FCC's August Items on Alerting and Disaster Reporting Expected to Be Unanimous

The August direct final rule draft item uses the same process outlined in the July one (see 2507240055), under which normal notice-and-comment procedures are abbreviated, giving parties only 10 days after Federal Register publication to object to an item. Otherwise, it automatically takes effect.

Gomez strenuously objected to that process in July, and her arguments are expected to carry forward to the August item, FCC officials told us. “I cannot support the establishment of procedures to erase rules that have been adopted pursuant to notice and comment without seeking public comment on appropriate processes and guardrails,” Gomez said at the agency’s July 24 meeting.

The August order would repeal 98 broadcast rules, largely involving analog broadcasting and references to rules that have been replaced by newer regulations. Broadcast industry officials told us that none of the deletions are objectionable to broadcasters, and no entities have filed objections in the item’s docket.

Also on Thursday's agenda is a draft NPRM seeking comment on all aspects of the FCC’s emergency alert system (EAS) and wireless emergency alerts (WEA), which, FCC and industry officials told us, is expected to be unanimously approved.

Ed Czarnecki of Digital Alert Systems (DAS), an emergency alerting equipment maker, praised the item in an interview. “We strongly feel that there are areas where emergency information in general can be enhanced,” he said. “This really is about making sure that people are getting urgent information wherever and however they can.” The NPRM would reexamine alerting systems “from the ground up.”

The draft item asks for input on whether the EAS and WEA need to be redesigned to better serve the public and account for technological change, including what information entities need to be able to send alerts, what medium is used to send them to what devices, and the nature of alert content. It also seeks comment about alternatives to transmitting alerts using broadcast airwaves and how alerts should be sent, given the public’s changing media consumption habits. In addition, it asks whether alerting systems should be able to support video messages directly from the president during national emergencies and seeks “estimates of the incremental cost of implementing a universal, ‘video-rich’ alert system for the United States.”

In an ex parte meeting with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty last week, DAS said a next-generation EAS system should include support for out-of-band signaling, enhanced cybersecurity accessibility and improved synchronization between EAS and WEA. CTIA said in another filing last week that changes to the WEA system “should be coordinated with all stakeholders to avoid unintended impacts on how alerts are broadcast or received by consumers.”

A draft NPRM and order on reconsideration of the FCC’s disaster information reporting system (DIRS) is also expected to be unanimously approved and could see a vote ahead of Thursday’s meeting, FCC officials told us. The item would grant in part a petition for reconsideration from Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, clarifying the agency’s rules for when network outage reporting requirements are suspended. It would also seek comment on proposals to streamline the DIRS reporting process, including by simplifying DIRS filings, limiting reporting obligations and reducing the number of required reports. CTIA told the agency it supports the item in a recent ex parte filing (see 2507300022).