CPB to Stop Administering Next Generation Warning System
CPB said Monday it can no longer administer the Next Generation Warning System, which, America’s Public Television Stations said, could threaten public safety. The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced a $40 million NGWS grant to states and tribal nations earlier this month. “With CPB’s closure imminent, FEMA should assume responsibility for disbursing the funds as Congress intended,” said a CPB release. If FEMA doesn’t assume the program, “most of the FY 2022 funding -- and all funds from FY 2023 and FY 2024 -- will go undistributed,” CPB added. That would leave communities, “especially those in rural and disaster-prone areas, without the upgrades Congress intended.”
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CPB can no longer oversee the program because it will run out of operating funds in October as a result of the 2025 Rescissions Act, it said. “This is one more example of rescission consequences impacting local public media stations and the communities they serve -- in this case, weakening the capacity of local public media stations to support the safety and preparedness of their communities,” said CPB President Patricia Harrison in the release.
APTS President Kate Riley said FEMA should establish a process to get NGWS funding to stations. “Despite the claims during the rescission debate that emergency alerting and public safety services would not be affected by eliminating all public media funding, we are now seeing local stations forced to reduce staff, services and in some cases their coverage area -- which will reduce the reach and effectiveness of emergency alerts,” she said in a release Monday. FEMA didn’t comment on the future of the NGWS funds.
The NGWS uses public TV spectrum to deliver wireless emergency alert messages to cellphone providers to be passed on to subscribers. WEA officials told us that most WEA messages aren’t delivered via the NGWS. APTS said the system “is one of two technologically diverse pathways” used to deliver the alert messages. Ending NGWS would “make it even harder for the most at-risk stations, particularly those in rural areas, to replace aging infrastructure and support enhancements to alert and warning and other public safety communications systems to ensure resilience and the ability to meet the evolving nature of public safety challenges,” said Riley.
FEMA announced a $40 million NGWS grant on Aug. 7, targeted at helping states and tribal nations “identify capability gaps and implement solutions for alerts and warnings to deliver timely public emergency information to the public.” The grant came roughly a month after flooding led to almost 30 deaths at a Texas summer camp, blamed in part on insufficient alerting. “This announcement comes after a critical evaluation of all grant programs and recipients to root out waste, fraud and abuse and deliver accountability for the American taxpayer,” said the FEMA release.