Panel Leaders Ask FCC to Make Disaster Communications a Priority

By Keith Perine, CQ Staff

Top lawmakers on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee are renewing their push for legislation to bolster a national, interoperable public safety communications network.

Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., and ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, wrote on Aug. 26 to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski urging him to “work to make sure our nation’s communications infrastructure is up to the task” of helping both first responders and the public cope with hurricanes, earthquakes, and other disasters.

The letter was sent on the eve of Hurricane Irene’s landfall along the East Coast.

But much of the letter is essentially a call for Congress to do more to help create a new public safety network. Rockefeller and Hutchison are sponsoring broad legislation on electromagnetic spectrum (S 911). The bill would allocate a vacant slice of spectrum to public safety agencies, as well as establish a new non-profit corporation, funded with billions of dollars in spectrum auction revenues.

“We will continue to press our colleagues in Congress to approve this measure as soon as possible,” Rockefeller and Hutchison wrote.

For months, public safety officials have been pushing lawmakers to pass such a bill before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, but time essentially has run out on that deadline.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee want the FCC to auction the vacant spectrum, known as the “D block,” that Rockefeller wants to devote to public safety communications.

The Senate Commerce panel approved Rockefeller's bill on a 21-4 vote in June.