A Texas bill would establish the Texas Interoperability Council to address communications gaps between first responders and emergency alert systems. An earlier version of the bill, HB-13, was introduced during the last legislative session in response to the devastating 2023 wildfire in the panhandle region. State Rep. Ken King (R) refiled the new bill, HB-2, last week with no major edits. It would task the council with developing and coordinating a statewide plan for the interoperability of emergency communications systems and incorporating any necessary technologies into the state's emergency communications network. The bill would also create a grant program for local governments to buy or construct emergency communications infrastructure and train employees on how to use the equipment during an emergency. It remains unknown how much funding would be made available for the grant program.
Items on emergency alerting, business data services (BDS) and satellite licensing saw some changes of note before they were approved by FCC commissioners last week. The items were posted in Monday’s Daily Digest. The next FCC meeting won't be until Sept. 30.
The FCC hacked away at licensing requirements for satellite and earth stations and slashed an array of broadcast rules in its August meeting Thursday. Four of the five items -- orders on submarine cable licensing and satellite and earth station licensing and NPRMs on improving emergency alerts and reviewing the commission's National Environmental Protection Act rules (see 2508070052) -- were approved unanimously. Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez partially dissented on an order repealing 98 broadcast rules and requirements.
Public Knowledge urged the FCC to safeguard consumers' privacy as it considers rules for next-generation 911, the group said this week in comments on a Further NPRM that commissioners approved in March. Most comments called for the FCC to move with caution as it considers updated rules (see 2508050042).
Emergency Alert System Test Reporting System (ETRS) Form One filings are due Oct. 3, said the FCC Public Safety Bureau in a public notice Monday. The ETRS is open for filings, it said. Form One “includes identifying and background information such as EAS designation, EAS monitoring assignments, facility location, equipment type, contact information, and other relevant data.”
Upcoming FCC items on revamping emergency alerting and outage reporting are expected to be approved unanimously at Thursday’s open meeting, while a direct final rule item on eliminating broadcast regulations is likely to draw a dissent from FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, industry and FCC officials told us.
CPB said Friday it has begun an “orderly wind-down of its operations,” given enactment of the 2025 Rescissions Act to claw back $1.1 billion of its advance funding for FY 2026 and FY 2027 and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s advancement Thursday of its FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee spending bill, which didn’t allocate money to the public broadcasting entity (see 2507310062). Meanwhile, the FCC didn’t comment on whether the Enforcement Bureau will continue investigating PBS and NPR stations for possible violations of underwriting rules (see 2501300065) after the commission released a set of April letters from Chairman Brendan Carr to House lawmakers indicating that the probe “remains ongoing.”
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., led the refiling Thursday of the NOAA Weather Radio Modernization Act, as expected (see 2507300029). The bill, which the Senate approved by unanimous consent in 2023, would require NOAA to upgrade infrastructure to improve reliable transmission of emergency alerts and reduce the system’s use of copper wire transmissions (see 2312190081). Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Gary Peters, D-Mich., signed on as a co-sponsor, along with three other Commerce members: Jerry Moran, R-Kan.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 25-3 Thursday to advance the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee’s FY 2026 funding bill without any CPB allotment. The move underscored stakeholders’ consensus that it will be very difficult for public broadcasting advocates to restore that funding after Congress narrowly agreed in mid-July to claw back all $1.1 billion of CPB’s advance money for FY26 and FY27 via the 2025 Rescissions Act (see 2507280050). Most Senate Appropriations Democrats voted for the FY26 measure, but LHHS ranking member Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and other party-affiliated members indicated that they haven’t given up on bringing CPB funding back before FY25 ends Oct. 1.
CTIA generally supports the rule changes proposed for the disaster information reporting system (DIRS) and other emergency alert systems, it told the FCC in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 21-346. The NPRM is set for a vote at the agency's Aug. 7 open meeting (see 2507170048). “CTIA and its member companies support the FCC’s efforts to ensure that public safety stakeholders have actionable information to maintain critical services, including 911 and 988,” the group said. In deciding which information is most usable, “the Commission should consider that there is a growing consensus among industry and public safety stakeholders that the current framework for outage notifications, including those notifications to 911 and 988 special facilities in areas where DIRS has been activated, is leading to outage notification fatigue."