[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STRENGTHENING COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS TO HELP AMERICANS IN CRISIS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 27, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-105
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-379 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
Chair BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
Massachusetts MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
------
Professional Staff
JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania
Chairman
JERRY McNERNEY, California ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York Ranking Member
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia PETE OLSON, Texas
DARREN SOTO, Florida ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
ANNA G. ESHOO, California BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado BILLY LONG, Missouri
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina BILL FLORES, Texas
DORIS O. MATSUI, California, Vice SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
Chair TIM WALBERG, Michigan
PETER WELCH, Vermont GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
TONY CARDENAS, California
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Mike Doyle, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening statement................ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Hon. Robert E. Latta, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Ohio, prepared statement.................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 5
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Oregon, opening statement...................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Witnesses
Sue Ann Atkerson, LPC, Chief Executive Officer, Behavioral Health
Link........................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 15
Daniel Henry, Regulatory Counsel and Director of Government
Affairs, National Emergency Number Association................. 21
Prepared statement........................................... 23
Answers to submitted questions \1\
Allen Bell, Distribution Manager, Georgia Power Company.......... 27
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Anthony Gossner, Fire Chief, City of Santa Rosa, California...... 36
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Answers to submitted questions \1\
Matthew Gerst, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, CTIA.......... 46
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Answers to submitted questions \1\
Joseph Torres, Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement, Free
Press and Free Press Action.................................... 62
Prepared statement........................................... 64
Answers to submitted questions \1\
Submitted Material
H.R. 451, Don't Break Up the T-Band Act of 2019, submitted by
Doyle.......................................................... 115
H.R. 1289, Preserving Home and Office Numbers in Emergencies Act
of 2019, submitted by Doyle.................................... 117
H.R. 3836, Wireless Infrastructure Resiliency during Emergencies
and Disasters Act, by Doyle.................................... 123
H.R. 4194, National Suicide Hot-line Designation Act of 2019,
submitted by Doyle............................................. 125
H.R. 4856, Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement Act
of 2019, submitted by Doyle.................................... 131
H.R. 5918, Reports After Activation of Disaster Information
Reporting System; Improvements to Network Outage Reporting,
submitted by Doyle............................................. 142
H.R. 5926, RESILIENT Networks Act, submitted by Doyle............ 149
H.R. 5928, FIRST RESPONDER Act of 2020, submitted by Doyle....... 168
----------
\1\ The Witnesses did not answer the submitted questions for the
record by the time of publication.
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Doyle, et al., by W. Graig
Fugate, FEMA Administrator 2009-2017, submitted by Mr. Doyle... 177
Letter of February 25, 2020, to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, by
Derek K. Poarch, Executive Director and CEO, APCO,
International, submitted by Mr. Doyle.......................... 179
Letter of February 26, 2020, to Mr. Doyle and Mr. Latta, by
Harold A. Schaitberger, General President, International
Association of Fire Fighters, submitted by Mr. Doyle........... 181
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, from
Mental Health Liaison Group, submitted by Mr. Doyle............ 182
Letter of February 26, 2020, to Mr. Doyle, et al., by Gordon H.
Smith, President and CEO, National Association Broadcasters,
submitted by Mr. Doyle......................................... 184
Letter of February 25, 2020, to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, by
Clarence E. Anthony, CEO and Executive Director, National
League of Cities, submitted by Mr. Doyle....................... 187
Letter of February 26, 2020, to Mr. Pallone, by Jessica C. Hogle,
Vice President, Federal Affairs and Chief Sustainability
Officer, PG&E Corporation, submitted by Mr. Doyle.............. 189
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Doyle and Mr. Latta, by
Jonathan Spalter, President and CEO, USTelecom--The Broadband
Association, submitted by Mr. Doyle............................ 191
Letter of December 9, 2019, to Ms. Pelosi and Mr. McCarthy, from
National's Public Safety Leadership Organizations, submitted by
Mr. Doyle...................................................... 194
Letter of October 3, 2019, to Mr. Dodaro, by Mr. Pallone, Jr.,
submitted by Mr. Doyle......................................... 202
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Doyle and Mr. Latta, by Chris
Stewart and Seth Moulton, Member of Congress, submitted by Mr.
Doyle.......................................................... 205
STRENGTHENING COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS TO HELP AMERICANS IN CRISIS
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a.m., in
room 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Doyle
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Doyle, McNerney, Clarke,
Loebsack, Veasey, Soto, O'Halleran, Eshoo, Matsui, Schrader,
Cardenas, Dingell, Pallone (ex officio), Latta (subcommittee
ranking member), Olson, Kinzinger, Bilirakis, Johnson, Flores,
Brooks, Walberg, Gianforte, and Walden (ex officio).
Also present: Representative Engel.
Staff present: A J Brown, Counsel; Parul Desai, FCC
Detailee; Jennifer Epperson, Counsel, Evan Gilbert, Press
Assistant; Waverly Gordon, Deputy Chief Counsel; Alex Hoehn-
Saric, Chief Counsel, Communications and Technology; Zach
Kahan, Outreach and Member Service Coordinator; Jerry Leverich,
Senior Counsel; Dan Miller, Junior Professional Staff Member;
Phil Murphy, Policy Coordinator; Alivia Roberts, Press
Assistant; Tim Robinson, Chief Counsel; Chloe Rodriguez, Policy
Analyst; William Clutterbuck, Minority Staff Assistant; Michael
Engel, Minority Detailee, Communications and Technology; Peter
Kielty, Minority General Counsel; Kate O'Connor, Minority Chief
Counsel, Communications and Technology; and Evan Viau, Minority
Professional Staff Member, Communications and Technology.
Mr. Doyle. The committee will now come to order.
The Chair will now recognize himself 5 minutes for an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE DOYLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today
to discuss a range of legislative proposals intended to address
challenges facing the American people and those responsible for
helping them in times of crisis. The bills before the
subcommittee today include Chairman Pallone and Mr. McNerney's
RESILIENT Networks Act; Ms. Eshoo's WIRED Act; the READI Act
introduced by Mr. McNerney, Mr. Bilirakis, and Mr. Olson; Mr.
Engel's Don't Break Up the T-Band Act; Ms. Matusi's and Ms.
Eshoo's Emergency Reporting Act; Mr. Thompson's PHONE Act; Mr.
Moulton and Mr. Stewart's National Suicide Hotline Designation
Act; and Ranking Member Walden's FIRST RESPONDER Act.
[The Bills, Resolutions, and Amendments en bloc follow:]
Mr. Doyle. In the last few years, resiliency has taken on a
new meaning. Our Nation has faced a surge of extreme weather
events from Super Storm Sandy in New Jersey and New York to
severe hurricanes in Puerto Rico, the Gulf, and the southern
eastern United States.
Puerto Rico, in particular, has been hit hard with multiple
hurricanes. In this most recent earthquake, thousands of people
lost their lives and they are still struggling to reconnect
critical infrastructure. The Federal Government simply has not
done enough. We must do better for the people there.
In California, people have seen their State ravaged by some
of the first wildfires in history. These fires haven't just
burned down homes, they have destroyed whole communities. In
the Midwest, communities have experienced record flooding and
crop losses.
More and more exception weather events that used to occur
once in a generation are becoming a regular occurrence. Human-
caused climate change is driving the shift in our weather
patterns and, while we work to combat even worse effects in the
future, we need to deal with this new normal now.
Our Nation's communications infrastructure is a lifeline to
those facing exigent circumstances and it needs to be ready to
take on the challenges we know it will face, whether that be
fires, floods, Category 5 winds, or 9-1-1 call centers outages,
a public safety emergency in a major city, or a personal crisis
that could cost someone their life. In each case, communication
networks that are ready and resilient to the challenges we know
they will face can be the difference between life and death.
It is my hope that, as we examine legislation before us
today, we can come together and find common ground because,
while each of our districts has some unique challenges, we can
all acknowledge that our communities are safer and stronger
when folks can communicate with each other and access the
resources they need in an emergency.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Doyle follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Mike Doyle
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today
to discuss a range of legislative proposals intended to address
challenges facing the American people and those responsible for
helping them in times of crisis.
The bills before the subcommittee today include Chairman
Pallone and Mr. McNerney's RESILIENT Networks Act; Ms. Eshoo's
WIRED Act; the READI Act introduced by Mr. McNerney, Mr.
Bilirakis, and Mr. Olson; Mr. Engel's Don't Break Up the T-Band
Act; Ms. Matusi's and Ms. Eshoo's Emergency Reporting Act; Mr.
Thompson's PHONE Act; Mr. Moulton and Mr. Stewart's National
Suicide Hotline 49 Designation Act; and Ranking Member Walden's
FIRST RESPONDER Act.
In the last few years, resiliency has taken on a new
meaning. Our Nation has faced a surge of extreme weather events
from Super Storm Sandy in New Jersey and New York to severe
hurricanes in Puerto Rico, the Gulf, and the southern eastern
United States.
Puerto Rico, in particular, has been hit hard with multiple
hurricanes. In this most recent earthquake, thousands of people
lost their lives and they are still struggling to reconnect
critical infrastructure. The Federal Government simply has not
done enough. We must do better for the people there.
In California, people have seen their State ravaged by some
of the first wildfires in history. These fires haven't just
burned down homes, they have destroyed whole communities. In
the Midwest, communities have experienced record flooding and
crop losses.
More and more exception weather events that used to occur
once in a generation are becoming a regular occurrence. Human-
caused climate change is driving the shift in our weather
patterns and, while we work to combat even worse effects in the
future, we need to deal with this new normal now.
Our Nation's communications infrastructure is a lifeline to
those facing exigent circumstances and it needs to be ready to
take on the challenges we know it will face, whether that be
fires, floods, Category 5 winds, or 9-1-1 call centers outages,
a public safety emergency in a major city, or a personal crisis
that could cost someone their life. In each case, communication
networks that are ready and resilient to the challenges we know
80 they will face can be the difference between life and death.
It is my hope that, as we examine legislation before us
today, we can come together and find common ground because,
while each of our districts has some unique challenges, we can
all acknowledge that our communities are safer and stronger
when folks can communicate with each other and access the
resources they need in an emergency.
With that, I would like to yield a minute to my good friend
Mr. McNerney. And then after his minute, a minute to Ms. Eshoo.
With that, I would like to yield a minute to my good friend
Mr. McNerney. And then after his minute, a minute to Ms. Eshoo.
Mr. McNerney. Well I thank the chairman for holding this
hearing and for yielding a minute to me.
This year, we are witnessing the driest February on record
in much of Northern California, which is where my district is
located. As experts warn about the possibility of early and
more intense wildfire season, it is imperative that we help
individuals stay connected during these natural disasters.
This situation is, in part, why I have introduced H.R.
5926, the RESILIENT Networks Act with Chairman Pallone. This
legislation would make critical improvements to the reliability
of our communications network.
I have also introduced H.R. 4856, the READI Act, with my
colleagues, Mr. Bilirakis and Mr. Olson. This legislation would
help ensure that we have a robust wireless emergency alerting
system.
Additionally, I have asked the chairman of the FCC to hold
a hearing in Northern California to examine the cell tower
outages that occurred during the recent wildfires. Chairman Pai
committed to me that he would hold this hearing. I look forward
to hearing from him about the details of when and where it will
be held.
And now I yield to my colleague, Ms. Eshoo.
Ms. Eshoo. I thank the gentleman and I thank you, Chairman
Doyle, for not only yielding time but for also holding this
very important meeting.
On October 28th of last year, 874 cell towers were out in
California, caused by wildfires and power shut-offs. My
constituents were worried sick that they wouldn't be able to
call 9-1-1 during emergencies, receive emergency alerts, or
download public safety information. Our wildfires are getting
more intense because of climate change and PG&E, the major
utility, estimates that shut-offs will impact nearly two
million Californians this year.
So without real changes, I really worry that our telecom
problem will, once again, worsen the impacts of these disasters
and it is why I have introduced the WIRED Act, which clarifies
that States can require carriers to take measures to make
wireless infrastructure more resilient to disasters, such as
requiring backup power. We have to have this and the
ambiguities in the law today are cleared away by this
legislation.
I am grateful that we are also considering Congresswoman
Matsui's bill, which I am proud to be an original co-sponsor
of.
And I look forward to a very productive hearing. I thank
all the witnesses.
And Mr. Chairman, thank you for grouping these bills and
having the hearing so that they can move on. These bills,
collectively, are going to make a real difference in the lives
of Californians and others across the country.
And I yield back.
Mr. Doyle. I thank the gentlelady.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Latta, the ranking member for
the subcommittee, for his opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT E. LATTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I really
appreciate you holding today's hearing. And good morning and
welcome to today's hearing to discuss a variety of public
safety-related legislation.
I also want to thank our witnesses for sharing their
experiences with us on dealing with the day-to-day challenges
associated with the concepts of these legislative proposals. So
thanks again for being here.
Public safety communications provide an important lifeline
to consumers and, as we make advances in technology, we must be
careful to make sure transitions are done thoughtfully, are
transparent, and have public input.
While many of the bills before us have good intentions to
improve the resiliency of our emergency communications systems,
we must ensure that these bills receive proper attention so
their goals are achieved.
First, the subcommittee is examining H.R. 1289, the PHONE
Act, which will provide a moratorium on number reassignment
after a natural disaster. I believe we can all agree that
consumers should lose their phone number after their home is
destroyed from a fire or a hurricane but the remedy we use to
protect consumers must be manageable for companies that provide
voice service to tens of millions of consumers. Without taking
that into account, we could cause more confusion for Americans
already reeling from disasters.
If there is a concern with the Commission's current process
for obtaining a waiver of the Aging Rule, that is something we
should study.
I believe that these and other challenges can be overcome
and I am committed to working with my friends in the majority
to see if there is a path forward. However, I caution you
against moving such important legislation without due
consideration under regular order.
I am pleased that we are considering the FIRST RESPONDER
Act, which repeals the T-Band auction mandate, while addressing
the issue of 9-1-1 fee diversion by States, as well as my
colleague from New York's bill, Don't Break Up the T-Band Act.
These bills address critical bipartisan issues that, if not
addressed, put the entire 9-1-1 and public safety system at
risk.
We will also discuss H.R. 4194, the National Suicide
Hotline Designation Act. Last Congress, this committee
unanimously passed the National Suicide Hotline Improvement
Act, which tasked the FCC with studying whether to designate an
n-1-1 three-digit short code for a National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline. Chairman Pai has announced his intention to move
forward on designating 9-8-8 and I applaud this decision.
And I was pleased to host the chairman recently in Toledo,
Ohio at a visit of the Rescue, Mental Health, and Addiction
Services, a National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Crisis Center.
At the Center, we learned the number of hotline calls that
needed answering in Ohio increased by 70 percent from 2016 to
2018. With suicide rates growing at an alarming rate across our
Nation, we need to make sure that the prevention services are
there and they have never been needed more than they are needed
today.
We must ensure resources like 9-8-8 are available for at-
risk Americans to get the help they need.
And Mr. Chairman, with that, I appreciate you holding
today's hearing and thank our witnesses for being here to
testify today. And I will yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Latta follow:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert E. Latta
Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing to discuss a
variety of public safety-related bills. I want to thank our
witnesses for sharing their experiences with us on dealing with
the day-to-day challenges associated with the concepts in these
legislative proposals.
Public safety communications provide an important lifeline
to consumers, and as we make advancements in technology we must
be careful to make sure transitions are done thoughtfully, are
transparent, and have public input. While many of the bills
before us have good intentions to improve the resiliency of our
emergency communications systems, we must ensure these bills
receive proper attention so that their goals are achieved.
First, the Subcommittee is examining H.R. 1289, the PHONE
Act, which would provide a moratorium on number reassignment
after a natural disaster. I think we can all agree that
consumers shouldn't lose their phone number after their home is
destroyed from a fire or hurricane. But whatever remedy we use
to protect consumers must be manageable for companies that
provide voice service to tens of millions of consumers. Without
taking that into account, we could cause more confusion for
Americans already reeling from disaster. If there is a concern
with the Commission's current process for obtaining a waiver of
the aging rule, that is something we should learn more about. I
believe these and other challenges can be overcome, and I am
committed to working with my friends in the Majority to see if
there is a path forward. However, I caution against moving such
important legislation without due consideration under regular
order.
I am pleased that we are considering the FIRST RESPONDER
Act, which repeals the T-Band auction mandate while addressing
the issue of 9-1-1 fee diversion by states, as well as my
colleague from New York's bill, Don't Break Up the T-Band Act.
These bills address critical, bipartisan issues that if not
addressed put the entire 9-1-1 and public safety systems at
risk.
We are also here to discuss H.R. 4194, the National Suicide
Hotline Designation Act. Last Congress, this Committee
unanimously passed the National Suicide Hotline Improvement
Act, which tasked the FCC with studying whether to designate an
"N-1-1" 3 digit short-code for the national suicide prevention
Lifeline. Chairman Pai has announced his intention to move
ahead on designating 9-8-8. I applaud this decision, and I was
pleased to host the Chairman recently in Toledo, Ohio to visit
Rescue Mental Health and Addiction Services--a National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline crisis center. At the center, we learned
the number of hotline calls that needed answering in Ohio
increased by 70% from 2016 to 2018. With suicide rates growing
in nearly every state, the need for prevention services has
never been greater. We must ensure resources, like 9-8-8, are
available for at risk Americans to get the help they need.
I look forward to reviewing all the bills under
consideration and hearing from our panelists. Thank you, and I
yield back.
Mr. Doyle. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Pallone, chairman of the full
committee for 5 minutes for his opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today, the subcommittee is considering a number of
important bills to improve communication networks, particularly
in times of emergency. The fact is that climate change is
causing more frequent and more severe disasters; and a
functioning communications network can be the difference
between life and death in these situations. And we have a
responsibility to ensure our networks are prepared for this
stark reality.
One of the bills we are considering today is the RESILIENT
Networks Act, which I introduced with Representative McNerney.
This legislation picks up where the SANDy Act left off and will
ensure that communication networks are prepared for the worst
when disaster strikes.
When networks go down, it is critical that providers share
information about outages and restoration efforts with 9-1-1
Call Centers and first responders. They need access to outage
reports to better keep us safe.
And I want to thank the Association of Public Safety
Communications officials for letting us know about the need to
address this issue. And I would like to request unanimous
consent to enter a letter from APCO into the record, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Pallone. Thank you.
So the bill the RESILIENT Networks Act also makes certain
that providers have pre-planned roaming agreements and mutual
aid agreements in place ahead of time. This coordination can
mean the difference between life and death. When a storm or
wildfire strikes, it is essential that people can still make
calls to 9-1-1 or to loved ones. Service is also critical to
receiving emergency alerts that providing life-saving
information.
In an instance where one carrier's network is working and
another goes down, having a plan in place beforehand to
seamlessly transition subscribers onto the working network is
common sense and can save lives.
Perhaps the most frustrating challenge of all is outages
that happen during the recovery phase, after storms or
disasters have passed. Far too many networks go down due to
accidental cuts into the networks when restoration efforts are
well underway. And our bill directs the FCC to examine ways to
stop these preventable outages and I look forward to seeing the
result of their analysis.
I am also pleased that the National Suicide Hotline
Designation Act is listed for consideration today and thank
Representative Stewart Moulton and Eddie Bernice Johnson for
their leadership on this issue. Every day the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline saves lives. And reports from the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, and the FCC,
say that making 9-8-8 the dialing code for the Lifeline will
save more lives. This bill will make it easier for people
experiencing a mental health crisis to access help.
In my State of New Jersey, a hundred young people aged 15
to 24 died by suicide in 2017, the highest number and rate
since the 1990s. Tragically, rates are climbing across the
board at the national level, too. The statistics are
particularly alarming for LGBTQ youth, who are four times more
likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
According to the Trevor Project's National Survey, 30
percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide
in the past year, including more than half of transgender or
nonbinary youth, and it is vital that we do all we can to turn
these trends.
And finally, I wanted to thank our Ranking Member Walden
and Representatives Engle, Eshoo, McNerney, Matsui, and
Thompson for their important work on other bills being
considered today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
Today the Subcommittee is considering a number of important
bills to improve communications networks, particularly in times
of emergency. The fact is that climate change is causing more
frequent and more severe disasters, and a functioning
communications network can be the difference between life and
death in these situations. We have a responsibility to ensure
our networks are prepared for this stark reality.
One of the bills we're considering today is the RESILIENT
Networks Act, which I introduced with Representative McNerney.
This legislation picks up where the SANDy Act left off and will
ensure that communications networks are prepared for the worst
when disaster strikes.
When networks go down, it is critical that providers share
information about outages and restoration efforts with 9-1-1
call centers and first responders. They need access to outage
reports to better keep us safe. I want to thank the Association
of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) for letting us
know about the need to address this issue. And I'd like to
request unanimous consent to enter a letter from APCO into the
record.
The RESILIENT Networks Act also makes certain that
providers have pre-planned roaming agreements and mutual aid
arrangements in place ahead of time. This coordination can mean
the difference between life and death.
When a storm or wildfire strikes, it is essential that
people can still make calls to 9-1-1 or to loved ones. Service
is also critical to receiving emergency alerts that provide
lifesaving information. In an instance where one carrier's
network is working and another's goes down, having a plan in
place beforehand to seamlessly transition subscribers onto the
working network is common sense, and can save lives.
Perhaps the most frustrating challenge of all is outages
that happen during the recovery phase, after storms or
disasters have passed. Far too many networks go down due to
accidental cuts into the networks when restoration efforts are
well underway. Our bill directs the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) to examine ways to stop these preventable
outages, and I look forward to seeing the results of their
analysis.
I am also pleased that the National Suicide Hotline
Designation Act is listed for consideration today, and thank
Representatives Stewart, Moulton, and Eddie Bernice Johnson for
their leadership on this issue. Every day, the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline saves lives-and reports from the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the FCC say
making 9-8-8 the dialing code for the Lifeline will save more.
This bill will make it easier for people experiencing a mental
health crisis to access help.
In my state of New Jersey, 100 young people aged 15 to 24
died by suicide in 2017--the highest number and rate since the
1990s.
Tragically, rates are climbing across the board at the
national level too. The statistics are particularly alarming
for LGBTQ youth, who are four times more likely to attempt
suicide than their peers. According to the Trevor Project's
National Survey, 39 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered
attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half
of transgender or nonbinary youth.
It is vital that we do all that we can to turn back these
trends.
Finally, I want to thank Ranking Member Walden and
Representatives Engel, Eshoo, McNerney, Matsui, and Thompson
for their important work on other bills being considered today.
I'd like to yield the remainder of my time to Rep. Matsui.
And I wanted to yield the remainder of my time to
Representative Matsui, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for yielding
and Chairman Doyle for holding this important, timely hearing.
The natural disasters we will examine at today's hearing
were, just a few years ago, irregularities, unavoidable but
uncommon events. Today, these once-in-a-generation storms and
fires have become all too common occurrences.
In 2019 alone, wildfires in California damaged or destroyed
732 structures and burned almost 260,000 acres. Worst of all,
three lives were lost. As destructive as these fires were, we
know that they are not an anomaly. Wildfire season is getting
longer. Wildfire incidents are becoming more common and their
intensity is increasing.
In the face of this evolving threat, we must adopt a
holistic approach, one that addresses environmental, economic,
and human factors that contribute to our changing climate.
Additionally, as we will discuss at this hearing, we need
to take immediate steps to ensure our networks can perform as
intended during emergencies. The shortcomings are network
performance were laid bare by Hurricane Maria, the Thomas Fire,
and Superstorm Sandy. This committee has an obligation to move
quickly and collaboratively to advance legislation that will
help prepare our country for the natural disasters of tomorrow.
That is why I worked with my colleagues, Representative Eshoo,
Thompson, and Huffman, to introduce the Emergency Reporting
Act. This bill would establish a standardized emergency
reporting process at the FCC and improve standards that require
mobile carriers to report network messages to 9-1-1 Centers.
The FCC needs to do a better job in response to crises. My
bill will ensure that the FCC conducts field hearings, issues
reports, and makes policy recommendations on all major
disasters, regardless of their location so no community would
again be left wondering: What can we do to better prepare for
the next one?
It would also improve the flow of information to 9-1-1
Centers when there are network outages in their service
territory that prevent consumers from completing 9-1-1 calls or
when the emergency calls do not include vital information like
location or number data.
While existing outage reporting requirements exist at the
FCC, the notification threshold is high and can lead to
situations in which 9-1-1 Centers are left in the dark by
service outages in their territory, jeopardizing public safety.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Walden, ranking member of the
full committee for his opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. Good morning.
Mr. Walden. And I want to welcome our witnesses and guests
today.
I just want to say on these wildfires; we have been facing
this in the northwest for a long time. I was just looking it
up. In 1910 was the giant fire in Idaho that burned, I think,
something like three million acres and took 86 lives, mostly
firefighters on the front lines.
So this is something some of us have been dealing with for
a long time. Yes, it is getting worse. Yes, climate change is
impacting it. But we have got to do work to get our forest back
in balance and get the excess fuel loads out and we need your
help to do that on both sides of aisle. We have got legislation
to do that in the Resilient Forests Act. And then we need to
replant. And we have a Trillion Trees project that I think can
make a real difference for the ecology, and trees for our lungs
and the world's lungs, and can take and return oxygen to the
environment. We need to do that, too.
And we need to make our networks resilient. I was in the
radio business for 20 years. I have covered a lot of fires. I
have worked closely with emergency personnel. I have been on
the scene of fires and accidents. And I have been out making my
own generator work at my radio station when it would go out. I
have turned tower lights on in the middle of the day so rescue
helicopters in fog could land at the nearby hospital. This is
really important work but we have to get it right and that is
why we look forward to working with you on the RESILIENT Act
but we need to get it right.
You know the RESILIENT Networks Act put forth by the
chairman, I appreciate his work on it. I know it has been a
focus of his and others for a long time, especially since
Superstorm Sandy.
Now we did include his SANDy Act and the RAY BAUM'S Act in
the last Congress, when I chaired the committee. This addressed
the complicated issues we examined and we did it in a
bipartisan and timely way.
The RESILIENT Networks Act attempts to address concerns
related to making sure wireless networks are restored in a
timely and efficient manner during times of emergency but this
bill has not seen--been through the kind of examination I
think, Mr. Chairman, it really deserves and needs. It is a very
important topic and we have got to get it right.
I commend the chairman for taking initial steps to examine
these issues in depth. In October of 2019, Chairman Pallone
requested a GAO study to investigate and evaluate the failures
in response to restoring communications in Puerto Rico after
the devastating hurricane to see what happened during that
crisis and what can be improved. Without objection, I would
like to offer his letter for the record, Mr. Chairman. We have
not yet seen the results of this----
Mr. Doyle. So ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Walden. Thank you--the study which may inform how
Congress could address the issues contemplated in the RESILIENT
Networks Act. So we should--we asked for the information so we
could learn what to get right and I wish we would wait to act
until we get that.
The FCC is also taking steps to address these issues. In
fact, the Commission is voting tomorrow on an item to provide
State and Federal agencies with access to outage data. In many
cases, having access to wireless communications during a
natural disaster can save lives. So Mr. Chairman, it is
important that we get this policy right.
As we will hear today, the wireless industry has made some
great strides, over the last several years, to expand their
Wireless Resiliency Cooperative Framework, which is a voluntary
process to enhance coordination in times of an emergency. This
Framework must remain flexible so we can allow best practices
and lessons learned to evolve without creating unnecessary
barriers to restoration. Every disaster is different. I have
seen that firsthand. So communications providers and their
partners need sufficient flexibility to adapt to specific
situations.
States are also at the forefront in a lot of this work, as
we have seen with wildfires out west in Oregon or the tragic
ones in California. As you know, State regulators have
jurisdiction over electric distribution. We must be mindful of
how they are addressing this issue so we do not disrupt those
efforts with heavy federal regulations and we must also be
mindful to not extend the Federal Communications Commission's
jurisdiction to include the electric distribution or
transmission system, where they have no relevant expertise. But
we cannot talk about the importance of the resiliency of the 9-
1-1 system, while turning a blind eye to the flagrant and
obvious attempts to undermine the system's integrity and, dare
I say, resiliency.
That is why I am also pleased to discuss the FIRST
RESPONDER Act today. Over the last several years, I have sought
to find a consensus solution to the T-Band auction mandate that
was included in the 2012 Spectrum Act and address related
issues, including the efficient use of public safety spectrum
and diversion of 9-1-1 fees.
The FIRST RESPONDER Act would repeal the T-Band auction
mandate and include strong provisions to address the shameful
acts by some States of diverting 9-1-1 fees intended for the
maintenance and upgrade to Next Generation 9-1-1. While some
States may not have a clear understanding of what is a 9-1-1
expenditure, other State politicians have made a more conscious
decision to diver 9-1-1 fees to spend the money on pet projects
unrelated to public policy.
So the FIRST RESPONDER Act addresses both concerns and
gives well-intentioned States clarity on how to prevent 9-1-1
fee diversion in the future but also would take steps to
investigate whether criminal penalties or other tools could end
the shameful practice of fee diversion by the worst offenders.
So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will just conclude by saying
we should also keep in mind the role of ham radio operators. I
may be one of the few in the Congress. It is actually an
amateur radio operators but I have seen them play a key role in
emergency situations, too, when everything else fails.
So with that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Greg Walden
We have a number of bills before us today that aim to
advance public safety communications, and it is my hope that we
can work in a bipartisan manner to reach consensus. But much
work remains to be done before many of these bills are ready
for full consideration by the subcommittee.
To start, we will be discussing the RESILIENT Networks Act
put forth by the Chairman. I appreciate his work on this issue,
and I know this has been a focus of his for a long time, going
back to his work during Superstorm Sandy. In fact, we included
his SANDy Act in RAY BAUM'S Act last Congress, which addressed
complicated issues that we examined in a bipartisan manner over
several years. The RESILIENT Networks Act attempts to address
concerns related to making sure wireless networks are restored
in a timely and efficient manner during times of emergency, but
this bill has not seen the thorough examination necessary for
such an important topic.
I commend the Chairman for taking initial steps to examine
these issues in depth. In October 2019, Chairman Pallone
requested a GAO study to investigate and evaluate the failures
in response to restoring communications in Puerto Rico after
the devastating hurricane to see what happened during that
crisis, and what can be improved. Without objection, I would
like to offer this letter for the record. We have not yet seen
the results from that study, which may inform how Congress
could address the issues contemplated in the RESILIENT Networks
Act.
The FCC is also taking steps to address these issues. In
fact, the Commission is voting tomorrow on an item to provide
state and federal agencies with access to outage data. In many
cases, having access to wireless communications during a
natural disaster saves lives, so Mr. Chairman, it is important
that we get this policy right.
As we will hear today, the wireless industry has made great
strides over the last several years to expand their Wireless
Resiliency Cooperative Framework, which is a voluntary process
to enhance coordination in times of an emergency. This
framework must remain flexible, so we can allow best practices
and lessons learned to evolve without creating unnecessary
barriers to restoration. Every disaster is different, so
communications providers and their partners need sufficient
flexibility to adapt to specific situations. States are also at
the forefront of a lot of this work, as we have seen with
wildfires out west in Oregon or California. As you know, state
regulators have jurisdiction over electric distribution. We
must be mindful of how they are addressing this issue so we do
not disrupt those efforts with heavy federal regulations. And
we must also be mindful to not expand the Federal
Communications Commission's jurisdiction to include the
electric distribution or transmission system--where they have
no relevant expertise.
But we cannot talk about the importance of the resiliency
of the 9-1-1 system while turning a blind eye to flagrant and
obvious attempts to undermine the system's integrity, and dare
I say resiliency. That is why I'm also pleased to discuss the
FIRST RESPONDER Act today. Over the last several years, I have
sought to find a consensus solution to the T-Band auction
mandate that was included in the 2012 Spectrum Act, and address
related issues including the efficient use of public safety
spectrum and diversion of 9-1-1 fees.
The FIRST RESPONDER Act would repeal the T-Band auction
mandate, and includes strong provisions to address the shameful
acts by some states of diverting 9-1-1 fees intended for the
maintenance and upgrade to Next-Generation 9-1-1. While some
states may not have clear understanding on what is a 9-1-1
expenditure, other state politicians have made a more conscious
decision to divert 9-1-1 fees to spend the money on pet
projects unrelated to public safety. The FIRST RESPONDER Act
addresses both concerns: it gives well-intentioned states
clarity on how to prevent 9-1-1 fee diversion in the future,
but also takes steps to investigate whether criminal penalties
or other tools could end this shameful practice by the worst
offenders.
I thank our witnesses for agreeing to testify today, and to
share their thoughts on these proposals. I look forward to
hearing from each of you on these very important topics.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair would like to remind Members that, pursuant to
committee rules, all Members' written opening statements shall
be made part of the record.
So I would now like to introduce our witnesses for today's
hearing: Ms. Sue Ann Atkerson, CEO of Behavioral Health Link;
Mr. Daniel Henry, Regulatory Counsel and director of Government
Affairs, National Emergency Number Association; Mr. Allen Bell,
Distribution Manager, Georgia Power Company; Mr. Anthony
Gossner, Fire Chief, City of Santa Rosa, California; Mr.
Matthew Gerst, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs for CTIA; and
last but not least, Mr. Joseph Torres, Senior Director of
Strategy and Engagement, Free Press and Free Press Action.
We want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today.
We look forward to your testimony.
At this time, the Chair will recognize each witness for 5
minutes to provide their opening statements but, before we
begin, I would like to explain the lighting system. In front of
you is a series of lights. The light will initially be green.
The light will turn yellow when you have 1-minute remaining.
Please wrap up your testimony at that point. The light will
turn red when your time has expired and, if you keep talking, a
trap door will open under your seat and whisk you away.
So with that admonishment, Ms. Atkerson, you are recognized
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENTS OF SUE ANN ATKERSON, CEO, BEHAVIORAL HEALTH LINK;
DANIEL HENRY, REGULATORY COUNSEL AND DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT
AFFAIRS, NATIONAL EMERGENCY NUMBER ASSOCIATION; ALLEN BELL,
DISTRIBUTION MANAGER, GEORGIA POWER COMPANY; ANTHONY GOSSNER,
FIRE CHIEF, CITY OF SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA; MATTHEW GERST, VICE
PRESIDENT, REGULATORY AFFAIRS, CTIA; AND JOSEPH TORRES, SENIOR
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY AND ENGAGEMENT, FREE PRESS AND FREE PRESS
ACTION
STATEMENT OF SUE ANN ATKERSON
Ms. Atkerson. Thank you and good morning, Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. Can you pull your microphone up closer to you,
please? Yes.
Ms. Atkerson. Sure. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman
Doyle, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the committee.
Thank you for inviting me today and for your leadership in
strengthening the country's suicide prevention and crisis care
services.
By designating 9-8-8 as the dialing code for suicide
prevention services, the bipartisan National Suicide Hotline
Designation Act, H.R. 4194 is a historic step toward saving
more American lives and I should know. My name is Sue Ann
Atkerson and I have spent more than 25 years working to prevent
suicide. I am the CEO of Behavioral Health Link in Atlanta,
Georgia and COO for RI International based in Phoenix, Arizona.
BHL provides a 24/7 community-based call center hub and mobile
outreach and RI International offers facility-based crisis
services in eight States. Working together, these programs
deliver a full continuum of best-practice crisis service care.
I have three points to share today: one, suicide is a
leading cause of death in the United States; two, faster access
to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will save lives;
and three, funding and specialized services are essential for
success.
Before I go into detail on these, I want to share a story
that illustrates why we are all here today: Misha Kessler. The
9-8-8 code is precisely what Misha Kessler, a now mental health
advocate from Ohio, needed when he experienced suicidal
ideation as a sophomore at George Washington University. During
a particularly difficult time, he planned to jump out of his
sixth-floor dorm window to his death. Without other options,
Misha ended up in an inpatient psychiatric hospitalization.
Misha's experience would likely have been different, had 9-
8-8 existed. His 9-8-8 call would have been redirected to the
Lifeline, where local call centers deescalate 98 percent of
calls, getting people the help they need immediately.
The sooner we can intervene to help a person in crisis, the
more lives we can save. That is why the 9-8-8dial code and a
fully-funded Lifeline is so important.
I will begin with some background on the suicide epidemic.
Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death of Americans
overall and the second leading cause of death for people ages
10 to 34. We lost nearly 50,000 Americans to suicide in 2018.
Of particular relevance to the chair and ranking member,
Pennsylvania ranked fourth in the Nation for suicide deaths and
Ohio ranked fifth.
Some populations are particularly vulnerable to suicide.
LGBTQ youth, for example, are four times more likely than their
heterosexual peers to contemplate suicide and the incidence
rates for transgender youth have skyrocketed in recent years.
Secondly, faster access to the Lifeline will save lives.
Research shows that the time between a person deciding to act
and attempting suicide can be as short as five to ten minutes.
That means there is a critical period for intervention similar
to the so-called golden hour of a stroke, meaning that time is
of the essence.
Fifty-three years ago, the FCC established 9-1-1,
transforming emergency care in this country by making access to
trained medical professionals available to anyone, anywhere,
anytime. Today, Americans in mental health distress often turn
to our medical system. Landing in overcrowded emergency rooms
that are often ill-equipped to address psychiatric needs can
lead to delays in accessing appropriate care. When they do get
treatment, it comes at a very high cost, not only to the
patient but also to taxpayers, in the form of emergency medical
services and law enforcement resources.
Adopting 9-8-8 will allow direct immediate access to
trained mental health professionals, whose rapid intervention
often results in lifesaving actions.
Lastly, funding and specialized services are essential to
success. The Lifeline network of accredited crisis centers must
be fully funded and well-equipped to handle specialized needs
of callers as call volume increases. Estimates indicate the
potential for calls to double in the first year, reaching
upwards of five million.
Full funding of the Lifeline is critical to success and we
will, undoubtedly, need a braided funding approach. This
includes giving States the authority to levy fees, such as a
service charge revenue through wireless carriers. We also need
to strengthen partnerships between the Lifeline and specialty
suicide prevention resources. In fact, the Senate companion
bill 2661 directs SAMHSA to create an implementation plan for
specialized services for LGBTQ youth and other at-risk
populations, which could include training crisis counselors and
integrated voice response to route calls to specialized
organizations. We encourage the House of Representatives to
adopt this language.
In conclusion, it is the consensus of the mental health
community, including the operators of the Lifeline, that
Congress should pass H.R. 4194. Providing faster access to a
fully-funded Lifeline network, with specialized services for
our most at-risk populations, will save American lives.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Atkerson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Doyle. Thank you very much.
Mr. Henry, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DANIEL HENRY
Mr. Henry. Chairman Pallone, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member
Walden, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
My name is Daniel Henry. I am Regulatory Counsel and
Director of Government Affairs for NENA, The 9-1-1 Association.
With over 16,000 members across the United States, NENA is the
leading professional association in the 9-1-1 space.
Thanks also to the members of the Congressional NextGen 9-
1-1 Caucus, including co-chairs Representatives Eshoo and
Shimkus, as well as many other members of this committee,
including Chairman Pallone and Chairman Doyle. We appreciate
your support.
Built in the days of copper landline trunks, 9-1-1 now
answers around 80 percent of its 300 million annual calls from
mobile phones, most of them smartphones with advanced location
and data-sharing capabilities. Unfortunately, America's 9-1-1
system is still years behind the smartphone revolution.
Modernizing it faces four perennial challenges: decentralized
governance, inadequate and inconsistent funding, human
resources challenges, and evolving technology.
Public Safety Answering Points or PSAPs vary widely from
community to community, as noted. Each of these settings has
its own unique needs, conventions, technology, and funding
models. It would be impossible to impose a single cookie cutter
model for 9-1-1 in every jurisdiction in the United States.
With varied governance comes varied funding means. While 9-
1-1 fees are traditionally levied as line items on subscriber
phone bills, funding models also vary. In some cases, they are
uniform statewide fees. In others, counties levy the fees.
Regardless of how the money is collected, adequate funding
streams are required for both technology upgrades and for daily
operations of 9-1-1.
What constitutes an allowable 9-1-1 expenditure also varies
from one State to the next. While one State may define anything
within the walls of the PSAP as 9-1-1 spending, another may
extend that definition to all kinds of public safety equipment.
More challenging still is some States' practice of
diverting funds collected through 9-1-1 fees to unrelated
issues. According to data collected by the FCC, in 2018 alone,
five States diverted a total of $187 million in consumer-paid
9-1-1 fees. Most people would agree that, when we pay a 9-1-1
fee, that money should go to 9-1-1. Raids on 9-1-1 funds must
cease, both to maintain today's level of service and to
accelerate the transition to Next Generation 9-1-1.
Our 9-1-1 system also plays a critical role during
disasters as a primary intake of information to public safety.
During Hurricane Harvey, for instance, Houston 9-1-1 processed
75,000 calls during the course of a single weekend, more than
four and a half times its normal call volume. In the aggregate,
these calls become crowd-sourced intelligence for public safety
providing thousands of details in real time and helping
authorities stay safe and do their jobs.
The 9-1-1 system also serves as an early warning system for
``blue-sky'' outages, as was the case in December 2018 when a
major nationwide outage was brought to light only by sharply
dropping 9-1-1 call volumes. Threats to connectivity are
exacerbated in this legacy 9-1-1 environment, where specialized
9-1-1 trunks and selective routers create single points of
failure in the network. It is, thus, imperative that these
facilities be supported by more reliable frequently, tested
sources of backup power and connectivity.
It is also crucial that telecommunications providers and 9-
1-1 work hand-in-hand to tackle outage reporting and analysis,
so that they may work together to address current outages and
prevent future ones.
Many of these challenges will be alleviated by the
transition to Next Generation 9-1-1, whereas legacy 9-1-1 is
based on voice-only 20th century technology. NG is a standards-
based IP-powered system of systems that brings 9-1-1 into the
21st-century. To enhance resiliency, NG 9-1-1 will allow for
seamless rollover of operations when PSAPs experience an outage
or are overwhelmed with calls. It will allow PSAPs to connect
to 9-1-1 networks through multiple cost-effect pathways and it
will make our 9-1-1 systems more secure and more resilient
against cyberattacks. Finally, it will allow for faster
upgrades and solutions to problems and innovations as they
arise in the marketplace.
The fiscal burden of this transition cannot be borne solely
by States and localities alone. The National 9-1-1 Office
estimates the NG transition will cost around $12 billion
nationwide, above and beyond the day-to-day operating costs of
our current 9-1-1 systems. Industry and public safety have
worked together for over a decade to develop the technical and
operational standards, governance models, and best practices
for Next Generation 9-1-1. It has been tested in numerous real-
world environments. In short, 9-1-1 is ready for this
transition.
We are deeply grateful, Mr. Chairman, that you and your
committee have called this hearing to consider several pieces
of legislation to improve America's 9-1-1 systems. We believe
that significant improvements can be made soon in practically
every community's 9-1-1 systems and that Congress' investment
will deliver priceless returns.
We at NENA look forward to working with you and with all
stakeholders to ensure the continued success of 9-1-1 and an
accelerated transition to NG9-1-1.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Henry follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
Mr. Bell, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ALLEN BELL
Mr. Bell. Chairman Pallone, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member
Walden, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning.
My name is Allen Bell and I serve as a Distribution Support
Manager for Georgia Power. I am also a member of the FCC's
Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee and serve on its
Disaster Response and Recovery Working Group. I have nearly
three decades of experience working disaster response and
recovery, and communications issues in the electric power
industry, including serving 15 years on Georgia's 8-1-1 Board.
Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern
Company, one of the nation's largest generators of electricity.
We serve nine million customers in six States and our
communications service provider, Southern Linc, operates over a
127,000 square mile territory covering Georgia, Alabama,
southeastern Mississippi, and the Panhandle of Florida.
The electric power industry invests more than $110 billion
a year to modernize the grid. Georgia Power just had more than
a billion dollars in grid investment approved by the Georgia
Public Service Commission.
I appreciate Chairman Pallone and Congressman McNerney's
leadership by introducing the RESILIENT Networks Act. This is a
serious issue that is currently being addressed by a number of
voluntary cross-sector efforts. While these efforts should be
given the opportunity to be seen through before congressional
action, I applaud several of the bill's provisions.
In particular, DOE should be included in recommending best
practices for coordination between the two sectors because
there are only two electric utility representatives on the
BDAC. Communication providers should take responsible measures
to integrate backup power into their networks and Emergency
Operation Centers already exist to provide appropriate
coordination during times of emergency between industry and
Government stakeholders.
Among the voluntary efforts the BDAC Disaster Response and
Recovery Working Group is in the process of finalizing a report
that will identify best practices for coordination before,
during, and after a disaster. Additionally, at the request of
the FCC, the Edison Electric Institute and the CTIA are
establishing a Cross-Sector Resiliency Forum.
With respect to H.R. 5926 it is crucial to acknowledge that
most disasters are local, State, or regional events. Therefore,
the goal should be to drive all coordination and information-
sharing through State or county EOCs. The unintended
consequence of a Federal master directory is that it could have
the opposite effect.
Another concern with H.R. 5926 is the consideration of
applying the one-call notification system to fiber lines at the
Federal level. Rather than duplicate efforts that are already
in place in most states, I would recommend assigning fiber
optic locators to electric and debris removal crews during
storm restoration and evaluating construction practices for
critical communication networks to ensure fiber lines are not
laid adjacent to electric poles.
Southern's extensive experience with powerful storms, such
as Hurricane Michael, demonstrates that hardening, redundancy,
and preparedness are keys to improving resiliency. Our primary
focus is a safe and quick restoration of power. For some
electric customers, including nursing homes and hospitals,
electric service restoration and be a matter of life and death.
Even while undertaking these restoration efforts, we still
coordinated regularly with communications providers at the
EOCs. All critical infrastructure providers have a
responsibility to use these existing multi-stakeholder
processes to improve the resiliency of their systems.
One reason for Southern Linc's ability to maintain and
quickly restore operational cell sites is our use of
generations and fuel cells. While having an onsite generator at
every site may not be feasible, wireless carriers should
consider having generators at their most critical sites.
Another key factor is Southern Linc's use of redundant
backhaul and transport links for its site. Another key: During
and immediately after large-scale storm or disaster damage to
communications fiber is inevitable and should be planned for in
advance.
In conclusion, we are committed to working with all
stakeholders to strengthen infrastructure resilience and to
promote safe, effective disaster response and service
restoration.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Mr. Bell.
Mr. Gossner, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ANTHONY GOSSNER
Mr. Gossner. Good morning, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member
Latta, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Anthony
Gossner. I am the Fire Chief for the City of Santa Rosa.
On behalf of Mayor Schwedhelm, Vice Mayor Flemming, and the
entire City of Santa Rosa, I would like to express my
appreciation for the opportunity to appear before this
committee today to discuss the vital role wireless
communications and technology play in public safety and
emergency situations.
A little over two years ago, the City of Santa Rosa, the
largest city in Sonoma County and the county seat, experienced
what was then the worst wildfire in California's history.
Beginning on the night of October 8th, 2017, multiple fires
broke out through California's North Bay. In Sonoma County,
what were initially five major fires merged into three -- the
Tubbs, the Nuns, and the Pocket Fires, collectively known as
the Sonoma Complex. In the span of a few hours, life profoundly
changed for tens of thousands of people in Santa Rosa and
throughout Sonoma County.
A total of 24 people lost their lives to the fires in
Sonoma County, an estimated 100,000 evacuated from their homes,
and 43 emergency shelters opened, serving close to 4,162 people
at the peak of the operations in Sonoma County.
Property losses were estimated at $13 billion. More than
3,000 homes, approximately five percent of the city's housing
stock, were destroyed, compounding an already severe housing
deficit in the county. And for many fire survivors in our
community, after losing their homes and personal possessions,
lost their ability to communicate with family members, friends,
doctors, and others because they lost their landline-associated
phone numbers.
We thank Congressman Thompson for introducing the PHONE
Act, which will provide a temporary hold on telephone number
reassignments after a Federally-declared major disaster and
ensure that disaster survivors going through the long and
painful process of rebuilding; they will have one less thing to
worry about.
The City of Santa Rosa strongly supports the PHONE Act and
respectfully requests that this committee pass it quickly,
making this critical need available to our communities this
fire season and before another natural disaster strikes.
We know that telecommunications infrastructure is not only
vital to our residents during and after recovery but it is also
critical in how public safety officials respond to wildfires,
hurricanes, tornados, and so many other disasters.
The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services
reported that 341 cell sites were offline during the October
2017 northern California wildfires and a combined 489 cell
sites were offline during the Camp and Woolsey fires in
November of 2018. This prevented wireless users in the impacted
areas from being able to call 9-1-1, receive an emergency
alert, or use their cell phones to find the safest evacuation
route.
Prior to and during the 2019 Kincade fire in Sonoma County,
PG&E deenergized major portions of northern California. In
Sonoma County, one-quarter of the area's 436 cell phone towers
were not functioning. And in nearby Marin County, more than
half of the area's 280 towers were out of service due to this
strategy.
While wireless infrastructure cannot stop a wildfire, it
can and should be hardened to withstand these impacts of
similar disasters. Therefore, the City strongly supports the
Wireless Infrastructure Resiliency during Emergencies and
Disaster Act, the WIRED Act. Sponsored by Congresswoman Eshoo
and co-sponsored by Congressman Huffman, the bill gives the
States the flexibility and authority to require wireless
companies to deploy hardened infrastructure so that wireless
networks are more resilient to disasters.
During the Tubbs fire, roughly 70 cell towers were knocked
out of service within the first several hours of the fire due
to damage, loss of power, or loss of terrestrial
communications. Based on our experience, mandating reasonable
requirements, like installation of fail-safe battery backup at
cell towers, increasing the number of sites with backup
generators, and sufficient fuel to operate for a maximum of 72
hours, requirements for reciprocity between cell providers so
that, in the event of cell sites going offline during a
disaster, sharing of cellular networks will hopefully be able
to maintain at least a minimum level of emergency messaging and
support, retrofitting existing cell tower sites, and enhanced
vegetation management, and defensible space standards near cell
towers could significantly improve our response capabilities.
In addition to hardening the telecommunications
infrastructure, our alerting system plays a significant role in
protecting people. Even as our recovery is still ongoing, the
City has taken critical steps, including commissioning an
After-Action Report to identify problems and implement
solutions that will make the City more resilient in future
disasters.
Our plan incorporate mitigation principles into future
infrastructure projects and improves altering systems available
for public notifications, alert, warning, and advisories. The
alerting systems now available to the City include IPAWS--and I
won't go into detail due to lack of time; SoCo Alert, which is
an opt-in system; Hi/Lo Sirens, which are included on all of
our police and fire apparatus; Nixle, which is an information
service; and altering and outreach campaigns, which the City
has created a robust system to disseminate throughout the City.
The City would also like to acknowledge the work FEMA is
doing to update IPAWS to implement enhancements to the WEA
System and has been working closely with the City of Santa Rosa
and other local governments to deploy Next Generation of WEA
technology, which will increase the maximum character from 90
to 360 characters; and support Spanish Language wireless
emergency alerts; add two new alert categories, in addition to
the presidential, AMBER and Imminent Threat; and enhance geo-
targeting reaching 100 percent of the target area with more
than one-tenth of a mile overshoot and other improvements.
For these reasons and many others that I won't get into due
to time, this is why we support the RESILIENT Networks Act. The
City of Santa Rosa is working closely with the whole community,
including Government and nonprofit private sector partners to
ensure our residents, and first responders, emergency managers
have the proper planning, equipment, and personnel to prevent
and respond to the next disaster.
Again, thank you for providing me the opportunity to
testify today and I look forward to answering any of your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gossner follows:]
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Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
Mr. Gerst, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MATTHEW GERST
Mr. Gerst. Chairman Pallone, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member
Walden, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the subcommittee,
on behalf of CTIA and the wireless industry, thank you for
holding this important hearing and your longstanding leadership
of public safety issues.
Each member of this subcommittee has felt the impact of
disaster. And in particular, I want to thank Chairman Pallone,
who was instrumental in forging a framework in the aftermath of
Superstorm Sandy. That framework has encouraged wireless
providers to share resources and support each other's
customers, all to maintain service and accelerate the recovery
from recent disasters for millions of Americans.
Today, we are stronger than we were after Sandy and there
is more we can do together to reinforce our networks, our
responses, and our performance.
Americans are relying on wireless services more than ever.
We reach for our wireless devices to call or text 9-1-1. We use
mobile apps to organize rescues. And wireless emergency alerts
ring the warning bells that spur us to action. That is why
wireless providers prepare, respond, and invest in resiliency.
Over the last decade, the wireless industry has invested
$253 billion to build redundant, diverse, and densified
networks. So even if some cell sites go down, providers have
fortified large-coverage cell sites to support critical
communications. And providers enhance and restore wireless
coverage with cell sites on the backs of trucks, that we call
COWs, and dedicated teams ready to repair networks and heal
communities with chargers and a helping hand.
These investments in resiliency have paid dividends.
Ninety-five percent of cell sites maintained service throughout
Hurricane Harvey. Eighty-one percent of cell sites withstood
the intensity of Hurricane Michael. Ninety-six percent of cell
sites were online while millions of Californians were without
power last year. And just last month, sixty-eight percent of
cell sites withstood a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that knocked
out power across Puerto Rico.
Now these numbers do not diminish the challenges in the
hardest hit areas. And wireless providers have applied lessons
learned, like burying fiber to avoid damage during hurricane
recovery efforts in Florida; hardening towers and cell sites to
withstand high winds in Puerto Rico; elevating equipment to
avoid flooding in Texas; and diversifying backup power
solutions with cabinet-sized batteries and truck-sized
generators in California.
The investments that wireless providers make in time,
material, and people to prepare and respond to wildly diverse
emergencies have made our networks and our Nation stronger but
coordination and communication are also essential to rapidly
respond and restore services. In light of recent experiences in
Florida and California, wireless providers and electric
utilities are taking steps to enhance coordination.
Today, I am pleased to announce that CTIA and the Edison
Electric Institute recently agreed to convene our member
companies to identifying near-term actions that can improve
information sharing and preparedness. We will focus on lessons
learned over the last year of hurricane and wildfire events and
we will keep this subcommittee apprised of our progress.
Now even as our networks are getting stronger, storms and
disaster events are too. This subcommittee is right to ask:
What more can be done to enhance wireless services during
emergencies? We support the goals of Chairman Pallone and
Representative McNerney's RESILIENT Networks Act. By
recognizing that wireless networks are nationwide, that
emergency events are local, the bill directs the FCC to set
clear expectations for roaming, mutual aid, backup power, and
information sharing during disasters.
We look forward to working with the subcommittee to improve
the bill's focus on policies that further situational awareness
among public safety stakeholders.
We support Representative McNerney's READI Act, which can
help ensure that wireless emergency alerts remain a trusted
tool by encouraging alert originators to avoid false alerts and
harness new capabilities.
And we support Ranking Member Walden's FIRST RESPONDER Act
because State and local governments shouldn't undermine public
trust and safety by diverting any of the $2.6 billion in 9-1-1
fees that they collect from wireless consumers every year.
We also support this subcommittee's effort to make it
easier to access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by
implementing 9-8-8. Call centers need sufficient funding to
help people in crisis and we need an effective and equitable
way to do that.
In closing, we will continue to invest in resiliency and
enhance our coordination to make our network stronger. And we
will work this subcommittee to set reasonable and flexible
expectations that ensure wireless is there when Americans need
it most.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I
look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gerst follows:]
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Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
Mr. Torres, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH TORRES
Mr. Torres. Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member Latta, Chairman
Pallone, Ranking Member Walden, and esteemed members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify about the
life and death issue of ensuring that communications networks
properly serve all people in the United States, especially in
times of crisis.
I am the Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement at Free
Press and Free Press Action. I am here today on behalf of 1.4
million members in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and
Puerto Rico.
Over the past couple of years, since Hurricanes Irma and
Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, Free Press has worked with
allies to ensure that lawmakers and regulators are crafting
policies to rebuild communications in Puerto Rico and to hear
directly from Puerto Ricans impacted by the disaster.
I am Puerto Rican and I grew up in New York City. Like so
many Puerto Ricans growing up in the States, I often traveled
as a kid to the Islands to visit my grandmother. Four of my
Free Press colleagues also have their personal connection to
Puerto Rico.
Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, knocked out power and
nearly the entire communications network on the Islands. This
impacted recovery efforts. FEMA said it struggled to gain
situational awareness and assess the status of critical
infrastructure, in part, due to Puerto Rico's communication
outages.
The president of Puerto Rico's Association of Emergency
Managers told the Associated Press the biggest crisis after
Maria was communication and that it unleashed an endless number
of problems. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people died as a result of
Maria, making it one of the worst tragedies in U.S. history. An
inability of Puerto Ricans to communicate was a factor in the
death toll.
My colleagues and I worked with Puerto Rican activists,
when we traveled to Puerto Rico in 2018, to learn how the
communication collapse impacted the people's lives. Residents
of Vieques and Comerio told us how the lack of communication
limited their mobility, left them without knowing where to
search for food, water, medical care, and how to reach loved
ones, or get information about mudslides. This is why a
coalition of Puerto Rican groups and leaders, and racial
justice and public interest groups have called on the Federal
Communications Commission to conduct an independent
investigation into all the factors that contributed to the
communication crisis. Well, so far, the FCC has failed to do
so.
In contrast, the FCC did investigate the communication
disruptions in the Florida Panhandle following Hurricane
Michael, also a Category 4 storm. The Commission found that the
lack of coordination among wireless and landline service
providers, power crews, and municipalities prolonged the
restoration of service. We applauded the Commission for
conducting the investigation but we also are troubled by the
disparity in treatment when it comes to Puerto Rico. We believe
that the longest-known communications blackout in modern U.S.
history warrants and investigation.
Earlier this month, in a letter to Representative Yvette
Clarke, Chairman Pai praised the telecom carriers for applying
the lessons they learned after Hurricane Maria to rapidly
restore service in areas of Puerto Rico impacted by the recent
earthquakes but the lessons the Chairman alludes to have yet to
be made public.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel criticized the
Commission last September for not having a clear picture of how
telecom companies, who have received Federal funding from the
FCC, have spent that money and for not knowing the precise
status of communication facilities on the Islands. She called
this approach an invitation for waste.
We urge the committee to use its oversight power to ask
Chairman Pai to publicly share the lessons the carriers and the
Commission have learned from Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans
deserve to know the truth about what happened. They deserve a
comprehensive investigation into all the factors that
contributed to the communication crisis in Puerto Rico. They
deserve to know the FCC's response and they deserve to know the
industry's response. Learning about what happened in Puerto
Rico is critical to adopting policies to prevent this from
happening again, not just in Puerto Rico but everywhere else in
the country. The intensities of the storms and extreme weather
is only increasing damage due to climate change and hurricanes
like Maria may become the norm. This is why Free Press Action
is pleased that this committee is considering eight bills that
address various telecom issues, such as resilience, because
improving our communications networks following disaster is a
matter of life and death.
Thank you, Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Torres follows:)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
We have now concluded our openings. We are going to move to
member questions. Each member will have 5 minutes to ask
questions of our witnesses.
I will start by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gossner, when your department responded to the fires in
the communities you serve, what were the challenges you and
other first responders faced when the communication networks
went down for the people who live there?
Mr. Gossner. For us, this was a no-notice event, right? So
it happened very quickly and it impacted a large group of
people in both Napa and Sonoma Counties.
One of the things that we tried to use was SoCo Alert,
which is a wireless technology to notify our constituents out
there to get out of the way. Due to the towers going down, we
had up to 70 towers go down early on in the process, the system
did not reach everyone, which made us, the Fire Department and
law enforcement, both City and Sheriff, go door-to-door. We had
to actually active get people out of the way. We could not
really fight the fire because we were too busy moving people
out of the way.
There were a few instances where we had to put equipment on
bigger buildings with a lot of people in it, to make sure that
they survived, but the majority of the crews were out hustling
trying to get people out of their houses and just trying to get
them out of the way.
And when you have a fire of that magnitude, by the time it
hit us, it was you know five miles wide with winds 60-70 miles
an hour. It is very difficult to evacuate an area as quickly as
it needs going door-to-door.
So it was, without the towers, without the ability to send
the wireless alerts, it really hampered our ability to notify
the community to tell them to get out of the way.
Mr. Doyle. Yes, we all on this committee want to thank you
and your heroic first responders for what you did. That was--it
is just hard to imagine the devastation that fire brought on
that community.
Mr. Torres, why was it so devastating when communication
services went down in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and
what did the people lose access to? And also, given the
earthquake that just hit the Island, do you think the Islands'
communication networks were any better prepared?
Mr. Torres. We would like to know whether that is true or
not because the FCC has failed to investigate what happened. We
don't know whether--like Commissioner Rosenworcel said, we
don't know the state of communication facilities. The fact that
31 percent of the wireless outages in Puerto Rico following
the--it shows that there still needs--resiliency still needs to
be hardened in Puerto Rico even after Maria.
But we, yes, we just--we are concerned. Even the inklings,
the little break comes that the telecom carriers have said
after Maria, telling to their investors, there is questions
whether they are going to invest. One company said they are not
sure they are going to reinvest. They are going to replace
wired lines. They are going to get people wireless instead of
giving--replacing the wired line.
So there are questions. That is the little bit of evidence
we have that leaves us concerned that perhaps companies are not
going to do everything they can on all different areas of
Puerto Rico to restore service the way it originally was prior
to it.
Mr. Doyle. Ms. Atkerson, in your testimony, you talked
about why it is so important for suicide crisis call centers to
have the resources they need to respond to meet the current
needs and to deal with the potential influx of calls, when a
national three-digit number is implemented. Can you talk about
what we risk if these call centers do not have the resources to
respond to the calls?
Ms. Atkerson. Sure, absolutely. And just by way of
background, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is
currently a network of about 170 local call centers scattered
in States across the country. And at this time, the funding for
those centers is primarily comes from State funding--or I am
sorry--county and other local funding sources.
There are some States that answer the majority of their
calls in-State. When a call center isn't adequately equipped,
those calls can be routed to one of the six national backup
centers, when a particular call center, depending on changes in
volume, becomes overwhelmed. That is not ideal for a number of
reasons. We like when people--when the calls can be answered in
the State in which the caller is. They have a better knowledge
of the local resources can connect them more quickly to needed
services.
So at this time, there are already States that are
struggling to keep up with the volume. When we see an
implementation with 9-8-8, we do expect to see a pretty drastic
increase in the volume of calls. And the concern is that, if
these call centers aren't adequately through a more braided
approach, including Federal appropriations, the existing State
options, giving States the authority to collect fees from local
carriers and their other local sources, that more and more
calls will have to be answered out of State.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Latta for questions.
Mr. Latta. And again, Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for
holding today's hearing. Again, thanks to our witnesses for
being here. We really appreciate your testimony.
And I would like to follow up, Ms. Atkerson, if I may, on
what the chairman was just talking about because, again, as I
mentioned, I had Chairman Pai in my district in the last week.
We were at the Rescue, Mental Health, and Addiction Services,
which is one of the many Lifeline call centers across the
country. And again, our goal is to make sure we get this
deployed as rapidly as possible because, as mentioned, once we
get the implementation out there, it is likely to at least
double the number of calls that we had in 2018. So we want to
make sure that this is done right and get it done so we can be
on that front line to make sure that we are helping people and
also saving lives.
But if I could just follow up, as we talk about the
legislation calling for that implementation deadline in one
year, what would happen if 9-8-8was implemented in one year and
the call centers weren't adequately prepared to handle that
influx of calls, especially when we are looking at that massive
number that could come in?
I know when I was in Toledo with the Chairman, just seeing
how exponentially each year it has been going up. So what would
happen if we didn't have that ready to go?
Ms. Atkerson. And you are correct about that. The Lifeline
actually experiences year-over-year increases of 50 percent--or
15 percent in their calls to the Lifeline without the 9-8-
8legislation. So when we see this drastic uptick in calls, the
primary concern is that callers will--the calls will go
unanswered. They will have long wait times and hang up or, if
those calls go unanswered in the State in which they are
located, that those will roll to one of these six national
backup centers, which, again, is not ideal because those folks
don't have the local knowledge of the support and resources and
can't connect the caller to emergency services, if needed.
Mr. Latta. Let me follow up with one more. What type of
flexibility, if any, should we have out there during this
transition period?
Ms. Atkerson. Flexibility in?
Mr. Latta. For making sure you know make sure we can get
this done correctly and if you have to have some flexibility in
the implementation.
Ms. Atkerson. Sure. And not being a communications expert,
I do want to say that we fully support the FCC's recommendation
around the timeline and encourage--we support Congress to work
closely with the FCC, mental health providers, other key
stakeholders, people with lived experience, and the crisis call
centers themselves in coming up with an implementation plan
that is thoughtful but also rapid.
Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
Mr. Gerst, if I could turn to you, would you provide an
update on how the FCC is expanding the voluntary Wireless
Resiliency Framework to include electric utilities and provide
better coordination with 9-1-1 call matters?
Mr. Gerst. Sure. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
So I just want to first start by acknowledging the stories
we heard and the way that people rely on wireless services
during emergencies. It is one of the first things you grab when
an emergency happens, whether you are calling 9-1-1, whether
you need to receive a wireless emergency alert, whether you are
trying to connect with friends or family. And those services,
9-1-1, wireless emergency alerts, they depend on the wireless
networks being there and wireless depends on power being there
to maintain its services as well.
We have taken steps to make sure that we can maintain our
services in the event of significant power outages but we need
to enhance our collaboration and coordination. And that is what
the FCC has been encouraging us to do.
We do work with the power companies in a number of
different places. As Mr. Bell said, we work in State Emergency
Operation Centers. We work at tabletop exercises in-between
hurricane and wildfire seasons so that we can try to enhance
our coordination.
And we just announced today that the Edison Electric
Institute and CTIA are going to be bringing our member
companies together in a different way because we know that,
even with all those efforts, we have still had challenges after
Hurricane Michael in California.
So we do think that there is more work that can be done and
we are hopeful that this new collaborate effort, this voluntary
collaborative effort will help to enhance our capabilities.
Mr. Latta. Thank you.
Mr. Bell, would you like to follow up on--in my last 30
seconds on that?
Lower your mic, please.
Mr. Bell. The Disaster Recovery Group and the BDAC will be
issuing a report, hopefully, by the end of March. We are
meeting to finalize that this afternoon on ways that the two
industries can work together.
The communication industry has changed over the years. It
used to be there were very large bundles of copper that fell on
the ground and they worked, even when they were falling on the
ground. And typically, the electric utility would go in first,
and the telephone company would follow, and we wouldn't have to
be there at the same time.
Today, fiberoptic cable carries a whole lot more--has a
whole lot more capacity than those do and so a break in a fiber
optic cable can cause a very significant problem. So the
communication industry is there at the same time we are and
that is one of the issues we are working through is how do we
coordinate that effort.
Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much.
And Mr. Chairman, I yield back and thank you for your
indulgence.
Mr. Doyle. I thank the ranking member.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. McNerney for 5 minutes.
Mr. McNerney. I thank the chairman for holding this
hearing. I thank the witnesses this morning. I appreciate your
testimony, especially Mr. Gossner. I appreciate your work in
Santa Rosa and in helping us here in our legislative process.
As Fire Chief of the City of Santa Rosa, is wildfire season
something that you are worried about only during May to October
or has it become a year-round concern?
Mr. Gossner. It is definitely becoming a year-round
concern. We do have a wet season in northern California but I
will tell you that our fire seasons start earlier, so a month,
month and a half earlier and they are lasting a month to two
months longer. So while it is not completely year-round, when
it is not active firefighting, we are preparing for the next
season. So we consider it a year-round endeavor.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
In your written testimony, you noted the benefits of
installing more fail-safe battery systems at cell towers and
increasing the number of sites with backup generators. Can you
expand a little bit on how this will help your first responders
during emergencies?
Mr. Gossner. Yes, this allows us to communicate with all of
our constituents within the city and then it helps with
constituents in the county. We work really close with Sonoma
County emergency managers so we are always trying to--how do we
make sure we meet our expectations, and their expectations that
they are notified as quickly as they can?
So when you harden a tower, you are not going to be able to
harden it against everything but you can harden it to withstand
a little bit of a heat threat. You can harden it to stand--
withstand some earthquake. You can harden these resources and
have backup batteries or generators that when there is a power
outage, due to a power shutoff or for whatever reason, they are
up and running and we are able to communicate to our members
the needs that they are going to have to take or the actions
that they are going to have to take.
On a no-notice fire, where it takes out numerous cell
towers, you can't get the message out and it is deadly, right?
So it is one thing I will tell you, we had the Kincade fire in
2019 but we had notice of that fire and we were able to
evacuate the City of Healdsburg, the City of--the Town of
Windsor, and a large portion of Sonoma County because we had
the ability and time to do it, and we had the resources to do
it. Back in 2017, we just didn't because there were too many
cell towers that were down.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
Mr. Gerst, during the wildfire season this past fall, there
were hundreds of cell towers that went down in Contra Costa
County, which is part of my district. We lost 88 cell towers.
Since that time, when the wildfires took place, what additional
investments have members made in backup power capabilities?
Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question. And
first, again, thank you for your leadership in the RESILIENT
Networks Act and the READI Act.
And I want to acknowledge the challenges that your
constituents probably faced in the last power-down issues in
California, and we are committed to doing better. Two of the
ways that we are going to do that is by enhancing our
coordination and collaboration with the electric utilities.
That is the main reason for our announcement today with the
Edison Electric Institute. We have to do something differently
there.
The second thing we are going to do is evaluating our
backup power capabilities. We have hundreds of thousands of
cell sites throughout the country. We have thousands of cell
sites, as you know, throughout California. Each one of them, we
have to look at a case-by-case basis of what backup power
solutions we can have available to us. We are talking about
different types of battery sizes, right? We are not talking
about the batteries you can go to CVS and get. We are talking
about cabinet-size batteries. We are talking about truck-size
generators. And those all come with different challenges in how
we deploy them.
We are committed to looking at existing cell sites, new
cell sites, and diversifying the solutions because, if this is
going to be the new normal, we need to maintain service.
Mr. McNerney. Well, good. The RESILIENT Networks Act would
ensure that we have the necessary backup power during times of
emergency and I hope we can move quickly on this piece of
legislation.
Mr. Gossner, again, in your written testimony, you note
that when it comes to targeting a WEA alert, knowing that
towers--knowing where the cell towers are located is critical.
Did the City of Santa Rosa have access to information about
cell tower locations during recent wildfires?
Mr. Gossner. We have general information. So we don't--when
I say that, we did some testing. And if you have a--I will just
use Verizon and AT&T handset, one might go off and the other
one won't because we are hitting a certain tower in that
geofencing. What we really need is where are those towers and
how, during an emergency those towers need to cross-communicate
so they hit everyone, not based on your carrier but based on
the emergency.
And so that is, the geofencing wall, it is very big right
now and they are going to tighten it down. When I say big, it
spills over a great deal and notifies communities that aren't
even near the impacted area when you try to target it. So the
geotargeting is great, as long as all of the cell towers are,
within the system, working as they are supposed to and they
communicate with each other in time of need. We can't have one
cell tower activated and the other one not because of your
carrier. It is an emergency.
And you know it is a touristy area, too. So you have got
people from other areas.
Mr. McNerney. I go there.
Mr. Gossner. Yes.
Mr. McNerney. So at any rate, Mr. Chairman, before I yield
back, I would like to present a letter for the record from PG&E
about the RESILIENT Act.
Mr. Doyle. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes my good friend from Houston, Mr.
Olson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Olson. I thank the Chair and welcome to our six
experts. Texas 22 is the southwest suburbs of Houston, Texas.
Right now, we have one million people in Texas 22. That makes
it the largest congressional district in America and that
growth means problems when a disaster hits, like a hurricane.
We have many monikers about my home area. It is the home of
the Imperial Sugar Company. It is called the Energy Capital of
the World. It is called Space City, U.S.A. And it is also
called part of Hurricane Alley. And we will get hit by a
hurricane again. It is not a matter of if but when.
We have suffered the worst natural disaster in our
country's history, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900; 12,000
people were killed with no chance to know it was coming their
way. We had Hurricane Carla in 1961, the most intense Gulf
hurricane ever. We had Hurricane Alicia in 1983. It wiped out
the Texas Medical Center. We had Hurricane Ike in 2008, which
rebounded. The storm surge came back down Galveston Bay and hit
Galveston on the back side. And as you all know, we had Harvey
hit us twice in 2017.
A working communication network saves lives during
disasters. The system during Harvey was much better than during
Hurricane Ike. We had real-time information about tornadoes
that popped up, about roads that were impassible, about routes
to get away from your home that may be flooded, where gas
stations were open, grocery stores were open. That information
saved lives.
So my question is for you, Mr. Gerst, if you want to add in
Mr. Henry, is I support a robust disaster information reporting
system for carriers, broadcasters, and cable providers so they
can report their operational status during these emergencies
but currently, the system is voluntary and certain information
is kept confidential. Why is that the case for the
communications industry, in particular?
Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you very much for the
question and acknowledging the challenges that increasing
severity and intensity of these storms are going to present,
particularly for your area.
We were actually very proud of the experience of Hurricane
Harvey in terms of the availability of services. Ninety-six
percent of cell sites were up, 300 wireless emergency alerts,
96,000 9-1-1 calls made, people organizing themselves for
rescues.
In other emergencies--in all emergencies, it is important
for first responders and public safety stakeholders to have
information about the status of communication networks so that
they can better prioritize where their resources are going to
go. That data about cell tower information, though, is both
competitively sensitive and, potentially, a national security
threat in terms of how it is exposed. We are committed to
working with the FCC, with this committee, and with
stakeholders to identify ways to expand access to that
information in a way that can protect that information.
Just tomorrow, we expect that the FCC is going to be
opening up a new public meeting that will be talking about that
exact issue and we look forward to a robust record developing
there. And we think that there will be some new information
gained by engaging with stakeholders there. But we are
absolutely committed to enhancing information sharing with
public safety stakeholders.
Mr. Olson. Thank you. Mr. Henry, any comments on the
question, sir?
Mr. Henry. Yes. And first, thank you for the question and
for the opportunity--excuse me--to discuss this. We share
sentiments with CTIA on this that we really do need a more
robust information flow going to and from public safety.
I think the only thing that I would like to add on to this,
and you know Houston is the perfect example: 9-1-1 is public
safety and public safety is, at the end of the day, Homeland
Security.
Mr. Olson. Yes.
Mr. Henry. And public safety can be trusted with this
information, whether it you know--be you know competitively
sensitive or sensitive in the sense of national security.
You know when the threat to national security is a city
being wiped out by a natural disaster, that is as much of a
concern as anything else. Public safety has established
standards and practices for dealing with sensitive information.
We do it every day and don't have any sort of hesitation about
being able to keep that visible to only eyes that need it.
Mr. Olson. I do have to thank your industry for what you
did during Hurricane Harvey because I was there for Hurricane
Ike and people didn't have information. They got on the roads
when they should not have. Probably 50 people died and that is
a big standard of deaths in terms of how well we are doing. And
Brazoria County, right there on the Gulf of Mexico, had zero
deaths during Hurricane Harvey. And the entire county was
basically flooded from the Gulf halfway up to Pearland, Texas.
So thank you for making that happen.
A big transition--and this is for you, Ms. Atkerson. Back
home, my church had--I am involved with a small bible study
group that gets together every Monday after the weekly service
to just talk about this service and lessons learned.
This past week was a very different meeting. We spent the
entire hour, bumped it up to an hour and a half talking about a
very tragic situation. One of our members, he works at a local
store down there in Sugar Land, a co-worker lost his son to
suicide this past week. She had lost a second son to suicide a
few years ago and I cannot believe the pain she is going
through.
And my question is this--I support this bill that gets 9-8-
8going because we don't know if these boys could have had a
number to call when they were in their crisis, can they reach
out, could they, what happened? We will never know but how--do
you have any advice I can tell her from you what is going to
happen with this system and how she can utilize it to make sure
she is not--this never happens again, that these kids, who are
about they think the ultimate thing to do to take their lives,
have a vehicle to vent and get some help to stop those suicidal
thoughts?
Ms. Atkerson. Yes, absolutely. And I am very sorry to hear
about the loss in your community. This is, obviously, a very
difficult topic. Just one suicide death is estimate to affect
at least six other people or more. And so we see a tremendous
ripple effect and the numbers just continue to increase, as you
all know, year after year in this country. It is a tragedy.
One of the challenges has been that there hasn't been a
comparable system to what we have for medical emergencies. We
don't have an easy--most of us can't remember a time when we
just didn't have 9-1-1 available to us, no matter where we are
in this country to rapidly access medical care.
Sadly, the same kind of three-digit rapid response has not
been available for people in a mental health crisis. And as you
are saying firsthand, people in a suicidal or mental health
crisis, it can be just as life-threatening as a stroke or a
heart attack. So transitioning the National Suicide Prevention
Lifeline from a difficult to remember ten-digit hotline that
still many, many people in this country don't have memorized or
just imagine how difficult it is to try to think about what
that number is if you are a mother with a child that is
suicidal trying to remember a ten-digit number versus you know
9-1-1 or 9-8-8.
So what I can say is, going forward, the urgency, this is a
moral imperative for us to pass this legislation so that 9-8-
8can be easily recognizable and accessible to all of our kids,
family members, parents, to anyone in this country anytime.
Thank you.
Mr. Olson. Thank you.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
Mr. Olson. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence. I yield
back.
Mr. Latta. The Chair recognizes Ms. Clarke for 5 minutes.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank our
ranking member for this very enlightening hearing today. I want
to thank our witnesses for bringing your expert testimony to
bear.
This is an extremely important hearing today. As a New
Yorker, I can reflect on my experiences in the aftermath of
both the 9/11 terrorist attack and, years later, Superstorm
Sandy to refresh my memory on how important network resiliency
is to my constituents and to all Americans.
Today I want to first discuss the Americans who the Trump
administration has too often treated with disdain and
overlooked, the citizens in Puerto Rico. They have experienced
a series of natural disasters that have become more frequent
and more severe due to climate change.
To echo Mr. Torres' statements in his written statement,
quote, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but, tragically, their
voices have been largely absent from this crucial debate and
the restoration and rebuilding processes have suffered as a
result, end quote.
The earthquakes that rocked Puerto Rico left the territory
without power and led to 31.7 percent of cell sites down and
left approximately 260,000 cable and wireline subscribers
without service. My colleagues, Congressman Ruiz, Soto, and I
read a letter to the FCC to raise concern about the fragility
about the communication infrastructure on the Islands.
So my first question is actually to you, Mr. Torres. The
FCC is supposed to measure whether broadband is being deployed
in a timely fashion across the United States and it is supposed
to know when and where the networks go out in times of
disaster.
Can you discuss how the lack of real-time information on
the network outages impacted people on the Islands and their
loved ones in the rest of the United States trying to reach
them?
Mr. Torres. Sure, I will give you two examples. One is the
most recent example, the earthquakes. There was a person, a
well-known activist tweeting can anyone--on Twitter because she
didn't have communications. She didn't have a mobile--can
anyone let me know if there is a tsunami coming? Because they
didn't--they weren't aware whether there was a tsunami warning
because there was a lot of fear in Puerto Rico that a tsunami
potentially was going to happen.
The second example I give is from the Public Safety
Workshop that the FCC held a couple of years ago after Maria in
the hurricane season 2017. And so this is a regional emergency
communications coordinator of FEMA who said the voluntary--
testifying to the FCC at a hearing--at a workshop--the
voluntary word needs to go, when it comes to like wires
resiliency. We have a commercial entity selling themselves as
public-safety grade. If you are going to make a profit saying
you are a servant to the community with public safety grade
communications, then you need to be able to prepare an answer
in response as to where communications are available. The point
was being made, at that workshop, that they are not getting
information fast enough at the FCC. And because of issue of it
is voluntary, it is proprietary, they are saying by the time we
are getting information, especially in the case of Puerto Rico,
it was already up. It was sending people to places to repair
cell sites and all that and they were already repaired in some
cases. They didn't--it was wasting time to be able to serve
other places.
So we have examples of people on the ground worried about
tsunami warnings. We have a FEMA official concerned they are
not getting real-time data fast enough. So we need--so Puerto
Ricans needed, and everywhere else needs data information much
more quickly to first responders.
Ms. Clarke. So can the FCC do more to gather and
disseminate information about communication network reliability
during and immediately after such storms?
Mr. Torres. Say that one more time.
Ms. Clarke. Yes. I am saying can the FCC do more to gather?
Mr. Torres. Absolutely. First of all like we don't believe
there should be voluntary. It should be mandatory that they
participate. And also you know the Wireless Resiliency
Framework like is voluntary and we don't believe it should be
voluntary. We need it to be more rigorous oversight over these
companies because they have to be held--folks have to be held
accountable for not responding.
It is a life and death issue. So like this gentleman said,
the FEMA official, that it can't be voluntary. There has to be
some sort of process of accountability.
Ms. Clarke. Very well. Mr. Gerst, would you want to respond
to that?
Mr. Gerst. Sure. First let me start by saying, Congressman,
thank you for the question.
Maria was a devastating event for everyone. Our companies
had to go to unprecedented lengths to restore services there.
In fact, one of our member companies had their generator
actually powering the airport, at one point, just to get
supplies into Puerto Rico. But we have invested in Puerto Rico
and I think the results show that we have moved from wood poles
to steel poles. We have invested in backup power. And after the
earthquake, 68 percent of cell sites were up.
I know there is a close relationship between first
responders in New York and Puerto Rico. And in fact, I have
talked to a few who say that, after the earthquake, nothing
worked in Puerto Rico except the wireless service. So it wasn't
everywhere and we need to do more but we have learned lessons
and applied them in Puerto Rico.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Doyle. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Thank you.
Mr. Johnson, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bell, you know while ensuring network resiliency is
certainly an important overarching goal, I want to be sure that
the electric and communications industries aren't faced with
one-size-fits-all requirements that fail to consider the
realities on the ground.
Can you walk us through how your industry engages with
State Emergency Operation Centers during emergencies and how
that coordination could inform priorities for restoration
efforts? For example, how the fact that it is harvest time in
one area or geographical factors in a particular area where an
outage might come into play factor into prioritization?
Mr. Bell. Certainly. Thank you for the question.
It is actually our primary contact at the Emergency
Operations Center is a member of my staff. And as soon as the
center opens up, he goes over there and is there you know for
the duration of the storm working on shifts, as we can. And
there is where the communication takes place.
We get priorities from things that we may not be aware of
and to go through them. In some cases, there was an example in
Hurricane Michael where we actually got a call from the Florida
Emergency Operations Center that an ILEC in Florida thought
there was a hold on a pole in Georgia put on by the Georgia
DOT. And so it was just a whole cascade of events that someone
on the ground could not figure out how do I find out if I can
go ahead and proceed with this. All the people who are right
there in the Emergency Operations Center are able to determine
no, everything is clear with that; you can keep going and get
the people back to work in the field.
So it is--in Hurricane Michael as well, one of the critical
issues is not something you would normally think of. It was
actually at peanut harvest time. And a lot of the damage that
came through Georgia came through one of the largest areas
where we grow peanuts. And so a lot of the focus was was to get
the infrastructure back in place so those peanuts could be
processed while still working on the rest of the storm and
making sure all the other critical infrastructure is being
done.
Mr. Johnson. So it is a pretty real-time dynamic kind of
thing.
Mr. Bell. It is absolutely real-time.
Mr. Johnson. OK.
Mr. Gerst, you referenced many of the mobile cell units in
your testimony from COWs or Cells on Wheels to COLTs or Cells
on Light Trucks. I am curious if there are regulatory obstacles
that make it difficult to move those assets from region to
region or State to State.
Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question.
Yes, we have many tools at our disposal that we attempt to
use to maintain service and these are things that we have used
applying lessons learned from previous storms. And some of the
things we have incorporated into our Cooperative Framework,
including things like mutual aid, where we will actually repair
each other's cell sites, and you know coordinating with local
governments.
But yes, we have--where we do have outages, we have the
ability to bring in temporary cell sites and we actually call
them a barnyard of solutions because there are cells on the
back of trucks but we call them COWs, and COLTs, and GOATs. But
we are starting to actually even use drones now, where you can
add coverage where a cell site might have gone down and call it
the Flying COW.
Mr. Johnson. Are there Government regulations that make it
difficult for you to do that kind of move from region to region
and State to State, though?
Mr. Bell. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, there are challenges
but we are engaged with the State Emergency Operations Center
and, typically, we can address those issues and get those
resources in those areas. Certainly the SANDy Act helped by
making sure that communications were prioritized as being part
of that effort.
So yes, there are challenges but we are working with local
governments on that.
Mr. Johnson. OK. Ensuring continuing--ensuring previously
established procedures and coordination amongst wireless
providers, backhaul providers, and power companies before a
disaster strikes is critical to effective restoration efforts
when power and communication systems go down. The FCC's
Disaster Response and Recovery Group is currently looking at
these types of issues and hopes to submit best practice
recommendations to the FCC soon.
So Mr. Bell, can you talk a bit about this group, its work,
and its importance?
Mr. Bell. Well yes, and I will commend Commissioner Pai for
establishing the BDAC. It is a much better way for us to
resolve issues like this. The old way was they would put out a
request for comment; you would submit your comments and hope
that somebody actually read them and try and advocate on them.
Here----
Mr. Johnson. Because my time is running out----
Mr. Bell. OK.
Mr. Johnson [continue]. Can you add to your answer? Would
it be prudent for Congress to review this group's
recommendations for best practices before contemplating
legislative action?
Mr. Bell. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mr. Johnson. OK. All right, well thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Veasey for 5 minutes.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to ask Mr. Gossner a question. In Texas, we have
had some issues with wildfires in the past as well and I don't
know that that was something that has been in the news a lot
around California, particularly your area. And I wanted to know
what you thought about the access to batteries.
I know that, for instance, cell phone companies that may
have--that are trying to replenish batteries that only can last
a few hours can have trouble getting to certain areas if they
are in evac zones or if certain roads have been blocked off or
cut off. What sort of lessons should we learn about being able
to have access to those areas in the time of wildfires? Is
there anything differently that can be done as far as being
able to give them the access that they need so people can have
their cell coverage restored in a more faster fashion?
Mr. Gossner. Yes, thank you.
I think you know part of it is they have to understand the
environment they are going into. So I don't know who they are
talking to. From our perspective, if we need to get power back
up into a certain area and we can allow them, we will.
Sometimes we send a crew with them to make sure it is safe.
Sometimes their crew don't want--doesn't want to go into it
because they don't feel safe.
So there is multiple factors that drive why some towers get
back up and some don't but those are all real discussions we
have to have now and figure that out so, when we entertain
these ideas in the future, we can work through the process
quickly and figure out is this a critical tower or is it not a
critical tower. If it is a critical tower, we have got to make
every effort to get those up and running so we can provide the
communication and then build out from there.
But there is multiple reasons why crews can or cannot go in
on both sides of the fence. So it is literally face-to-face
sitting down. How do we work through this?
Mr. Veasey. Right. Right, exactly.
One of the things that I read about the California
incidents that interested me was, you know obviously, the use
of internet. And I was reading that the internet landlines
almost all, you know a lot of them mostly failed, but that the
traditional-based copper landlines did not fail. Do you think
that there needs to be some sort of a--just to maybe sort of
make people think about using more traditional products that
live in these more rural areas that are hard to reach, where
they may be more affected by wildfires?
I know that we are very reliant, obviously, up on the
newest technology but do you think, under these sorts of
circumstances, that maybe, until a lot of these problems can be
addressed, that we need to like maybe look back at more
traditional landline products?
Mr. Gossner. Yes, traditional landlines do last longer
than the voiceover internet protocol-type lines. They are not
failsafe but they do last longer.
What I am being told today is that they are trying to
transition out of copper altogether because the wireless
technology, and the cable, the fiber optics is so much more
powerful and better.
Mr. Veasey. Right.
Mr. Gossner. So they are trailing away from the copper.
Copper doesn't need power to maintain that connectivity, where
everything else does.
So I will tell you in Sonoma County--I am going to get
these numbers a little bit wrong but Sonoma County ten years
ago, there were 350,000 people that had copper lines. Today, it
is about 170,000 because everyone is making the transition to
wireless. That is another reason why these towers need to be
hardened. Everything needs to be to that standard, where we can
rely on these components much more than we can now.
Mr. Veasey. This is fascinating.
What about as far as translation for people that live in
these areas? Obviously, things need to be, especially in a
State like Texas, or even California, obviously things would
need to be translated into Spanish, for instance. Is there
sufficient information out there as far as translation is
concerned? Do you feel that that is being adequately addressed?
Mr. Gossner. It is being addressed. I don't know if I would
say it is adequately being addressed. I will tell you, though,
that WEA 2.0 and 3.0 addresses that. So the 360 characters also
adds a translation for Spanish, where the initial WEA product
did not, right, 90 characters and there was no Spanish
translation.
So they are working towards that but, again, it is a
process and it is a slow process.
Mr. Veasey. Yes. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate
your time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
Mrs. Brooks, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding
this important hearing.
When I first came to Congress, I was co-chair--or I was
chair of the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response,
and Communications. And I just want to thank all of you for
your work because I think we all know that in a time of
disaster, this supercomputer we hold is often kind of our only
lifeline and it is so important that we figure out how to make
sure that we are as resilient as possible in times of disaster.
Mr. Gerst, I am co-chair of the 5G Caucus and so I want to
ask a little bit about 5G, as the country is transitioning to
the Next Generation of technology, what this transition means
for the resiliency of wireless networks. And clearly, there is
a different architecture. Companies are deploying these small
cells, naturally densifying networks, having actually maybe a
lot more. Can you tell me how this important conversion, what
resiliency is going to be impacted by the rollout of the 5G
across the country?
Mr. Gerst. Absolutely, Congresswoman. Thank you for your
question and thank you for your leadership on 5G issues, making
sure that the U.S. is the global leader and 5G is a priority
for everyone I know, including you.
5G is going to bring incredible opportunities--the high
capacity/low latency capabilities, particularly for public
safety. And public safety can use those capabilities actually
in the field for innovations that Mr. Henry could probably talk
to you about.
But you know from our perspective, we need hundreds of
thousands of new cell sites to make that happen to get to that
level of service for 5G. And the way that we build networks now
is we do build them in redundant, diverse, and densified ways.
So even if some cell sites go down, we do try to maintain
coverage for emergency communications. By adding hundreds of
thousands of new cell sites that 5G is going to bring, we
absolutely believe it will help to improve resiliency.
And we think that the RESILIENT Networks Act is a forward-
looking bill. It talks about 5G, and how it might improve
resiliency, and we appreciate that.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. Anyone else want to comment on 5G
resiliency or capabilities?
OK, I will move on, then.
Mr. Henry, how does the practice of diverting 9-1-1 fees
affect the ability to ensure 9-1-1 systems keep pace with
technological changes and the ability to engage in effective
long-term planning? Because we need to ensure that 9-1-1
services, obviously, provide the best emergency service as
possible, so can you talk to us a bit more about--you talked
about the number of States that we know that do divert and
yet--and the practice that our States have to maintain to make
sure that communities aren't diverting?
Mr. Henry. Sure and thank you for the question.
I guess top line, 9-1-1 fee diversion hurts not just the
public but it also hurts public safety. It hurts in the sense
that the folks making budget decisions about 9-1-1 are often
not the people operating the PSAPs and they are not the people
that are directing a State's 9-1-1 budget planning and
policies.
One of the big effects that we have seen over the decade or
so that FCC has been keeping records on these things, is that
diversion often happens in sort of fits and spurts. And so the
9-1-1 authority in the State, or you know the 9-1-1 governance
structure in a State, may be surprised by a diversion of funds
from the top of the State level.
And so the aggregate effect of that is that you know you
have always got to prepare for you know a budgetary tornado to
come through and wipe out a good chunk of your funding for 9-1-
1. You get into a damage control mode, instead of a continuous
improvement and a continuous innovation mode, where you are
preparing for the next thing. You are constantly, instead,
preparing for the next disaster, whether that be a literal
disaster or a budgetary disaster.
Mrs. Brooks. What percentage would you say of the 9-1-1
capabilities now are text capabilities?
I know our State has texting capabilities in 9-1-1. Is that
very common now in many of the other States?
Mr. Henry. It is, I wouldn't say very common; probably 30
to 40 percent coverage. And of course, the difficulty with that
is that you don't find out that you can't text 9-1-1----
Mrs. Brooks. Right.
Mr. Henry [continue]. Until you find out you can't text 9-
1-1.
Mrs. Brooks. OK, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to mention, in response to our
colleague Ms. Clarke's question about the FCC doing more to
garner or to gather and information and disseminate data during
disasters. The FCC is planning on acting tomorrow on a second
further notice of proposed rulemaking to do just that, I have
been informed by staff. I just thought I would share that we
should look for further proposed rulemaking tomorrow.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes Ms. Eshoo for 5 minutes.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of
the witnesses for your testimony.
If I were to summarize all the various things that have
been said, there are two things that stand out: what kind of
system we have and how much more we need to do to optimize the
system that we have. And when there are cracks in the system,
people's lives are at stake.
I want to read two of many messages I received from
constituents during the PG&E shutoffs last October, which
resulted, of course, in the loss of cellular communications. A
family from a rural area of my district--yes, Silicon Valley,
does have some very beautiful rural areas--quote, when PG&E
cuts the power off, those of us who live in rural areas are not
only left without electricity, we are left without
communications. Cell phones don't work. Landlines don't work.
Generators don't keep the Wi-Fi on. Why are we being left out
to dry? We have no way to call 9-1-1 in an emergency and no way
to get alerts if there is danger and we need to evacuate.
Another constituent wrote: During the second more recent
outage, we had broadband and phone for only 15 hours. It then
failed, leaving us with no means of communication. That is a--
that is a scary term: no means of communication in the United
States of America.
This is a serious safety concern. This is not just an
annoyance. If there were to be a fire in our highly vulnerable
tinder-dry area, we wouldn't be able to report it, wasting
precious time while it spreads. The same is true if there were
any sort of medical emergency.
So these people are understandably: A) they are vulnerable;
B) they are afraid. And they are justifiably upset and so am I.
So, we have to help them.
Chief Gossner, I want to salute you, as others have, for
your absolutely superb leadership. You, your department, and
the people of Sonoma County and Santa Rosa have been through
actual hell--lives lost, devastation, homes lost, hope lost.
And when I went up to visit and to hear from the entire
team, it will always remain with me, grown men weeping and
these were first responders who were going door-to-door to try
and save people's lives because they had no communication
system whatsoever.
Now, we have a problem in--it is an ambiguity, actually, in
Federal law relative to what States can and cannot do. And I
thank you for your support of the WIRED Act. It is very
important.
Mr. Gerst, I know that CTIA hasn't--doesn't have any
position on this but I ask you to really take a hard look at
the legislation. And the reason I am asking you to is rather
obvious. You used the word resiliency--I tried counting and
then I lost count but that is an operational word. And if
States cannot have a say in setting resiliency, sometimes it
happens, a lot of times it doesn't and we have to clear the
weeds out of this. States should have a hand in that and
really, that is what the legislation does. So, I appreciate the
work that CTIA is doing.
Mr. Torres, you gave beautiful and profoundly sad
testimony. What I would like to ask you is if there is one
thing that you want us to do, what is it?
Mr. Torres. It is for this committee to use its oversight
powers.
Ms. Eshoo. But for what? What item is the top thing for you
being at the bench today?
Mr. Torres. I was advocating a couple of things. One,
advocate Puerto Ricans. Just, we want to know why. So just if
we know what happened----
Ms. Eshoo. Well, I think that there should be a letter
circulated to all members of this subcommittee, signed by
everyone on a bipartisan basis, to make sure that what is
needed there, and the assessment that is not public be made
public.
Mr. Torres. Well I think, as I mentioned before, the fact
that it has been mentioned already, I believe it is 60 percent
of households are wireless only and it is only going up, right?
But yet, according to GAO, the length of outages from 2009 to
2016 has doubled when it comes to wireless, right? And so the
fact that this is a growing problem.
And so it is a fact that there is DIRS, right, to make sure
it is mandatory, but also the Wireless Resiliency Framework. It
is just we don't believe it should be voluntary. And so there
has to be an oversight to make sure that first responders--
first of all, that the networks are resilient but then first
responders are actually and other folks are able to respond to
disasters.
So it should not be voluntary.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you very much.
Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
Mr. Walden, welcome back. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walden. Thank you. I was downstairs at the other
hearing.
So, I appreciate all your testimony and the comments. I
know you have covered most of the ground.
I think back in my own experience and, again, in small
market radio, and covering fires, and seeing some of these
disasters. And you know I have had--I had five transmitters. I
had three antenna sites. I had some that were under threat of
fire that were up on top of a ridge top. And I am trying to be
balanced here in saying how do you--how do we mandate a
resilient network in the face of a conflagration-like tragedy?
You had to deal with it in Santa Rosa. I drove through there
and I mean it is just it is unbelievable in Paradise and those
areas, as we see the video.
And so I want to be thoughtful about this. I know as a
broadcaster, we had all these interconnections. We had radio
connections to our law enforcement. We could talk. We could
listen to each other. That was one of our EAS stations. We had
backup on that. But sometimes, when these disasters happen,
there is no--I mean you are just done, right? I mean you rely
on ham radio operators. You create your own networks.
But I am just curious with some of the voluntary work a
couple of you talked about. Can you speak to that a little bit
more, the things you have just announced in the last--I guess
today maybe even, Mr. Gerst, Mr. Bell?
Mr. Gerst. Thank you, Congressman and Ranking Member. Thank
you for the question. And I appreciate your experience--vast
experience on these issues.
You know with the increasing severity and intensity of
these storm events, we are constantly having to reevaluate----
Mr. Walden. Right.
Mr. Gerst [continue]. How we make our networks resilient.
Mr. Walden. Right.
Mr. Gerst. We have, since Superstorm Sandy, through the
Cooperative Framework, taken significant steps working amongst
competitive wireless providers, enabling them to support each
other's customers----
Mr. Walden. Right. Makes sense.
Mr. Gerst [continue]. Enhancing collaboration with
utilities.
Mr. Walden. Right.
Mr. Gerst. So yes, we are doing all these things on a
voluntary basis but, even with all those things, we do think
new tools could be helpful here. So I would like to explore
that.
Mr. Walden. Like what?
Mr. Gerst. Well we think you know, certainly, having the
FCC set expectations at a national level, both for wireless and
having the--and including the power industry, would be helpful
because one of the things we have learned with the Framework
with all these voluntary commitments is that a lot of the folks
at the local level, and you may have experienced this, bring
their own expectations to what you are supposed to be doing in
an emergency.
And by having a national framework around what we are
supposed to be doing, could help make sure that everybody knows
what wireless providers are supposed to do, what electric
providers are supposed to do and that could help to enhance the
resiliency----
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Mr. Gerst [continue]. While still giving us the flexibility
to work at the local level.
Mr. Walden. All right, Mr. Bell.
Mr. Bell. Currently, in FEMA you know there are the
emergency support functions, each one. And if you were to look
up or Google, you know best practices in disaster recovery, you
would find volumes of information on best practices that are
out there.
I think what we need to improve on is the communication
industry has their volumes and the electric industry has their
volumes. And as the two industries get more and more
intertwined, there has to be a whole lot more communication
between the two. And I think that is what this will provide the
opportunity to do is to start making sure that we are----
Mr. Walden. You are talking to each other and have a common
plan.
Mr. Bell. Absolutely. We are not working in silos.
Mr. Walden. Yes, that is important.
I know I have heard over the years there were some people
that thought you ought to have a generator and a propane tank
at every cell site. Is that practical?
Mr. Bell. It is not practical but I will tell you that----
Mr. Walden. Should we mandate it?
Mr. Bell. We are one of the few utilities in the country
that actually has our own telecom provider. And it is for that
very reason we want to be able to know that they will be there
when we have a problem. And they proved their worth in
Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Michael. We were able to use
them throughout the storm and they do have backup generators.
Mr. Walden. At every site?
Mr. Bell. It is expensive--yes.
Mr. Walden. Mr. Gerst?
Mr. Gerst. Sure, Congressman. You know backup power is a
great tool in the toolbox for resiliency.
Mr. Walden. Right.
Mr. Gerst. But we have hundreds of thousands of cell sites
so we have to look at it on an individual case-by-case basis.
We have got huge boomer towers out there, just like yours----
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Mr. Gerst [continue]. And we have got towers and antennas
on the sides of buildings. And we are going to need hundreds of
thousands of more sites for 5G that is going to be coming. In
each one of those cell sites, we have to consider what the
backup power solution is going to be because we are so
dependent on power. And that includes--you know these are
batteries that are the size of cabinets, you know, generators
the size of trucks, right, and we have to consider space,
noise, local regulations, and air quality requirements, even in
the type of fuel that we are using----
Mr. Walden. Right.
Mr. Gerst [continue]. Because we sure don't want to have
the type of fuel that would be caught up in a fire.
Mr. Walden. Right, explosive. Right.
Mr. Gerst. So it is a big challenge but a reasonable and
flexible approach we think would be helpful here.
Mr. Walden. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. Sure.
The Chair recognizes Ms. Matsui for 5 minutes.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank the witnesses for being here today for this very
important hearing.
The Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, has an
obligation to assist State and local governments to prepare
for, respond to, and learn from disasters. However, the
Agency's response to significant emergencies has been
inconsistent. As the number and severity of natural disasters
increase, it is critical that the FCC responds adequately and
swiftly.
My Emergency Reporting Act would require the FCC to
standardized its emergency response by conducting field
hearings, issuing reports, and making policy recommendations
whenever disasters strike. Our current approach of relying on
Members of Congress to call on the FCC to act is no longer
sustainable. We need to set a baseline level of responsiveness
to ensure local officials have the support they need to secure
our communication networks in the face of rapidly changing
climate.
Mr. Torres, can you describe the shortcomings of the FCC's
existing emergency reporting structure and how standardizing
the Agency's emergency response approach might improve network
resiliency?
Mr. Torres. Yes, as I mentioned already before, that there
isn't--one example, again, Puerto Rico, it wasn't coming fast
enough. The information that the first responders needed didn't
come fast enough.
And it is critically important because, as I failed to
mention when the Congresswoman Eshoo was here, that currently
the FCC, there is no--they have no measurements. The wireless
resiliency network doesn't have any way to measure the metric
of whether the Framework is going to work.
Ms. Matsui. Absolutely.
Well, when conducting field hearings, my bill requires the
FCC to not only consider consulting public safety experts,
academics, and industry representatives but, also, individuals
affected by the emergency.
Why is this perspective necessary to truly understand the
full impact of the disaster?
Mr. Torres. It is important to hear from people on the
ground because you get a perspective on what the needs are of
everyday people, particularly as we--more folks are wireless
only. There is a sense of urgency that is needed in order to
respond to disasters that are happening all the time.
Ms. Matsui. Right.
Mr. Torres. And more importantly, it is going to inform--it
is going to help to inform policy going forward. It is
critical. It is critical that we have them.
Ms. Matsui. Sure. OK, my Emergency Reporting Act would also
require the FCC to initiative a rulemaking to develop improved
standards requiring communication network operators to notify
9-1-1 centers when they are experiencing outages that prevent
consumers from completing 9-1-1 calls or when emergency calls
do not include vital information like location or number data.
Mr. Henry, have you heard of instances in which consumers'
9-1-1 calls do not include location or number data and what
challenges do 9-1-1 centers have--face in dispatching help in
these cases?
Mr. Henry. Sure and thank you for the question.
Outages or outages in either any, or a location, or a phone
number delivered to a PSAP are common enough that you can speak
to almost any telecommunicator and they will tell you about an
experience----
Ms. Matsui. OK.
Mr. Henry [continue]. With that, where there is no call-
back number or there is no location.
If there is no location, then the call taker must hope that
the person calling 9-1-1 is able to communicate verbally their
location, which means that they both have to know their
location and they have to be able to speak.
Ms. Matsui. OK. And Chief Gossner, I imagine the Santa Rosa
Fire Department experience situations in which limited
information of a resident's 9-1-1 call has prevented effective
response. Is that correct?
Mr. Gossner. That is correct.
Ms. Matsui. OK. While the FCC has notification obligations
for network outages, the threshold remains high and 9-1-1
centers are often left in the dark about service outages in
their territory, jeopardizing public safety.
Mr. Henry, do you believe a more effective network outage
notification threshold would help improve the flow of
information to 9-1-1 centers?
Mr. Henry. Absolutely, 9-1-1 and all of public safety would
benefit greatly from network outage reports that are better
tailored to their needs.
Ms. Matsui. OK. I recently sent a letter to Chairman Pai,
urging him to include wildfire-specific recommendations in the
Wireless Resiliency Framework. While the FCC has solicited
comments on improving the Framework in the context of
hurricanes, Chairman Pai would not commit at our oversight
hearing to doing the same for wildfires.
I am glad to see the RESILIENT Networks Act, introduced by
Chairman Pallone and Representative McNerney, takes steps to
mandate elements of the Framework. In addition, I believe there
is an opportunity to require the FCC to finish long-overdue
efforts to modernize the Framework, including recommendations
specific to wildfires and other disasters.
Mr. Torres and Chief Gossner, do you believe that wildfire-
specific recommendations would help local responders better
prepare for communications outages associated with wildfires? A
yes or no, please.
Mr. Torres. Yes.
Mr. Gossner. Yes.
Ms. Matsui. OK, fine.
Thank you and I yield back my time.
Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Walberg for 5 minutes.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
panel for being here.
Representing Michigan's Energy District, I appreciate the
fact and am proud, at times, when I have seen consumers' energy
trucks, and crews, and DTE heading south and east during
disaster situations to provide mutual aid and knowing the fact
that, as that develops, if there ever is an emergency, a
national disaster in Michigan, which we think of as a place
that is heaven all year round, great weather wherever you find
it, that the industry is growing in their understanding of
working together to improve coordination.
Mr. Bell, can you describe for us today some of the multi-
stakeholder groups that electric utilities and communications
providers participate in to develop best practices to reduce or
eliminate outages?
Mr. Bell. Well, obviously, there is the BDAC. We have
addressed that already. They are specifically addressing that
very issue and there are multiple stakeholders in there.
In Georgia, there is a group called the Georgia Utility
Coordinating Council. It is made up of all utilities and their
main focus is how utilities can best work on the right-of-way,
whether it be constructability or damage prevention. And then
of course, there is Georgia 8-1-1, that is made up of multiple
utilities, including both electric and communication, that is
specifically focused on damage prevention, whether it be in
normal construction or you know what is referred to as
extraordinary circumstances, when a hurricane occurs.
So and Georgia has those, as well as most States around the
country have some sort of collaboration, where the focus is how
can the utilities work together you know to have both a safe
and reliable infrastructure.
Mr. Walberg. And this information is passed on aggressively
to other parts of the country as well?
Mr. Bell. Yes, there is a lot of sharing, best practice
sharing through different organizations. You know the Common
Ground Alliance will have a conference in a couple of weeks out
in California and most of the--just all the States, including
Canada and Australia will be represented out there. The very
purpose is to share best practices on that type of information.
Mr. Walberg. Mr. Gerst, do you have anything to add to
that?
Mr. Gerst. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
Yes, Mr. Bell is right that there are places where there is
best practices being developed and shared, and we rely on them
extensively, and but we--given the experiences we have had,
particularly in Hurricane Michael in that race to restore
service, where we were tripping over each other trying to get
power and wireless services up, or even in the recent events in
California, we recognized that we need to do something a little
bit different now. And that is why we have announced this
effort with the Edison Electric Institute, where we are going
to, for the first time, bring leaders in our member companies
together. That is not something that has happened before in
that way, the way that we are talking about, and we are going
to try to identify some near-term actions. That may yield best
practices but at least establishing those lines of
communication are going to be helpful.
But ultimately, we may need even further more tools. We
don't yet know exactly how those will work out but we do expect
that you know making sure that we have lines of communication
that folks in the state and local level know what resources are
available and it is consistent in terms of resiliency is going
to be very helpful.
Mr. Walberg. OK.
Mr. Gerst, I understand the FCC's rules currently
prescribed--prescribe an aging process for numbers that would
provide a grace period for customers affected by wildfires or
other disasters.
Rather than drastically reinvent the system under the PHONE
Act, are there ways that the FCC could modify its existing
rules that would make sure that residential subscribers who
have been displaced by natural disaster would not lose their
landline telephone number that was assigned to them?
Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question because,
in an emergency, we know that people reach for wireless device
and that is the first thing, one of the first things they grab
when they leave their house to evacuate. And the benefits of
mobile wireless is that they can take both their service and
their telephone number with them. So this isn't really an issue
affecting the wireless industry or wireless consumers.
The FCC has very robust policies in place to make sure we
don't exhaust the pool of telephone numbers that we have and
how we allocate them. And it also enables competition by making
sure that folks aren't hoarding numbers in a way. So this is
something that we would be happy to work on and work with your
office on.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Soto for 5 minutes.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When Hurricane Michael
hit Florida, that very next day I had contacted one of my
colleagues, Congressman Dunn, who represents the Big Bend area,
via text to assure him that our staff would help him with any
casework that would come up because his office was inundated.
He received that text about three months later, unfortunately.
And we were able to get a hold of him because of a satellite
phone a few days later. But it shows that cell phone service
can interrupt just basic interactions between offices as we are
dealing with these issues.
In Puerto Rico, it was even worse after Hurricane Maria and
Hurricane Irma. We had mayors given sat phones that didn't
work. They were required to fill out applications on the
internet for FEMA relief and had no internet. And it went on
for months and months. It was just dumbfounding that that could
still happen nowadays but it really alerted me to the fact that
we have a resiliency issue that we need to work together on to
fix.
I wanted to start with Mr. Gerst and Mr. Torres. Issues
like are addressed in the WIRED Act and the READI Act, will
those help us avoid situations of breakdowns like we saw in
Puerto Rico and Florida with regard to cell phone service or
communications?
And I will start with you, Mr. Gerst, and then go to Mr.
Torres.
Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question.
The events of Hurricane Maria were devastating for
everyone. As I noted before, our member companies had to go to
considerable lengths just to restore services. It took months
to get back to some level of normalcy. It took some of our
member companies working directly with the local governments to
try to get resources in. In fact, at one point, one of our
member company's generators was powering the airport to
actually just get supplies into the Island.
We do think that our member companies have invested in
Puerto Rico to make it stronger and that was evidenced last
month, when the earthquake hit, knocking out power across the
Island; 68 percent of the cell sites stood up. And the reason
they were up is because we are invested in steel poles and we
are invested in diverse backup power solutions.
So we do think that there is more that we can do to try to
work together to invest in both Puerto Rico and to address some
of the challenges we saw in Hurricane Michael, where we were
all racing to try to restore service between utilities and
wireless, and we need to enhance our coordination capability.
One of the things that we appreciate about the RESILIENT
Networks Act is that it does focus on collaboration as one of
its primary goals to try to bring its stakeholders together at
the national level. And so we do think that that could be very
helpful.
Mr. Soto. And we do understand it is not your burden to
bear alone, which is why we have these bills together to try to
help out.
Mr. Torres, it would be great to hear from you about how
critical the WIRED Act, the READI Act, and other legislation
before us is to help----
Mr. Torres. We support both Acts. We believe they will
help. We also support the RESILIENCE Act. But for us, there has
to be more. More needs to be done.
As I mentioned before, the Wireless Framework is only a
couple of years old, right, and it is voluntary. We already
have folks from FEMA saying, testifying that it is too slow.
And so what we need, as I mentioned in my testimony with Puerto
Rico, we need to know what happened. I am hearing the CTIA
saying the improvements they have made. We don't know what--if
the improvements were made. We don't know. We have to take it
from the word of industry. We don't have any official
Government report. So we need reporting to know what happened
and make sure that, as Commissioner Rosenworcel said: Is the
money being spent to address the actual situations?
Mr. Soto. And I think the reporting is very important and I
think you will get a lot of common ground.
I wanted to turn to Mr. Bell, our neighbors to the north in
Georgia, which you rarely probably hear. What gaps did you see
when Hurricane Michael both hit our State and your State and
what can we do to help?
Mr. Bell. I think it is the first time we realized or the
first major storm we had, where communication and the electric
industry had--were as intertwined as they are.
There was a lot of confusion in the beginning about fiber
cuts and that is because, on a normal storm, a Category 1
storm, it is electric tree crews that are out there clearing
the trees and the debris. But when you have a storm the
magnitude of Michael, it is not us. It is the local government
and the DOT that is clearing the roads.
And so the assumption was the electric utilities were
cutting fiber and that wasn't the case but no one was talking
to the DOT and the local governments any critical fiber. There
was a communication between the electric and the
communications.
So it is something I think we all learned from that and
will use moving forward, for sure.
Mr. Soto. OK, thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Bilirakis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Mr. Gerst, there is an increasing prevalent problem with
the use of contraband cell phones in prisons with intent to
commit crimes behind bars. I worked on this issue in the
Florida legislature as well. Even though they are prisoners,
there are many cases where public safety is truly at risk, such
as crimes aiding in physical and sexual violence against the
public.
Can you discuss what steps the wireless industry has taken
to help address this problem and what challenges exist to crack
down on this contraband?
Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for your question and
thank you for your leadership and attention to this very
important issue.
You know we don't want our wireless devices to be misused,
in the way that you are being described, and so we have fully
embraced working directly with State Departments of
Corrections, working with the Bureau of Prisons, working with
the FCC to find solutions to this growing problem.
There is no one way to solve this issue. It takes a mix of
technology and processes to address the issue. We have actually
worked and tested various solutions that could help the State
officials identify where these devices are used and then help
us to stop them but we probably need some more teeth to really
make it a deterrent for the use of these contraband devices.
And so we do think that, for example, putting the FCC as
the cop on the beat to do something there could be helpful but
we certainly appreciate your leadership and attention to this
issue.
Mr. Bilirakis. And again, I am willing to sit down again
with you, and all of you, to find a solution to this problem
because we are going to file some legislation. So any input you
have, please don't hesitate.
And then you know, again, I would like your support on
these issues but, of course, you have to look at the final
draft before you make a decision.
In closing, I want to highlight the importance of the
McNerney-Bilirakis READI Act to the people of my district, on
the coast into Florida. Actually, I am in the Tampa Bay area,
the coastal area of Tampa Bay. This bill can save lives by
ensuring FEMA emergency messages get to at-risk people during a
hurricane or flood. And I thank the chairman for the READI Act
inclusion at this legislative hearing.
And if anyone would like to comment on that particular
piece of legislation, I would be happy to listen.
Mr. Gerst. Again, Congressman, thank you very much for your
leadership and your support of that bill.
From our perspective, wireless emergency alerts have
quickly become one of the most effective alerting tools in the
country, and we need to ensure that consumers continue to trust
the information that they are getting from the wireless
emergency alerts, and make sure that alert originators, who
send the alerts to warn us to get us to evacuate from these
areas, have the tools and the training that they need to be
able to use it most effectively.
The READI Act can help do that by encouraging alert
originators to develop best practices, to avoid false alerts,
to harness the new capabilities we just rolled out in wireless
emergency alerts. As Chief Gossner mentioned, there is all new
capabilities that just came online last year, thanks to hard
work from the FCC, from the wireless industry, and from FEMA.
And so we are looking forward to continuing to improve and keep
wireless emergency alerts a trusted source.
Mr. Bilirakis. I appreciate it very much.
And anyone else? I don't have much time. Anyone else?
Well, thank you very much and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Cardenas for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate this opportunity for us to have this public hearing
so that the public can understand a little bit more as to why
all of these issues are so important to individuals and family
members across our country.
First, I want to thank you, Mr. Gossner, and all of you for
your expertise, but Mr. Gossner and thousands of firefighters
and first responders in California and across the country who
are on the front lines every day, risking their lives to
protect everybody from devastating fires and other disasters.
I am glad we have an opportunity today to discuss the
importance of technology in wireless communications in
emergencies and natural disasters, and also to explore ways to
strengthen America's telecommunications infrastructure to
ensure public safety.
Last year, during its 7,860 wildfires, California
experienced significant cell phone service interruptions during
these disasters. In one county, over half of the 280 cell phone
tower sites lost service, as well as some landlines experienced
connectivity failures. These fires threaten not only American
lives but homes, businesses, and wildlife. As climate change
worsens, these wildfires will only continue to grow in
intensity, frequency, and ferocity, as they have in recent
years. We need to bolster our telecommunications infrastructure
to ensure their resiliency during emergencies.
I welcome today's thoughtful discussion and my first
question is to you, Mr. Gossner. For many of us, it is obvious
why we want to be able to communicate during a natural disaster
but I worry that some don't necessarily understand the
importance of doing all we can to keep our networks up and
running.
Can you explain a little more about why it is so vital for
public safety officials to be able to communicate with the
public during a natural disaster?
Mr. Gossner. Sure. Thank you for the question.
It is imperative that we build a system that is resilient
enough that can withstand a certain amount of damage so, when
that emergency is starting to unfold, we are able to
communicate with the public and give them the information that
they need to either evacuate, or shelter in place, or whatever
it may be.
There are times when it is community members talking to
community members through different social media platforms.
Those go down as well.
It really gives us the ability to notify folks that there
is impending danger. And that is really what this is. We will
never be able to build a system that stays 100 percent all the
time. I don't think that is what we are asking. But we need to
build some resiliency, some capacity that those towers will
last for enough time to notify the folks that we need to notify
to get out of harm's way. And that is really what we are
looking for is to build in that resiliency so we can make those
notifications.
Mr. Cardenas. And there are various ways to do that,
correct, I am sure. To the general public, redundancy sounds
redundant. It sounds like who would want to be involved in
redundancy, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. But
when it comes to issues like this, isn't redundancy something
that is critical to making sure that, when something bad
happens, there are alternative routes or alternative
opportunities to make sure that people can still communicate?
Mr. Gossner. Yes, so for me, it is not only redundancy but
it is hardening the entire network. You have got bare cables
doing up into a framework of a tower. Insulate those in the
Wildland Urban Interface so that they can withstand some heat.
Simple things--I think are simple. Maybe they are not so
simple but they seem reasonable. And like I say, we are not
going to build something that is going to last forever but we
need to be able to provide assurance to the community that we
can get them the alerts that they need to get out of harm's
way.
Mr. Cardenas. Can you briefly discuss what it was like for
residents in Santa Rosa who were without phone or internet
service during the wildfires that devastated their community?
Mr. Gossner. Yes, it was complete pandemonium. You know it
ranged from all of the emotions you can expect. And not only
could we not communicate, that meant we had to go in there and
knock on doors, and use sirens, and get everyone out, and then
you had to get everyone out while the fire was chasing you
through the community.
So when you lose connectivity during--this is a no-notice
event, which is different than a hurricane. We all kind of know
when a hurricane is coming, for the most part, so you can
prepare a little bit differently. But this is one of those no-
notice events that is very impactful to the community and
public safety when it is happening in your neighborhood. And it
is happening up and down the State, as we have witnessed
since--for a long time, right?
So I go back to the Valley Fire in 2015 in Lake County and,
from that, you can name--tick off the fires in the State of
California, both northern and southern.
Mr. Cardenas. The responsible thing for us to do as
Congress, in my opinion, is to make sure that the RESILIENT
Networks Act actually gets through the process and signed into
law so that locals can actually reap the benefits of this
important legislation.
I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Gianforte for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gianforte. Thank you Chairman Doyle. I especially want
to thank you for including H.R. 4194, the National Suicide
Hotline Designation Act of 2019 in today's hearing. This is a
critical piece of legislation that can help Americans facing a
crisis.
Our Nation truly faces an epidemic of suicide and
Montanans, tragically, are all too familiar with it. Montana
has the highest suicide rate in the nation. Unfortunately,
mental health care is not available to many Montanans. In fact,
more than 600,000 Montanans live in an area where there is a
shortage of mental health professionals.
Last year, I held two mental health and substance abuse
roundtables in Montana. Providers and experts described the
need for more resources to address mental health care and
prevent suicide. We need a multipronged approach to combat this
tragic situation.
Ideally, everyone would have access to preventive mental
health care. Folks who live in rural and frontier communities
face overwhelming obstacles to receive mental healthcare. That
is why the 9-8-8is so important.
The goal of the National Suicide Hotline is to ensure
people know about and have access to the services they need in
the face of a crisis. Our bill provides this essential service
for anyone facing a mental health crisis and helps our
communities grow healthier and stronger.
In addition to this bill, I have also introduced a bill
with Representative Beyer to conduct a national suicide
prevention campaign. We need to ensure that those struggling
with depression, anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses
don't feel stigmatized. Everyone needs to know that it is OK to
ask for help and, in the case of an emergency, where they can
find it.
I thank you again for the opportunity to discuss this
important piece of legislation and I look forward to seeing the
National Suicide Hotline Designation Act signed into law.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
The committee now welcomes one of our most esteemed members
of the full committee to the subcommittee. Mr. Engel, you have
5 minutes.
Mr. Engel. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for the opportunity to participate.
I want to speak about an issue of critical importance that
has flown under the radar for quite some time, which is the
preservation of a lifesaving radio spectrum known as the T-
Band. For decades, the T-Band has supported vital public safety
radio communications among our first responders. It allows
police, firefighters, and EMS providers to communicate even
when cell towers, electricity, or the internet are down. It
functions deep underground in tunnels and inside concrete
buildings.
But now, thanks to a provision of law passed back in 2012,
the FCC is required to relocate an auction the T-Band spectrum
for use by the private sector in 2021. This would endanger
crucial public safety communications where in my district in
Bronx, New York, and Westchester, New York, as well as in major
metropolitan areas across the United States.
It would also force police, firefighters, and EMS providers
to spend billions of dollars, change their systems, and buy new
equipment.
According to the National Public Safety Telecommunications
Council and the GAO, roughly $6 billion would be needed to
relocate public safety users off the T-Band. The cost to the
New York area alone would be $1.4 billion.
In December 2019, FCC Chairman Pai underscored the
importance of this issue by writing, and I quote him: The
Agency has extensively analyzed the T-Band and concluded that
moving forward is not viable. I am calling on Congress to
repeal the T-Band mandate. I am hoping that Congress can
resolve this matter without delay. Unquote.
The GAO agreed, reporting to Congress that the T-Band
mandate is unworkable and could deprive first responders of
their current ability to communicate by radio.
The urgent need to address the issue is clear. To further
emphasize the point, I would like to submit some letters to the
record, including a letter dated December 9, 2019 from the
International Association of Fire Chiefs, the International
Association of Firefighters, the National Sheriffs Association,
the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National
Public Safety Telecommunications Council, the Greater Boston
Police Council, the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable
Communications System, and others; a letter dated November 13,
2019 from the New York State County Executives Association; a
letter dated October 8, 2019 from the New York State
Association of Counties; a letter dated August 2, 2019 from the
Police Commissioner of the City of New York; a letter dated
July 2019 from public safety officials in Harris County, Texas;
and a letter dated June 24, 2019 from the U.S. Conference of
Mayors and the National League of Cities. I have more letters
but I will stop for now.
To resolve this issue, I introduced the bipartisan Don't
Break Up the T-Band Act. My legislation would repeal the 2012
provision of law that is at the heart of this problem and would
allow law enforcement, fire officials, and EMS providers to
continue using the T-Band spectrum to operate their radios for
day-to-day lifesaving operations.
Mr. Chairman, for including my legislation in this hearing.
I understand that our ranking member, Mr. Walden, has also
introduced legislation, the FIRST RESPONDER Act, to address
this issue. I look forward to working with Mr. Walden and the
rest of our colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee to
harmonize our legislation and resolve this issue.
Today's hearing also includes other bills that are of
critical importance to improve communication networks in times
of emergency. Included among them is the RESILIENT Networks
Act, which picks up where the SANDy Act left off, and will
ensure that communications networks are prepared for the worst.
Let me ask Mr. Gerst. Let me ask you this question. My city
was New York City. It was devastated by Superstorm Sandy. The
destruction was immeasurable. Can you tell me what lessons the
wireless industry learned from the storm and whether we are
better prepared today than we were back in 2012? In your view,
will legislation in front of our subcommittee today help
prepare us for future storms and rising seas?
Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you so much for the question.
Yes, Superstorm Sandy was sort of a touchdown moment for
our industry and led to the development of the Wireless
Resiliency Cooperative Framework, including through the
leadership of Chairman Pallone. That Framework, its pillars
were increasing coordination and collaboration between wireless
providers who were competitive but they have done things since
Superstorm Sandy like sharing resources, repairing each other's
towers, and making sure each other's customers can use service
on each other's networks.
We have also increased local coordination through new best
practices from the local governments and we have enhanced our
consumer education tools all under the Framework because of
Superstorm Sandy.
In my testimony, I go through a number of different
examples of how we think our networks are stronger and we know
that there is more that can be done. That is why we are
supporting the goals of the RESILIENT Networks Act. It has some
of the very similar pillars as our Framework. It has enhanced
collaboration and coordination. It has making sure that
wireless providers are using--have reasonable and flexible
expectations around roaming, mutual aid, and backup power, and
it is forward-looking in terms of how can 5G advance
resiliency.
So we are making steady improvements on resiliency in the
wake of Superstorm Sandy.
Mr. Doyle. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. The Chair requests unanimous consent to enter
the following into the record: A letter from APCO; a letter
from Craig Fugate former FEMA Administrator; a letter from
IAFF; a letter from Mental Health Liaison Group; a letter from
NAB; a letter from the National League of Cities; a letter from
U.S. Telecom; a letter from Reps Moulton and Stewart on H.R.
4194; a Chairman Pallone letter to the GAO about the 2017
hurricane season.
Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Doyle. I want to thank the witnesses for their
participation in today's hearing.
I want to remind all members that, pursuant to committee
rules, they have ten business days to submit additional
questions for the record to be answered by the witnesses who
have appeared. And I would ask that each witness respond
promptly to any such questions that you may receive.
At this time, the committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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