an unfortunate sin unfortunate incident in hawaii and take advantage of those. Weve gone back to square one, weve had people assigned to actually make these systems work, have the authority to do it. Actually, monitor how its done, make sure they know how to do it. Make sure if theres a short fall in understanding of the system, and theres many systems we rely on, that they know how to do it. Its readily available. Time is of the essence when these things happen. And so weve really doubled down on making sure that we really, truly understand the system, so the hardware, all the things that go into it. And really the function of the system. Because this requires a human in the chain. And with a human in the chain, theres going to be some difficulties with making mistakes. I think the best way to avoid mistakes, or increase that time is you have to touch it, you have to do it, and you have to do it for real. You just cant read about it in a book. Were about training and exercise to make sure we can do it should you ask us in a minute, or in, you know, a month, or a year. We want to be able to do it flawlessly and seamlessly. And your training is germane to rhode island, what theyre doing in hawaii would probably you all have different policies and training . Or is there an overall guide to what you should be working on . So i think when it comes to how we interact with the federal systems, we proscribe to the federal exercises in procedures and policy. Every state is unique in how they apply that to their jurisdiction. I am unfamiliar with the exact protocols hawaii had. I would imagine that many of these protocols and policies are similar throughout the united states. But again, im going to take a guess that every state has unique protocol they follow. And its up to us as state directors to make sure its the right size for your state, the right size for the hazards you deal with on a daily basis, and making sure the public understands when that message goes out its for real. Okay, thank you. Mr. Krakauer . Thank you, sir. So with respect to training, we our public warning team trains on a weekly basis. We call it wea wednesday in new york city. Every system is required to send out a test message. It does not go out to the public. We wait for the acknowledgment codes from ipaws. With respect to policies and procedures, we view wea as a twoperson job in new york city, both during training and live Emergency Operations. There is a public warning specialist on the keys entering the message, filling out the form to make sure we hit all the check boxes, and get all the information necessary so that it does go out to the public when the emergency is happening. Standing right behind them is an on duty supervisor who is making sure that policy and procedure is being followed to the letter. Those trainings are custom to the Software Applications we have in new york city, which are different than they have in rhode island, or different than they have in hawaii. Theres not one Software System that integrates with femas system. Its up to local jurisdictions what they ultimately purchase. Okay. And to you gentlemen once again, alerts and warnings are used to warn the public of both natural and manmade disasters. And when an alert goes out, is it important that the followup advice, Government Entities issue is consistent . Can you talk about how you coordinate public messaging mongrel havent state and local agencies, and neighboring jurisdictions when appropriate after an initial Emergency Alert goes out . Sure. So in new york city, once we issue an alert, a lot receive the alerts through the ipaws system. The neighboring jurisdiction Emergency Managers, actually a protocol that new york city institutes. And, you know, soon after or leading up to an emergency, we all get on a Conference Call and share what our individual jurisdictions are doing, what our message is, and act as consistently as possible. Okay, thank you. Mr. Gaynor . The state, we have a policy called a state Emergency Notification policy that has all major stakeholders involved. There are certain processes and protocols we use in that, similar to new york. I think the first thing we do with key decisionmakers is we have a Conference Call, whether thats on our telephone or on hizn, depending what the subject matter, and then multiple groups within our state system called code red communities that we can notify. So whether its a local Emergency Managers or hospitals, or its all of them together, we can with some fidelity we can tailor that message and get it to those groups pretty quickly. Okay, thank you, mr. Chair, ill yield back. The gentleman yields the chair, and recognizes the gentleman from rhode island who is kind enough to invite mr. Gaynor to be a member of our committee. I want to thank our panel of witnesses and thank you for your testimony. I particularly want to extend a personal welcome to our director vma peter gaynor. My estimation, hes pursuing in every measure, excellent job as our director, its an honor to have you here today. Let me start out with mr. Gaynor and asking if theres anything else you wanted to add. Again, i understand that the used its statewide system code red, and also ipaws to issue alerts about weather events. Any further descriptions youd like to offer to describe the use of the alerting system and importance of Emergency Alerts and warnings to the systems in rhode island. Thank you, congressman, for inviting me here today. Its a pleasure to be here. Looking at what has happened across the country, what happened today, what happened in hawaii, we want to take advantage of this opportunity never to allow a crisis go un e unused. I have a particular interest now to understand not only the systems like wea and eas, but really how all these systems are strung together in a scenario. So whether fema is announcing some sort of indication or warning over the National Alert system nwos, what does that really mean for a state . What actions are they asking us to do . What actions is fema doing on behalf of the state . And how do we interact and how do we get that right down to the lowest level . As a state director im in the middle between the federal government, and im talking about a major, catastrophic event, you know, how do you, you know, meld those two worlds together to make sure you save time, get a clear concise message to everyone affected so they can take proactive and protective measures to save themselves, their families and their community. Thank you, thank you. And again to you, mr. Gaynor, and our other witnesses are also welcome to comment. But obviously Security Risk remains one of the risks that rhode island and most of the states is least prepared to mitigate given the challenges associated with it. How could an incident targeting our Emergency Management systems, including alerts and Warning Systems, affect your agencys ability to operate . I think its everyones worst nightmare, that you cannot use the systems we rely on every day, you know, the cell phone is everyone has one. Its how we communicate. And the question that i have been asked, my staff, my fellow directors in new england and others, is, you know, what happens if we cannot communicate via these things that operate perfectly in a blue sky scenario . How do you actually take those alert warnings and get them down to the local taxpayer resident in your community . How do you do that . Im not sure i have the answer. I think one of the gentlemen up here is the backbone of how we do it now is the radio system. And that is it. But should the radio system fail, whats next . And i think we probably have to take a deeper look into that. I think cyber is a threat that is here to stay. Its Touching Every system that we build. And we probably have to take a real hard look about if all that fails, what are we going to do . Sure. Good points. And its one of my worst case scenarios, too, and things that keep me up at night as well. Let me turn to mr. Bergmann and mr. Matheny. While the alert in hawaii last month originated from an authorized sender, alertdy seminay fors like broadcast and wireless providers are not immune from unauthorized use of Warning Systems, demonstrated in 2013 when pranksters actually hacked the Emergency Alert systems of local broadcasters in at least two states, and issued false alerts about an impending zombie apocalypse. These alerts were swiftly debunked. The potential remains to severely undermine trust in the system. So to that point, what are the members of your organizations doing to secure Alert Systems like eas or wea, and the new atsc 3. 0 standard from unauthorized access, including by cybermeans . Anything you want to comment there . Sure. Ill start. We certainly take cybersecurity very seriously. And as an organization weve been working with our members, and we informed a Cybersecurity Task force, a group of cios and chief Information Security officers that meet regularly to share best practices. We have also had numerous seminars and webinars, educating our members on good practices. We have a member portal that we have set up that has access to different resources. And were in the process of developing a more extensive educational program. We really encourage the use of the nist framework which really plays on a lot of things around whats referred to as cyberhygiene. The idea of managing your passwords in a correct way. Of setting up your equipment around and behind appropriately configured firewalls and protected networks, as well as who has physical access to the equipment. So were working quite diligently to make sure that folks are engaged on cybersecurity, and creating the most secure as possible systems. Thank you, congressman, for the Wireless Industry security is amongst our highest priorities. Were focused on protecting against cybersecurity threats. We would really say on a 24 7, 365 basis. We know those threats continue to evolve. But our members are very focused on it in terms of their everyday practices, the equipment they deploy, the practices that they use, the personnel. And they also embrace the nist Cybersecurity Framework as well too, and have worked within ctia. We have Cybersecurity Working Group that convenes 30 members to share best practices, to share information. Theyre very oriented around Risk Assessment and risk management. So we Work Together to try to address those issues. We also work closely with our partners in the federal government as well, too. We worked closely with the fccs Adviser Committee to look at threats to the alerting systems. And, of course, coordinate very closely with our partners at dhs on a daily basis. To try to make sure that were assessing and appropriately responding to any threats. Very good. Well, my time is expired. I want to thank our witnesses for your testimony here today. Thank you for your insight and input, the job youre doing to keep people safe. I yield back my time. Because you came all the way here, and your expertise is so valuable to us, we each want to ask one more question. This committee has always had action items after our hearings. We dont just gather testimony. We actually do something with the information that you provide us with. So to everyone on the panel id just like to ask, what would you like to see this committee do, whether it be in the area of emergency responding or in the area of wireless or broadcasting. What can this committee do to help you protect the citizens of this nation better than were already protecting them . Mr. Matheny . Sure, thank you very much. I think if i had one ask to make, it would be to ask for your support of the viewer protection act. As i mentioned earlier were in the process of the repack. Weve got over a thousand tv stations moving 700 radio stations that are going to be impacted. In the context of what were talking about today, those are all Emergency Alert providers. They are all part of this system. And we cannot afford to have any of them taken offline. Because of a timeline that is unreasonable, or because of lack of funding. And chairman pie has testified that there is a significant short fall in funding. And we also believe that probably to the tune of about a billion dollars. And so we would love to see support for the viewer protection act. Thank you, sir. Mr. Bergmann. Highlight three things for you. Congress has a unique role in increasing capacity. The second is Congress Also plays a key role in terms of promoting infrastructure deployment, we talked about coverage earlier. By enabling the Wireless Industry to build out the next generation of Wireless Networks, based on small cells, we can, again, increase the ability to target those messages. And last, i think were all interested and invested in making sure were exchanging best practices that alert originators have access to all the information to the tools available. Working together to promote these kinds of practices would help as well. Mr. Gaynor. Ill go back to my training and exercise theme. I think in the past weve tested systems to see if the systems work. Can you get that message from point a to point b . I think thats important. So i would like to see more scenariobased alert and warning training and exercises. And again, you can do it for a state, a region, or you can do it for the country. And pick a scenario that is applicable, and run that through the entire course. Make sure it works from beginning to end, through all the systems, and prove that you can get that message out should a local, state or federal government need to do it. Again, more realistic training is what id like to see. Thank you, sir. Mr. Krakauer. Mr. Chairman, i would highlight two things. First, we thank you and the members of the subcommittee for your continued support of the urban Areas Initiative and preserving that money. We contend that in light of recent threats, to support should be continued and increased in lots of public areas. The other thing i would note to the committee is that the situation in hawaii highlighted a good question for us as local city manager, is our state and local governments the right avenue to respond to a National Threat for a state actor . We think the federal government should look at making that a federal responsibility as part of the whether its fema or the Homeland Security, or the department of defense, the federal government really is in the best position to detect a threat for a state actor and issue warnings, initially, to the general public. In time is of the essence, and state and local authorities are not really in the best position to make those notifications. I thank you all for your testimony, your candid answers to my questions and the rest of the panel. And i want to thank each of you for your dedication and commitment to the safety of our nation. The chair now recognizes mr. Payne. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Bergmann, as you know, mobile customers are able to opt out of most wea alerts. As i mentioned in my Opening Statement, im concerned that the false alerts and alert fatigue could, in fact, lead to people to opt out of wea alerts. And today, mr. Krakauer suggested that Congress Eliminate the optout option. Does ctia agree . So, thanks, mr. Congressman. So youre exactly correct. Today consumers are able to opt out of amber alerts and imminent threat alerts, but not president ial alerts. Thats part of the warrant act. I think from our perspective we would defer to policymakers on the appropriateness of opt in versus opt out. We would like to see consumers use wireless Emergency Alerts. We recognize they want access by their wireless device, and they recognize how valuable that is. Our goal is to make sure we do everything we can to minimize alerting fatigue, and to make sure the system has trust and confidence. And well do everything we can to execute on that. Okay. In the meantime, what are your members doing to educate customers on the value of the warnings and alerts . Sure. So we certainly work closely with the fcc, with fema in terms of education efforts. Weve done a psa at ctia to let folks know about it. I think the good news is that you have subscribers representing 99 of the overall u. S. Subscribership that get their service from a wireless provider who voluntarily participates in wea. Okay. Well, i thank you, all of you for being here. For your testimony. Its been very valuable. As the chairman said that we will be using this information to craft legislation in the future. So with that i yield back. Gentleman yields, thank you, mr. Payne. The chair recognized that mr. Langevin has left. I want to thank the members of my committee for insightful questions. The members of the subcommittee may have additional questions. And we ask you to respond to those in writing. The hearing record will remain open for ten days. Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. A recent media report reports 500 cases of serious misconduct among generals, admirals and senior civilians in the last four years. The pentagon has created programs designed to try and prevent misconduct by military leaders, and improve transparency. Well get an update from a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing at 9 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan3. In the afternoon well look at emerging global threat that weapons of mass destruction pose. Were live at the Senate Subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities at 2 30 eastern, thats also on cspan 3. Follow both hearings online at cspan. Org. Or with the radio app. Cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning, Oklahoma Republican congressman Steve Russell will join us to discuss the latest on the deal to avoid a Government Shutdown, and the governments waste watch report. Were live from jackson, mississippi for the next op on the cspan bus 50 capitals tour. Joining us will be jim hood to talk about key Public Policy issues in his state. New York Democratic congresswoman Carolyn Maloney on efforts to avoid a Government Shutdown this week. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern wednesday morning. Join the discussion. Wednesday morning, were live in jackson, mississippi for the next stop on the c hf span bus 50 capitals tour. Mississippi attorney general jim hood will be our guest on the bus during washington journal starting at 9 30 a. M. Eastern. President trump met with Law Enforcement officials, lawmakers and members of his cabinet to talk about immigration policy and the ms13 gangs. He told the group he would support a Government Shutdown if congress does
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