Directing Federal Communications Commission to Issue Reports After Activation of Disaster Information Reporting System

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5918, the Emergency Reporting Act, which was introduced by Representatives Matsui, Eshoo, Thompson, and Huffman.

Today's legislation will allow 911 centers across the country to have access to confidential information on potential 911 outages, subject to appropriate safeguards.

In times of disaster, 911 public safety answering points do not always know that 911 calls may not be going through. The FCC currently collects information on the status of communications infrastructure and communications network outage information. They make that information available to the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate overall emergency response efforts within a State between State and local first responders.

Given the sensitive nature of this data to both national security and commercial competitiveness, this information is confidential. However, as first responders work to ensure the 911 system can seamlessly get back online and route calls to neighboring call centers, access to this confidential information is important.

This bill would help make timely outage information available to help first responders on the ground restore service as quickly as possible. The bill also requires the FCC to hold a field hearing in areas in which the Commission's Disaster Information Reporting System was activated for 7 or more days and to provide an initial and final report on the status of communications networks.

The FCC only activates the DIRS system for significant natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sally or the wildfires out West. The bill limits these types of reports to only areas where damage was significant and sustained.

This is an important bill to the resiliency of our public safety networks, and I urge my colleagues to support the measure.

Mr. Speaker, I reiterate my support for this bill. I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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