Congressman Optimistic about IPAWS Modernization Act

The Congressman who introduced legislation that would modernize the federal warning system tells us he is optimistic the law will pass this session of Congress. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Florida) says he has good support for the bill this year. A similar bill failed to pass last year.

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System Act of 2009 would amend the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to require FEMA to make IPAWS, thus the Emergency Alert System (EAS), more reflective of today's environment. It would expand the federal alerting system so that a messages would be transmitted well-beyond the current EAS delivery mode of radio and television. It would give IPAWS more teeth.

Diaz-Balart told us, "The federal system is still in the fifties while the way people receive their information has changed. The Act would require the system to adapt to multiple technologies and future technologies."

Emergency management professionals and industry will be interested in the most significant difference between the current bill and the past one. It is intended to facilitate collaboration by requiring that an IPAWS Advisory Committee be established. Membership would come from federal, state, and local government including emergency management and emergency responders. The private sector and not-for-profit organizations would also be represented.

This is good. One of the short-comings of IPAWS has been a lack of aggressive collaboration with communities of interest. No real mechanism exists for supporting strong collaboration. The closest would be the OASIS (Organization for Advancement of Structured Information Standards) committee working on standards such as Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and Emergency Digital Exchange Language (EDXL). (See earlier post.) Congressman Diaz-Balart said, "Clearly, there has not been enough collaboration."

Whether the law passes or not, Congress is taking a visible interest in IPAWS. A Congressional hearing will be held soon (September 30th) on the topic. The General Accounting Office (GAO), the Congressional auditors, have been investigating the IPAWS program. We suspect the report will not be complimentary.