AGs Threaten Legal Action Over Unpublished Multilingual Alerting Rules
Attorneys general from 18 states and the city of New York called on the FCC in a letter Friday to send already-approved rules for multilingual wireless emergency alerts to the Federal Register. The rules were issued in January by the Public Safety Bureau under the previous administration but haven’t been implemented in the intervening 10 months because they haven’t yet been published.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
“If the FCC does not submit the Multilingual Alerts Order to the Office of the Federal Register within thirty (30) days of your receipt of this letter, we are prepared to take appropriate legal action,” said New York state AG Letitia James and others from Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and more. “The Multilingual Alerts Order substantially expands multilingual access to life-saving Wireless Emergency Alerts [and the] failure to publish it for nearly ten months is both misguided and unlawful.” Despite the federal shutdown, “the submission for publication of the Multilingual Alerts Order -- a ministerial but legally required action -- falls well within the ambit of the Commission’s presently authorized operations,” the letter added.
The FCC didn’t immediately comment Friday on the letter. A news release from James’s office said the agency's “inaction has stalled nationwide efforts to modernize the emergency alert system and ensure that more non-English-speaking communities receive timely, life-saving information during disasters or other emergencies.”