[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





   STRENGTHENING COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS TO HELP AMERICANS IN CRISIS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           FEBRUARY 27, 2020

                               __________

                           Serial No. 116-105






[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]






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                    COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE

                     FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
                                 Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois              GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California              Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York             FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania             MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois             STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California          CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida                BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland           PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California           DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York                 GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice     BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
    Chair                            BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa                 LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon                BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III,               SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
    Massachusetts                    MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California            RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California                TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California          EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan             JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
                                 ------                                

                           Professional Staff

                   JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
                TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
                MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
             Subcommittee on Communications and Technology

                        MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania
                                 Chairman
JERRY McNERNEY, California           ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York             Ranking Member
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa                 JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas                STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia         PETE OLSON, Texas
DARREN SOTO, Florida                 ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona              GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
ANNA G. ESHOO, California            BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado              BILLY LONG, Missouri
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina    BILL FLORES, Texas
DORIS O. MATSUI, California, Vice    SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
    Chair                            TIM WALBERG, Michigan
PETER WELCH, Vermont                 GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico            GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon
TONY CARDENAS, California
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex 
    officio)   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
                             C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hon. Mike Doyle, a Representative in Congress from the 
  Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening statement................     1
    Prepared statement...........................................     2
Hon. Robert E. Latta, a Representative in Congress from the State 
  of Ohio, prepared statement....................................     4
    Prepared statement...........................................     5
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 
  State of New Jersey, opening statement.........................     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     7
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of 
  Oregon, opening statement......................................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................    11

                               Witnesses

Sue Ann Atkerson, LPC, Chief Executive Officer, Behavioral Health 
  Link...........................................................    12
    Prepared statement...........................................    15
Daniel Henry, Regulatory Counsel and Director of Government 
  Affairs, National Emergency Number Association.................    21
    Prepared statement...........................................    23
    Answers to submitted questions \1\
Allen Bell, Distribution Manager, Georgia Power Company..........    27
    Prepared statement...........................................    29
Anthony Gossner, Fire Chief, City of Santa Rosa, California......    36
    Prepared statement...........................................    39
    Answers to submitted questions \1\
Matthew Gerst, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, CTIA..........    46
    Prepared statement...........................................    48
    Answers to submitted questions \1\
Joseph Torres, Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement, Free 
  Press and Free Press Action....................................    62
    Prepared statement...........................................    64
    Answers to submitted questions \1\

                           Submitted Material

H.R. 451, Don't Break Up the T-Band Act of 2019, submitted by 
  Doyle..........................................................   115
H.R. 1289, Preserving Home and Office Numbers in Emergencies Act 
  of 2019, submitted by Doyle....................................   117
H.R. 3836, Wireless Infrastructure Resiliency during Emergencies 
  and Disasters Act, by Doyle....................................   123
H.R. 4194, National Suicide Hot-line Designation Act of 2019, 
  submitted by Doyle.............................................   125
H.R. 4856, Reliable Emergency Alert Distribution Improvement Act 
  of 2019, submitted by Doyle....................................   131
H.R. 5918, Reports After Activation of Disaster Information 
  Reporting System; Improvements to Network Outage Reporting, 
  submitted by Doyle.............................................   142
H.R. 5926, RESILIENT Networks Act, submitted by Doyle............   149
H.R. 5928, FIRST RESPONDER Act of 2020, submitted by Doyle.......   168

----------
\1\ The Witnesses did not answer the submitted questions for the 
  record by the time of publication.
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Doyle, et al., by W. Graig 
  Fugate, FEMA Administrator 2009-2017, submitted by Mr. Doyle...   177
Letter of February 25, 2020, to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, by 
  Derek K. Poarch, Executive Director and CEO, APCO, 
  International, submitted by Mr. Doyle..........................   179
Letter of February 26, 2020, to Mr. Doyle and Mr. Latta, by 
  Harold A. Schaitberger, General President, International 
  Association of Fire Fighters, submitted by Mr. Doyle...........   181
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, from 
  Mental Health Liaison Group, submitted by Mr. Doyle............   182
Letter of February 26, 2020, to Mr. Doyle, et al., by Gordon H. 
  Smith, President and CEO, National Association Broadcasters, 
  submitted by Mr. Doyle.........................................   184
Letter of February 25, 2020, to Mr. Pallone and Mr. Walden, by 
  Clarence E. Anthony, CEO and Executive Director, National 
  League of Cities, submitted by Mr. Doyle.......................   187
Letter of February 26, 2020, to Mr. Pallone, by Jessica C. Hogle, 
  Vice President, Federal Affairs and Chief Sustainability 
  Officer, PG&E Corporation, submitted by Mr. Doyle..............   189
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Doyle and Mr. Latta, by 
  Jonathan Spalter, President and CEO, USTelecom--The Broadband 
  Association, submitted by Mr. Doyle............................   191
Letter of December 9, 2019, to Ms. Pelosi and Mr. McCarthy, from 
  National's Public Safety Leadership Organizations, submitted by 
  Mr. Doyle......................................................   194
Letter of October 3, 2019, to Mr. Dodaro, by Mr. Pallone, Jr., 
  submitted by Mr. Doyle.........................................   202
Letter of February 27, 2020, to Mr. Doyle and Mr. Latta, by Chris 
  Stewart and Seth Moulton, Member of Congress, submitted by Mr. 
  Doyle..........................................................   205

 
   STRENGTHENING COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS TO HELP AMERICANS IN CRISIS

                              ----------                              


                      THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2020

                  House of Representatives,
     Subcommittee on Communications and Technology,
                          Committee on Energy and Commerce,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a.m., in 
room 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Doyle 
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Doyle, McNerney, Clarke, 
Loebsack, Veasey, Soto, O'Halleran, Eshoo, Matsui, Schrader, 
Cardenas, Dingell, Pallone (ex officio), Latta (subcommittee 
ranking member), Olson, Kinzinger, Bilirakis, Johnson, Flores, 
Brooks, Walberg, Gianforte, and Walden (ex officio).
    Also present: Representative Engel.
    Staff present: A J Brown, Counsel; Parul Desai, FCC 
Detailee; Jennifer Epperson, Counsel, Evan Gilbert, Press 
Assistant; Waverly Gordon, Deputy Chief Counsel; Alex Hoehn-
Saric, Chief Counsel, Communications and Technology; Zach 
Kahan, Outreach and Member Service Coordinator; Jerry Leverich, 
Senior Counsel; Dan Miller, Junior Professional Staff Member; 
Phil Murphy, Policy Coordinator; Alivia Roberts, Press 
Assistant; Tim Robinson, Chief Counsel; Chloe Rodriguez, Policy 
Analyst; William Clutterbuck, Minority Staff Assistant; Michael 
Engel, Minority Detailee, Communications and Technology; Peter 
Kielty, Minority General Counsel; Kate O'Connor, Minority Chief 
Counsel, Communications and Technology; and Evan Viau, Minority 
Professional Staff Member, Communications and Technology.
    Mr. Doyle. The committee will now come to order.
    The Chair will now recognize himself 5 minutes for an 
opening statement.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE DOYLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
         CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA

    I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today 
to discuss a range of legislative proposals intended to address 
challenges facing the American people and those responsible for 
helping them in times of crisis. The bills before the 
subcommittee today include Chairman Pallone and Mr. McNerney's 
RESILIENT Networks Act; Ms. Eshoo's WIRED Act; the READI Act 
introduced by Mr. McNerney, Mr. Bilirakis, and Mr. Olson; Mr. 
Engel's Don't Break Up the T-Band Act; Ms. Matusi's and Ms. 
Eshoo's Emergency Reporting Act; Mr. Thompson's PHONE Act; Mr. 
Moulton and Mr. Stewart's National Suicide Hotline Designation 
Act; and Ranking Member Walden's FIRST RESPONDER Act.
    [The Bills, Resolutions, and Amendments en bloc follow:]
    Mr. Doyle. In the last few years, resiliency has taken on a 
new meaning. Our Nation has faced a surge of extreme weather 
events from Super Storm Sandy in New Jersey and New York to 
severe hurricanes in Puerto Rico, the Gulf, and the southern 
eastern United States.
    Puerto Rico, in particular, has been hit hard with multiple 
hurricanes. In this most recent earthquake, thousands of people 
lost their lives and they are still struggling to reconnect 
critical infrastructure. The Federal Government simply has not 
done enough. We must do better for the people there.
    In California, people have seen their State ravaged by some 
of the first wildfires in history. These fires haven't just 
burned down homes, they have destroyed whole communities. In 
the Midwest, communities have experienced record flooding and 
crop losses.
    More and more exception weather events that used to occur 
once in a generation are becoming a regular occurrence. Human-
caused climate change is driving the shift in our weather 
patterns and, while we work to combat even worse effects in the 
future, we need to deal with this new normal now.
    Our Nation's communications infrastructure is a lifeline to 
those facing exigent circumstances and it needs to be ready to 
take on the challenges we know it will face, whether that be 
fires, floods, Category 5 winds, or 9-1-1 call centers outages, 
a public safety emergency in a major city, or a personal crisis 
that could cost someone their life. In each case, communication 
networks that are ready and resilient to the challenges we know 
they will face can be the difference between life and death.
    It is my hope that, as we examine legislation before us 
today, we can come together and find common ground because, 
while each of our districts has some unique challenges, we can 
all acknowledge that our communities are safer and stronger 
when folks can communicate with each other and access the 
resources they need in an emergency.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Doyle follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Mike Doyle

    I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us today 
to discuss a range of legislative proposals intended to address 
challenges facing the American people and those responsible for 
helping them in times of crisis.
    The bills before the subcommittee today include Chairman 
Pallone and Mr. McNerney's RESILIENT Networks Act; Ms. Eshoo's 
WIRED Act; the READI Act introduced by Mr. McNerney, Mr. 
Bilirakis, and Mr. Olson; Mr. Engel's Don't Break Up the T-Band 
Act; Ms. Matusi's and Ms. Eshoo's Emergency Reporting Act; Mr. 
Thompson's PHONE Act; Mr. Moulton and Mr. Stewart's National 
Suicide Hotline 49 Designation Act; and Ranking Member Walden's 
FIRST RESPONDER Act.
    In the last few years, resiliency has taken on a new 
meaning. Our Nation has faced a surge of extreme weather events 
from Super Storm Sandy in New Jersey and New York to severe 
hurricanes in Puerto Rico, the Gulf, and the southern eastern 
United States.
    Puerto Rico, in particular, has been hit hard with multiple 
hurricanes. In this most recent earthquake, thousands of people 
lost their lives and they are still struggling to reconnect 
critical infrastructure. The Federal Government simply has not 
done enough. We must do better for the people there.
    In California, people have seen their State ravaged by some 
of the first wildfires in history. These fires haven't just 
burned down homes, they have destroyed whole communities. In 
the Midwest, communities have experienced record flooding and 
crop losses.
    More and more exception weather events that used to occur 
once in a generation are becoming a regular occurrence. Human-
caused climate change is driving the shift in our weather 
patterns and, while we work to combat even worse effects in the 
future, we need to deal with this new normal now.
    Our Nation's communications infrastructure is a lifeline to 
those facing exigent circumstances and it needs to be ready to 
take on the challenges we know it will face, whether that be 
fires, floods, Category 5 winds, or 9-1-1 call centers outages, 
a public safety emergency in a major city, or a personal crisis 
that could cost someone their life. In each case, communication 
networks that are ready and resilient to the challenges we know 
80 they will face can be the difference between life and death.
    It is my hope that, as we examine legislation before us 
today, we can come together and find common ground because, 
while each of our districts has some unique challenges, we can 
all acknowledge that our communities are safer and stronger 
when folks can communicate with each other and access the 
resources they need in an emergency.
    With that, I would like to yield a minute to my good friend 
Mr. McNerney. And then after his minute, a minute to Ms. Eshoo.

    With that, I would like to yield a minute to my good friend 
Mr. McNerney. And then after his minute, a minute to Ms. Eshoo.
    Mr. McNerney. Well I thank the chairman for holding this 
hearing and for yielding a minute to me.
    This year, we are witnessing the driest February on record 
in much of Northern California, which is where my district is 
located. As experts warn about the possibility of early and 
more intense wildfire season, it is imperative that we help 
individuals stay connected during these natural disasters.
    This situation is, in part, why I have introduced H.R. 
5926, the RESILIENT Networks Act with Chairman Pallone. This 
legislation would make critical improvements to the reliability 
of our communications network.
    I have also introduced H.R. 4856, the READI Act, with my 
colleagues, Mr. Bilirakis and Mr. Olson. This legislation would 
help ensure that we have a robust wireless emergency alerting 
system.
    Additionally, I have asked the chairman of the FCC to hold 
a hearing in Northern California to examine the cell tower 
outages that occurred during the recent wildfires. Chairman Pai 
committed to me that he would hold this hearing. I look forward 
to hearing from him about the details of when and where it will 
be held.
    And now I yield to my colleague, Ms. Eshoo.
    Ms. Eshoo. I thank the gentleman and I thank you, Chairman 
Doyle, for not only yielding time but for also holding this 
very important meeting.
    On October 28th of last year, 874 cell towers were out in 
California, caused by wildfires and power shut-offs. My 
constituents were worried sick that they wouldn't be able to 
call 9-1-1 during emergencies, receive emergency alerts, or 
download public safety information. Our wildfires are getting 
more intense because of climate change and PG&E, the major 
utility, estimates that shut-offs will impact nearly two 
million Californians this year.
    So without real changes, I really worry that our telecom 
problem will, once again, worsen the impacts of these disasters 
and it is why I have introduced the WIRED Act, which clarifies 
that States can require carriers to take measures to make 
wireless infrastructure more resilient to disasters, such as 
requiring backup power. We have to have this and the 
ambiguities in the law today are cleared away by this 
legislation.
    I am grateful that we are also considering Congresswoman 
Matsui's bill, which I am proud to be an original co-sponsor 
of.
    And I look forward to a very productive hearing. I thank 
all the witnesses.
    And Mr. Chairman, thank you for grouping these bills and 
having the hearing so that they can move on. These bills, 
collectively, are going to make a real difference in the lives 
of Californians and others across the country.
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Doyle. I thank the gentlelady.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Latta, the ranking member for 
the subcommittee, for his opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT E. LATTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
                CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I really 
appreciate you holding today's hearing. And good morning and 
welcome to today's hearing to discuss a variety of public 
safety-related legislation.
    I also want to thank our witnesses for sharing their 
experiences with us on dealing with the day-to-day challenges 
associated with the concepts of these legislative proposals. So 
thanks again for being here.
    Public safety communications provide an important lifeline 
to consumers and, as we make advances in technology, we must be 
careful to make sure transitions are done thoughtfully, are 
transparent, and have public input.
    While many of the bills before us have good intentions to 
improve the resiliency of our emergency communications systems, 
we must ensure that these bills receive proper attention so 
their goals are achieved.
    First, the subcommittee is examining H.R. 1289, the PHONE 
Act, which will provide a moratorium on number reassignment 
after a natural disaster. I believe we can all agree that 
consumers should lose their phone number after their home is 
destroyed from a fire or a hurricane but the remedy we use to 
protect consumers must be manageable for companies that provide 
voice service to tens of millions of consumers. Without taking 
that into account, we could cause more confusion for Americans 
already reeling from disasters.
    If there is a concern with the Commission's current process 
for obtaining a waiver of the Aging Rule, that is something we 
should study.
    I believe that these and other challenges can be overcome 
and I am committed to working with my friends in the majority 
to see if there is a path forward. However, I caution you 
against moving such important legislation without due 
consideration under regular order.
    I am pleased that we are considering the FIRST RESPONDER 
Act, which repeals the T-Band auction mandate, while addressing 
the issue of 9-1-1 fee diversion by States, as well as my 
colleague from New York's bill, Don't Break Up the T-Band Act. 
These bills address critical bipartisan issues that, if not 
addressed, put the entire 9-1-1 and public safety system at 
risk.
    We will also discuss H.R. 4194, the National Suicide 
Hotline Designation Act. Last Congress, this committee 
unanimously passed the National Suicide Hotline Improvement 
Act, which tasked the FCC with studying whether to designate an 
n-1-1 three-digit short code for a National Suicide Prevention 
Lifeline. Chairman Pai has announced his intention to move 
forward on designating 9-8-8 and I applaud this decision.
    And I was pleased to host the chairman recently in Toledo, 
Ohio at a visit of the Rescue, Mental Health, and Addiction 
Services, a National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Crisis Center. 
At the Center, we learned the number of hotline calls that 
needed answering in Ohio increased by 70 percent from 2016 to 
2018. With suicide rates growing at an alarming rate across our 
Nation, we need to make sure that the prevention services are 
there and they have never been needed more than they are needed 
today.
    We must ensure resources like 9-8-8 are available for at-
risk Americans to get the help they need.
    And Mr. Chairman, with that, I appreciate you holding 
today's hearing and thank our witnesses for being here to 
testify today. And I will yield back the balance of my time.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Latta follow:]

               Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert E. Latta

    Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing to discuss a 
variety of public safety-related bills. I want to thank our 
witnesses for sharing their experiences with us on dealing with 
the day-to-day challenges associated with the concepts in these 
legislative proposals.
    Public safety communications provide an important lifeline 
to consumers, and as we make advancements in technology we must 
be careful to make sure transitions are done thoughtfully, are 
transparent, and have public input. While many of the bills 
before us have good intentions to improve the resiliency of our 
emergency communications systems, we must ensure these bills 
receive proper attention so that their goals are achieved.
    First, the Subcommittee is examining H.R. 1289, the PHONE 
Act, which would provide a moratorium on number reassignment 
after a natural disaster. I think we can all agree that 
consumers shouldn't lose their phone number after their home is 
destroyed from a fire or hurricane. But whatever remedy we use 
to protect consumers must be manageable for companies that 
provide voice service to tens of millions of consumers. Without 
taking that into account, we could cause more confusion for 
Americans already reeling from disaster. If there is a concern 
with the Commission's current process for obtaining a waiver of 
the aging rule, that is something we should learn more about. I 
believe these and other challenges can be overcome, and I am 
committed to working with my friends in the Majority to see if 
there is a path forward. However, I caution against moving such 
important legislation without due consideration under regular 
order.
    I am pleased that we are considering the FIRST RESPONDER 
Act, which repeals the T-Band auction mandate while addressing 
the issue of 9-1-1 fee diversion by states, as well as my 
colleague from New York's bill, Don't Break Up the T-Band Act. 
These bills address critical, bipartisan issues that if not 
addressed put the entire 9-1-1 and public safety systems at 
risk.
    We are also here to discuss H.R. 4194, the National Suicide 
Hotline Designation Act. Last Congress, this Committee 
unanimously passed the National Suicide Hotline Improvement 
Act, which tasked the FCC with studying whether to designate an 
"N-1-1" 3 digit short-code for the national suicide prevention 
Lifeline. Chairman Pai has announced his intention to move 
ahead on designating 9-8-8. I applaud this decision, and I was 
pleased to host the Chairman recently in Toledo, Ohio to visit 
Rescue Mental Health and Addiction Services--a National Suicide 
Prevention Lifeline crisis center. At the center, we learned 
the number of hotline calls that needed answering in Ohio 
increased by 70% from 2016 to 2018. With suicide rates growing 
in nearly every state, the need for prevention services has 
never been greater. We must ensure resources, like 9-8-8, are 
available for at risk Americans to get the help they need.
    I look forward to reviewing all the bills under 
consideration and hearing from our panelists. Thank you, and I 
yield back.

    Mr. Doyle. I thank the gentleman.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Pallone, chairman of the full 
committee for 5 minutes for his opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE 
            IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

    Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today, the subcommittee is considering a number of 
important bills to improve communication networks, particularly 
in times of emergency. The fact is that climate change is 
causing more frequent and more severe disasters; and a 
functioning communications network can be the difference 
between life and death in these situations. And we have a 
responsibility to ensure our networks are prepared for this 
stark reality.
    One of the bills we are considering today is the RESILIENT 
Networks Act, which I introduced with Representative McNerney. 
This legislation picks up where the SANDy Act left off and will 
ensure that communication networks are prepared for the worst 
when disaster strikes.
    When networks go down, it is critical that providers share 
information about outages and restoration efforts with 9-1-1 
Call Centers and first responders. They need access to outage 
reports to better keep us safe.
    And I want to thank the Association of Public Safety 
Communications officials for letting us know about the need to 
address this issue. And I would like to request unanimous 
consent to enter a letter from APCO into the record, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
    Mr. Pallone. Thank you.
    So the bill the RESILIENT Networks Act also makes certain 
that providers have pre-planned roaming agreements and mutual 
aid agreements in place ahead of time. This coordination can 
mean the difference between life and death. When a storm or 
wildfire strikes, it is essential that people can still make 
calls to 9-1-1 or to loved ones. Service is also critical to 
receiving emergency alerts that providing life-saving 
information.
    In an instance where one carrier's network is working and 
another goes down, having a plan in place beforehand to 
seamlessly transition subscribers onto the working network is 
common sense and can save lives.
    Perhaps the most frustrating challenge of all is outages 
that happen during the recovery phase, after storms or 
disasters have passed. Far too many networks go down due to 
accidental cuts into the networks when restoration efforts are 
well underway. And our bill directs the FCC to examine ways to 
stop these preventable outages and I look forward to seeing the 
result of their analysis.
    I am also pleased that the National Suicide Hotline 
Designation Act is listed for consideration today and thank 
Representative Stewart Moulton and Eddie Bernice Johnson for 
their leadership on this issue. Every day the National Suicide 
Prevention Lifeline saves lives. And reports from the Substance 
Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, and the FCC, 
say that making 9-8-8 the dialing code for the Lifeline will 
save more lives. This bill will make it easier for people 
experiencing a mental health crisis to access help.
    In my State of New Jersey, a hundred young people aged 15 
to 24 died by suicide in 2017, the highest number and rate 
since the 1990s. Tragically, rates are climbing across the 
board at the national level, too. The statistics are 
particularly alarming for LGBTQ youth, who are four times more 
likely to attempt suicide than their peers.
    According to the Trevor Project's National Survey, 30 
percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide 
in the past year, including more than half of transgender or 
nonbinary youth, and it is vital that we do all we can to turn 
these trends.
    And finally, I wanted to thank our Ranking Member Walden 
and Representatives Engle, Eshoo, McNerney, Matsui, and 
Thompson for their important work on other bills being 
considered today.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]

             Prepared Statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.

    Today the Subcommittee is considering a number of important 
bills to improve communications networks, particularly in times 
of emergency. The fact is that climate change is causing more 
frequent and more severe disasters, and a functioning 
communications network can be the difference between life and 
death in these situations. We have a responsibility to ensure 
our networks are prepared for this stark reality.
    One of the bills we're considering today is the RESILIENT 
Networks Act, which I introduced with Representative McNerney. 
This legislation picks up where the SANDy Act left off and will 
ensure that communications networks are prepared for the worst 
when disaster strikes.
    When networks go down, it is critical that providers share 
information about outages and restoration efforts with 9-1-1 
call centers and first responders. They need access to outage 
reports to better keep us safe. I want to thank the Association 
of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) for letting us 
know about the need to address this issue. And I'd like to 
request unanimous consent to enter a letter from APCO into the 
record.
    The RESILIENT Networks Act also makes certain that 
providers have pre-planned roaming agreements and mutual aid 
arrangements in place ahead of time. This coordination can mean 
the difference between life and death.
    When a storm or wildfire strikes, it is essential that 
people can still make calls to 9-1-1 or to loved ones. Service 
is also critical to receiving emergency alerts that provide 
lifesaving information. In an instance where one carrier's 
network is working and another's goes down, having a plan in 
place beforehand to seamlessly transition subscribers onto the 
working network is common sense, and can save lives.
    Perhaps the most frustrating challenge of all is outages 
that happen during the recovery phase, after storms or 
disasters have passed. Far too many networks go down due to 
accidental cuts into the networks when restoration efforts are 
well underway. Our bill directs the Federal Communications 
Commission (FCC) to examine ways to stop these preventable 
outages, and I look forward to seeing the results of their 
analysis.
    I am also pleased that the National Suicide Hotline 
Designation Act is listed for consideration today, and thank 
Representatives Stewart, Moulton, and Eddie Bernice Johnson for 
their leadership on this issue. Every day, the National Suicide 
Prevention Lifeline saves lives-and reports from the Substance 
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the FCC say 
making 9-8-8 the dialing code for the Lifeline will save more. 
This bill will make it easier for people experiencing a mental 
health crisis to access help.
    In my state of New Jersey, 100 young people aged 15 to 24 
died by suicide in 2017--the highest number and rate since the 
1990s.
    Tragically, rates are climbing across the board at the 
national level too. The statistics are particularly alarming 
for LGBTQ youth, who are four times more likely to attempt 
suicide than their peers. According to the Trevor Project's 
National Survey, 39 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered 
attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half 
of transgender or nonbinary youth.
    It is vital that we do all that we can to turn back these 
trends.
    Finally, I want to thank Ranking Member Walden and 
Representatives Engel, Eshoo, McNerney, Matsui, and Thompson 
for their important work on other bills being considered today.
    I'd like to yield the remainder of my time to Rep. Matsui.

    And I wanted to yield the remainder of my time to 
Representative Matsui, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for yielding 
and Chairman Doyle for holding this important, timely hearing.
    The natural disasters we will examine at today's hearing 
were, just a few years ago, irregularities, unavoidable but 
uncommon events. Today, these once-in-a-generation storms and 
fires have become all too common occurrences.
    In 2019 alone, wildfires in California damaged or destroyed 
732 structures and burned almost 260,000 acres. Worst of all, 
three lives were lost. As destructive as these fires were, we 
know that they are not an anomaly. Wildfire season is getting 
longer. Wildfire incidents are becoming more common and their 
intensity is increasing.
    In the face of this evolving threat, we must adopt a 
holistic approach, one that addresses environmental, economic, 
and human factors that contribute to our changing climate.
    Additionally, as we will discuss at this hearing, we need 
to take immediate steps to ensure our networks can perform as 
intended during emergencies. The shortcomings are network 
performance were laid bare by Hurricane Maria, the Thomas Fire, 
and Superstorm Sandy. This committee has an obligation to move 
quickly and collaboratively to advance legislation that will 
help prepare our country for the natural disasters of tomorrow. 
That is why I worked with my colleagues, Representative Eshoo, 
Thompson, and Huffman, to introduce the Emergency Reporting 
Act. This bill would establish a standardized emergency 
reporting process at the FCC and improve standards that require 
mobile carriers to report network messages to 9-1-1 Centers.
    The FCC needs to do a better job in response to crises. My 
bill will ensure that the FCC conducts field hearings, issues 
reports, and makes policy recommendations on all major 
disasters, regardless of their location so no community would 
again be left wondering: What can we do to better prepare for 
the next one?
    It would also improve the flow of information to 9-1-1 
Centers when there are network outages in their service 
territory that prevent consumers from completing 9-1-1 calls or 
when the emergency calls do not include vital information like 
location or number data.
    While existing outage reporting requirements exist at the 
FCC, the notification threshold is high and can lead to 
situations in which 9-1-1 Centers are left in the dark by 
service outages in their territory, jeopardizing public safety.
    With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Walden, ranking member of the 
full committee for his opening statement.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
               CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON

    Mr. Walden. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. Good morning.
    Mr. Walden. And I want to welcome our witnesses and guests 
today.
    I just want to say on these wildfires; we have been facing 
this in the northwest for a long time. I was just looking it 
up. In 1910 was the giant fire in Idaho that burned, I think, 
something like three million acres and took 86 lives, mostly 
firefighters on the front lines.
    So this is something some of us have been dealing with for 
a long time. Yes, it is getting worse. Yes, climate change is 
impacting it. But we have got to do work to get our forest back 
in balance and get the excess fuel loads out and we need your 
help to do that on both sides of aisle. We have got legislation 
to do that in the Resilient Forests Act. And then we need to 
replant. And we have a Trillion Trees project that I think can 
make a real difference for the ecology, and trees for our lungs 
and the world's lungs, and can take and return oxygen to the 
environment. We need to do that, too.
    And we need to make our networks resilient. I was in the 
radio business for 20 years. I have covered a lot of fires. I 
have worked closely with emergency personnel. I have been on 
the scene of fires and accidents. And I have been out making my 
own generator work at my radio station when it would go out. I 
have turned tower lights on in the middle of the day so rescue 
helicopters in fog could land at the nearby hospital. This is 
really important work but we have to get it right and that is 
why we look forward to working with you on the RESILIENT Act 
but we need to get it right.
    You know the RESILIENT Networks Act put forth by the 
chairman, I appreciate his work on it. I know it has been a 
focus of his and others for a long time, especially since 
Superstorm Sandy.
    Now we did include his SANDy Act and the RAY BAUM'S Act in 
the last Congress, when I chaired the committee. This addressed 
the complicated issues we examined and we did it in a 
bipartisan and timely way.
    The RESILIENT Networks Act attempts to address concerns 
related to making sure wireless networks are restored in a 
timely and efficient manner during times of emergency but this 
bill has not seen--been through the kind of examination I 
think, Mr. Chairman, it really deserves and needs. It is a very 
important topic and we have got to get it right.
    I commend the chairman for taking initial steps to examine 
these issues in depth. In October of 2019, Chairman Pallone 
requested a GAO study to investigate and evaluate the failures 
in response to restoring communications in Puerto Rico after 
the devastating hurricane to see what happened during that 
crisis and what can be improved. Without objection, I would 
like to offer his letter for the record, Mr. Chairman. We have 
not yet seen the results of this----
    Mr. Doyle. So ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]

    Mr. Walden. Thank you--the study which may inform how 
Congress could address the issues contemplated in the RESILIENT 
Networks Act. So we should--we asked for the information so we 
could learn what to get right and I wish we would wait to act 
until we get that.
    The FCC is also taking steps to address these issues. In 
fact, the Commission is voting tomorrow on an item to provide 
State and Federal agencies with access to outage data. In many 
cases, having access to wireless communications during a 
natural disaster can save lives. So Mr. Chairman, it is 
important that we get this policy right.
    As we will hear today, the wireless industry has made some 
great strides, over the last several years, to expand their 
Wireless Resiliency Cooperative Framework, which is a voluntary 
process to enhance coordination in times of an emergency. This 
Framework must remain flexible so we can allow best practices 
and lessons learned to evolve without creating unnecessary 
barriers to restoration. Every disaster is different. I have 
seen that firsthand. So communications providers and their 
partners need sufficient flexibility to adapt to specific 
situations.
    States are also at the forefront in a lot of this work, as 
we have seen with wildfires out west in Oregon or the tragic 
ones in California. As you know, State regulators have 
jurisdiction over electric distribution. We must be mindful of 
how they are addressing this issue so we do not disrupt those 
efforts with heavy federal regulations and we must also be 
mindful to not extend the Federal Communications Commission's 
jurisdiction to include the electric distribution or 
transmission system, where they have no relevant expertise. But 
we cannot talk about the importance of the resiliency of the 9-
1-1 system, while turning a blind eye to the flagrant and 
obvious attempts to undermine the system's integrity and, dare 
I say, resiliency.
    That is why I am also pleased to discuss the FIRST 
RESPONDER Act today. Over the last several years, I have sought 
to find a consensus solution to the T-Band auction mandate that 
was included in the 2012 Spectrum Act and address related 
issues, including the efficient use of public safety spectrum 
and diversion of 9-1-1 fees.
    The FIRST RESPONDER Act would repeal the T-Band auction 
mandate and include strong provisions to address the shameful 
acts by some States of diverting 9-1-1 fees intended for the 
maintenance and upgrade to Next Generation 9-1-1. While some 
States may not have a clear understanding of what is a 9-1-1 
expenditure, other State politicians have made a more conscious 
decision to diver 9-1-1 fees to spend the money on pet projects 
unrelated to public policy.
    So the FIRST RESPONDER Act addresses both concerns and 
gives well-intentioned States clarity on how to prevent 9-1-1 
fee diversion in the future but also would take steps to 
investigate whether criminal penalties or other tools could end 
the shameful practice of fee diversion by the worst offenders.
    So with that, Mr. Chairman, I will just conclude by saying 
we should also keep in mind the role of ham radio operators. I 
may be one of the few in the Congress. It is actually an 
amateur radio operators but I have seen them play a key role in 
emergency situations, too, when everything else fails.
    So with that, I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Greg Walden

    We have a number of bills before us today that aim to 
advance public safety communications, and it is my hope that we 
can work in a bipartisan manner to reach consensus. But much 
work remains to be done before many of these bills are ready 
for full consideration by the subcommittee.
    To start, we will be discussing the RESILIENT Networks Act 
put forth by the Chairman. I appreciate his work on this issue, 
and I know this has been a focus of his for a long time, going 
back to his work during Superstorm Sandy. In fact, we included 
his SANDy Act in RAY BAUM'S Act last Congress, which addressed 
complicated issues that we examined in a bipartisan manner over 
several years. The RESILIENT Networks Act attempts to address 
concerns related to making sure wireless networks are restored 
in a timely and efficient manner during times of emergency, but 
this bill has not seen the thorough examination necessary for 
such an important topic.
    I commend the Chairman for taking initial steps to examine 
these issues in depth. In October 2019, Chairman Pallone 
requested a GAO study to investigate and evaluate the failures 
in response to restoring communications in Puerto Rico after 
the devastating hurricane to see what happened during that 
crisis, and what can be improved. Without objection, I would 
like to offer this letter for the record. We have not yet seen 
the results from that study, which may inform how Congress 
could address the issues contemplated in the RESILIENT Networks 
Act.
    The FCC is also taking steps to address these issues. In 
fact, the Commission is voting tomorrow on an item to provide 
state and federal agencies with access to outage data. In many 
cases, having access to wireless communications during a 
natural disaster saves lives, so Mr. Chairman, it is important 
that we get this policy right.
    As we will hear today, the wireless industry has made great 
strides over the last several years to expand their Wireless 
Resiliency Cooperative Framework, which is a voluntary process 
to enhance coordination in times of an emergency. This 
framework must remain flexible, so we can allow best practices 
and lessons learned to evolve without creating unnecessary 
barriers to restoration. Every disaster is different, so 
communications providers and their partners need sufficient 
flexibility to adapt to specific situations. States are also at 
the forefront of a lot of this work, as we have seen with 
wildfires out west in Oregon or California. As you know, state 
regulators have jurisdiction over electric distribution. We 
must be mindful of how they are addressing this issue so we do 
not disrupt those efforts with heavy federal regulations. And 
we must also be mindful to not expand the Federal 
Communications Commission's jurisdiction to include the 
electric distribution or transmission system--where they have 
no relevant expertise.
    But we cannot talk about the importance of the resiliency 
of the 9-1-1 system while turning a blind eye to flagrant and 
obvious attempts to undermine the system's integrity, and dare 
I say resiliency. That is why I'm also pleased to discuss the 
FIRST RESPONDER Act today. Over the last several years, I have 
sought to find a consensus solution to the T-Band auction 
mandate that was included in the 2012 Spectrum Act, and address 
related issues including the efficient use of public safety 
spectrum and diversion of 9-1-1 fees.
    The FIRST RESPONDER Act would repeal the T-Band auction 
mandate, and includes strong provisions to address the shameful 
acts by some states of diverting 9-1-1 fees intended for the 
maintenance and upgrade to Next-Generation 9-1-1. While some 
states may not have clear understanding on what is a 9-1-1 
expenditure, other state politicians have made a more conscious 
decision to divert 9-1-1 fees to spend the money on pet 
projects unrelated to public safety. The FIRST RESPONDER Act 
addresses both concerns: it gives well-intentioned states 
clarity on how to prevent 9-1-1 fee diversion in the future, 
but also takes steps to investigate whether criminal penalties 
or other tools could end this shameful practice by the worst 
offenders.
    I thank our witnesses for agreeing to testify today, and to 
share their thoughts on these proposals. I look forward to 
hearing from each of you on these very important topics.
    I yield back the balance of my time.

    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair would like to remind Members that, pursuant to 
committee rules, all Members' written opening statements shall 
be made part of the record.
    So I would now like to introduce our witnesses for today's 
hearing: Ms. Sue Ann Atkerson, CEO of Behavioral Health Link; 
Mr. Daniel Henry, Regulatory Counsel and director of Government 
Affairs, National Emergency Number Association; Mr. Allen Bell, 
Distribution Manager, Georgia Power Company; Mr. Anthony 
Gossner, Fire Chief, City of Santa Rosa, California; Mr. 
Matthew Gerst, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs for CTIA; and 
last but not least, Mr. Joseph Torres, Senior Director of 
Strategy and Engagement, Free Press and Free Press Action.
    We want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today. 
We look forward to your testimony.
    At this time, the Chair will recognize each witness for 5 
minutes to provide their opening statements but, before we 
begin, I would like to explain the lighting system. In front of 
you is a series of lights. The light will initially be green. 
The light will turn yellow when you have 1-minute remaining. 
Please wrap up your testimony at that point. The light will 
turn red when your time has expired and, if you keep talking, a 
trap door will open under your seat and whisk you away.
    So with that admonishment, Ms. Atkerson, you are recognized 
for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENTS OF SUE ANN ATKERSON, CEO, BEHAVIORAL HEALTH LINK; 
  DANIEL HENRY, REGULATORY COUNSEL AND DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT 
  AFFAIRS, NATIONAL EMERGENCY NUMBER ASSOCIATION; ALLEN BELL, 
 DISTRIBUTION MANAGER, GEORGIA POWER COMPANY; ANTHONY GOSSNER, 
FIRE CHIEF, CITY OF SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA; MATTHEW GERST, VICE 
PRESIDENT, REGULATORY AFFAIRS, CTIA; AND JOSEPH TORRES, SENIOR 
DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY AND ENGAGEMENT, FREE PRESS AND FREE PRESS 
                             ACTION

                 STATEMENT OF SUE ANN ATKERSON

    Ms. Atkerson. Thank you and good morning, Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. Can you pull your microphone up closer to you, 
please? Yes.
    Ms. Atkerson. Sure. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman 
Doyle, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the committee. 
Thank you for inviting me today and for your leadership in 
strengthening the country's suicide prevention and crisis care 
services.
    By designating 9-8-8 as the dialing code for suicide 
prevention services, the bipartisan National Suicide Hotline 
Designation Act, H.R. 4194 is a historic step toward saving 
more American lives and I should know. My name is Sue Ann 
Atkerson and I have spent more than 25 years working to prevent 
suicide. I am the CEO of Behavioral Health Link in Atlanta, 
Georgia and COO for RI International based in Phoenix, Arizona. 
BHL provides a 24/7 community-based call center hub and mobile 
outreach and RI International offers facility-based crisis 
services in eight States. Working together, these programs 
deliver a full continuum of best-practice crisis service care.
    I have three points to share today: one, suicide is a 
leading cause of death in the United States; two, faster access 
to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will save lives; 
and three, funding and specialized services are essential for 
success.
    Before I go into detail on these, I want to share a story 
that illustrates why we are all here today: Misha Kessler. The 
9-8-8 code is precisely what Misha Kessler, a now mental health 
advocate from Ohio, needed when he experienced suicidal 
ideation as a sophomore at George Washington University. During 
a particularly difficult time, he planned to jump out of his 
sixth-floor dorm window to his death. Without other options, 
Misha ended up in an inpatient psychiatric hospitalization.
    Misha's experience would likely have been different, had 9-
8-8 existed. His 9-8-8 call would have been redirected to the 
Lifeline, where local call centers deescalate 98 percent of 
calls, getting people the help they need immediately.
    The sooner we can intervene to help a person in crisis, the 
more lives we can save. That is why the 9-8-8dial code and a 
fully-funded Lifeline is so important.
    I will begin with some background on the suicide epidemic. 
Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death of Americans 
overall and the second leading cause of death for people ages 
10 to 34. We lost nearly 50,000 Americans to suicide in 2018. 
Of particular relevance to the chair and ranking member, 
Pennsylvania ranked fourth in the Nation for suicide deaths and 
Ohio ranked fifth.
    Some populations are particularly vulnerable to suicide. 
LGBTQ youth, for example, are four times more likely than their 
heterosexual peers to contemplate suicide and the incidence 
rates for transgender youth have skyrocketed in recent years.
    Secondly, faster access to the Lifeline will save lives. 
Research shows that the time between a person deciding to act 
and attempting suicide can be as short as five to ten minutes. 
That means there is a critical period for intervention similar 
to the so-called golden hour of a stroke, meaning that time is 
of the essence.
    Fifty-three years ago, the FCC established 9-1-1, 
transforming emergency care in this country by making access to 
trained medical professionals available to anyone, anywhere, 
anytime. Today, Americans in mental health distress often turn 
to our medical system. Landing in overcrowded emergency rooms 
that are often ill-equipped to address psychiatric needs can 
lead to delays in accessing appropriate care. When they do get 
treatment, it comes at a very high cost, not only to the 
patient but also to taxpayers, in the form of emergency medical 
services and law enforcement resources.
    Adopting 9-8-8 will allow direct immediate access to 
trained mental health professionals, whose rapid intervention 
often results in lifesaving actions.
    Lastly, funding and specialized services are essential to 
success. The Lifeline network of accredited crisis centers must 
be fully funded and well-equipped to handle specialized needs 
of callers as call volume increases. Estimates indicate the 
potential for calls to double in the first year, reaching 
upwards of five million.
    Full funding of the Lifeline is critical to success and we 
will, undoubtedly, need a braided funding approach. This 
includes giving States the authority to levy fees, such as a 
service charge revenue through wireless carriers. We also need 
to strengthen partnerships between the Lifeline and specialty 
suicide prevention resources. In fact, the Senate companion 
bill 2661 directs SAMHSA to create an implementation plan for 
specialized services for LGBTQ youth and other at-risk 
populations, which could include training crisis counselors and 
integrated voice response to route calls to specialized 
organizations. We encourage the House of Representatives to 
adopt this language.
    In conclusion, it is the consensus of the mental health 
community, including the operators of the Lifeline, that 
Congress should pass H.R. 4194. Providing faster access to a 
fully-funded Lifeline network, with specialized services for 
our most at-risk populations, will save American lives.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Atkerson follows:]


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    Mr. Doyle. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Henry, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF DANIEL HENRY

    Mr. Henry. Chairman Pallone, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member 
Walden, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the committee, 
thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
    My name is Daniel Henry. I am Regulatory Counsel and 
Director of Government Affairs for NENA, The 9-1-1 Association. 
With over 16,000 members across the United States, NENA is the 
leading professional association in the 9-1-1 space.
    Thanks also to the members of the Congressional NextGen 9-
1-1 Caucus, including co-chairs Representatives Eshoo and 
Shimkus, as well as many other members of this committee, 
including Chairman Pallone and Chairman Doyle. We appreciate 
your support.
    Built in the days of copper landline trunks, 9-1-1 now 
answers around 80 percent of its 300 million annual calls from 
mobile phones, most of them smartphones with advanced location 
and data-sharing capabilities. Unfortunately, America's 9-1-1 
system is still years behind the smartphone revolution. 
Modernizing it faces four perennial challenges: decentralized 
governance, inadequate and inconsistent funding, human 
resources challenges, and evolving technology.
    Public Safety Answering Points or PSAPs vary widely from 
community to community, as noted. Each of these settings has 
its own unique needs, conventions, technology, and funding 
models. It would be impossible to impose a single cookie cutter 
model for 9-1-1 in every jurisdiction in the United States.
    With varied governance comes varied funding means. While 9-
1-1 fees are traditionally levied as line items on subscriber 
phone bills, funding models also vary. In some cases, they are 
uniform statewide fees. In others, counties levy the fees. 
Regardless of how the money is collected, adequate funding 
streams are required for both technology upgrades and for daily 
operations of 9-1-1.
    What constitutes an allowable 9-1-1 expenditure also varies 
from one State to the next. While one State may define anything 
within the walls of the PSAP as 9-1-1 spending, another may 
extend that definition to all kinds of public safety equipment.
    More challenging still is some States' practice of 
diverting funds collected through 9-1-1 fees to unrelated 
issues. According to data collected by the FCC, in 2018 alone, 
five States diverted a total of $187 million in consumer-paid 
9-1-1 fees. Most people would agree that, when we pay a 9-1-1 
fee, that money should go to 9-1-1. Raids on 9-1-1 funds must 
cease, both to maintain today's level of service and to 
accelerate the transition to Next Generation 9-1-1.
    Our 9-1-1 system also plays a critical role during 
disasters as a primary intake of information to public safety. 
During Hurricane Harvey, for instance, Houston 9-1-1 processed 
75,000 calls during the course of a single weekend, more than 
four and a half times its normal call volume. In the aggregate, 
these calls become crowd-sourced intelligence for public safety 
providing thousands of details in real time and helping 
authorities stay safe and do their jobs.
    The 9-1-1 system also serves as an early warning system for 
``blue-sky'' outages, as was the case in December 2018 when a 
major nationwide outage was brought to light only by sharply 
dropping 9-1-1 call volumes. Threats to connectivity are 
exacerbated in this legacy 9-1-1 environment, where specialized 
9-1-1 trunks and selective routers create single points of 
failure in the network. It is, thus, imperative that these 
facilities be supported by more reliable frequently, tested 
sources of backup power and connectivity.
    It is also crucial that telecommunications providers and 9-
1-1 work hand-in-hand to tackle outage reporting and analysis, 
so that they may work together to address current outages and 
prevent future ones.
    Many of these challenges will be alleviated by the 
transition to Next Generation 9-1-1, whereas legacy 9-1-1 is 
based on voice-only 20th century technology. NG is a standards-
based IP-powered system of systems that brings 9-1-1 into the 
21st-century. To enhance resiliency, NG 9-1-1 will allow for 
seamless rollover of operations when PSAPs experience an outage 
or are overwhelmed with calls. It will allow PSAPs to connect 
to 9-1-1 networks through multiple cost-effect pathways and it 
will make our 9-1-1 systems more secure and more resilient 
against cyberattacks. Finally, it will allow for faster 
upgrades and solutions to problems and innovations as they 
arise in the marketplace.
    The fiscal burden of this transition cannot be borne solely 
by States and localities alone. The National 9-1-1 Office 
estimates the NG transition will cost around $12 billion 
nationwide, above and beyond the day-to-day operating costs of 
our current 9-1-1 systems. Industry and public safety have 
worked together for over a decade to develop the technical and 
operational standards, governance models, and best practices 
for Next Generation 9-1-1. It has been tested in numerous real-
world environments. In short, 9-1-1 is ready for this 
transition.
    We are deeply grateful, Mr. Chairman, that you and your 
committee have called this hearing to consider several pieces 
of legislation to improve America's 9-1-1 systems. We believe 
that significant improvements can be made soon in practically 
every community's 9-1-1 systems and that Congress' investment 
will deliver priceless returns.
    We at NENA look forward to working with you and with all 
stakeholders to ensure the continued success of 9-1-1 and an 
accelerated transition to NG9-1-1.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Henry follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    
    Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
    Mr. Bell, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

                    STATEMENT OF ALLEN BELL

    Mr. Bell. Chairman Pallone, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member 
Walden, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the subcommittee, 
thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning.
    My name is Allen Bell and I serve as a Distribution Support 
Manager for Georgia Power. I am also a member of the FCC's 
Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee and serve on its 
Disaster Response and Recovery Working Group. I have nearly 
three decades of experience working disaster response and 
recovery, and communications issues in the electric power 
industry, including serving 15 years on Georgia's 8-1-1 Board.
    Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern 
Company, one of the nation's largest generators of electricity. 
We serve nine million customers in six States and our 
communications service provider, Southern Linc, operates over a 
127,000 square mile territory covering Georgia, Alabama, 
southeastern Mississippi, and the Panhandle of Florida.
    The electric power industry invests more than $110 billion 
a year to modernize the grid. Georgia Power just had more than 
a billion dollars in grid investment approved by the Georgia 
Public Service Commission.
    I appreciate Chairman Pallone and Congressman McNerney's 
leadership by introducing the RESILIENT Networks Act. This is a 
serious issue that is currently being addressed by a number of 
voluntary cross-sector efforts. While these efforts should be 
given the opportunity to be seen through before congressional 
action, I applaud several of the bill's provisions.
    In particular, DOE should be included in recommending best 
practices for coordination between the two sectors because 
there are only two electric utility representatives on the 
BDAC. Communication providers should take responsible measures 
to integrate backup power into their networks and Emergency 
Operation Centers already exist to provide appropriate 
coordination during times of emergency between industry and 
Government stakeholders.
    Among the voluntary efforts the BDAC Disaster Response and 
Recovery Working Group is in the process of finalizing a report 
that will identify best practices for coordination before, 
during, and after a disaster. Additionally, at the request of 
the FCC, the Edison Electric Institute and the CTIA are 
establishing a Cross-Sector Resiliency Forum.
    With respect to H.R. 5926 it is crucial to acknowledge that 
most disasters are local, State, or regional events. Therefore, 
the goal should be to drive all coordination and information-
sharing through State or county EOCs. The unintended 
consequence of a Federal master directory is that it could have 
the opposite effect.
    Another concern with H.R. 5926 is the consideration of 
applying the one-call notification system to fiber lines at the 
Federal level. Rather than duplicate efforts that are already 
in place in most states, I would recommend assigning fiber 
optic locators to electric and debris removal crews during 
storm restoration and evaluating construction practices for 
critical communication networks to ensure fiber lines are not 
laid adjacent to electric poles.
    Southern's extensive experience with powerful storms, such 
as Hurricane Michael, demonstrates that hardening, redundancy, 
and preparedness are keys to improving resiliency. Our primary 
focus is a safe and quick restoration of power. For some 
electric customers, including nursing homes and hospitals, 
electric service restoration and be a matter of life and death. 
Even while undertaking these restoration efforts, we still 
coordinated regularly with communications providers at the 
EOCs. All critical infrastructure providers have a 
responsibility to use these existing multi-stakeholder 
processes to improve the resiliency of their systems.
    One reason for Southern Linc's ability to maintain and 
quickly restore operational cell sites is our use of 
generations and fuel cells. While having an onsite generator at 
every site may not be feasible, wireless carriers should 
consider having generators at their most critical sites.
    Another key factor is Southern Linc's use of redundant 
backhaul and transport links for its site. Another key: During 
and immediately after large-scale storm or disaster damage to 
communications fiber is inevitable and should be planned for in 
advance.
    In conclusion, we are committed to working with all 
stakeholders to strengthen infrastructure resilience and to 
promote safe, effective disaster response and service 
restoration.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Bell follows:]

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    Mr. Doyle. Thank you, Mr. Bell.
    Mr. Gossner, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                  STATEMENT OF ANTHONY GOSSNER

    Mr. Gossner. Good morning, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member 
Latta, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Anthony 
Gossner. I am the Fire Chief for the City of Santa Rosa.
    On behalf of Mayor Schwedhelm, Vice Mayor Flemming, and the 
entire City of Santa Rosa, I would like to express my 
appreciation for the opportunity to appear before this 
committee today to discuss the vital role wireless 
communications and technology play in public safety and 
emergency situations.
    A little over two years ago, the City of Santa Rosa, the 
largest city in Sonoma County and the county seat, experienced 
what was then the worst wildfire in California's history. 
Beginning on the night of October 8th, 2017, multiple fires 
broke out through California's North Bay. In Sonoma County, 
what were initially five major fires merged into three -- the 
Tubbs, the Nuns, and the Pocket Fires, collectively known as 
the Sonoma Complex. In the span of a few hours, life profoundly 
changed for tens of thousands of people in Santa Rosa and 
throughout Sonoma County.
    A total of 24 people lost their lives to the fires in 
Sonoma County, an estimated 100,000 evacuated from their homes, 
and 43 emergency shelters opened, serving close to 4,162 people 
at the peak of the operations in Sonoma County.
    Property losses were estimated at $13 billion. More than 
3,000 homes, approximately five percent of the city's housing 
stock, were destroyed, compounding an already severe housing 
deficit in the county. And for many fire survivors in our 
community, after losing their homes and personal possessions, 
lost their ability to communicate with family members, friends, 
doctors, and others because they lost their landline-associated 
phone numbers.
    We thank Congressman Thompson for introducing the PHONE 
Act, which will provide a temporary hold on telephone number 
reassignments after a Federally-declared major disaster and 
ensure that disaster survivors going through the long and 
painful process of rebuilding; they will have one less thing to 
worry about.
    The City of Santa Rosa strongly supports the PHONE Act and 
respectfully requests that this committee pass it quickly, 
making this critical need available to our communities this 
fire season and before another natural disaster strikes.
    We know that telecommunications infrastructure is not only 
vital to our residents during and after recovery but it is also 
critical in how public safety officials respond to wildfires, 
hurricanes, tornados, and so many other disasters.
    The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services 
reported that 341 cell sites were offline during the October 
2017 northern California wildfires and a combined 489 cell 
sites were offline during the Camp and Woolsey fires in 
November of 2018. This prevented wireless users in the impacted 
areas from being able to call 9-1-1, receive an emergency 
alert, or use their cell phones to find the safest evacuation 
route.
    Prior to and during the 2019 Kincade fire in Sonoma County, 
PG&E deenergized major portions of northern California. In 
Sonoma County, one-quarter of the area's 436 cell phone towers 
were not functioning. And in nearby Marin County, more than 
half of the area's 280 towers were out of service due to this 
strategy.
    While wireless infrastructure cannot stop a wildfire, it 
can and should be hardened to withstand these impacts of 
similar disasters. Therefore, the City strongly supports the 
Wireless Infrastructure Resiliency during Emergencies and 
Disaster Act, the WIRED Act. Sponsored by Congresswoman Eshoo 
and co-sponsored by Congressman Huffman, the bill gives the 
States the flexibility and authority to require wireless 
companies to deploy hardened infrastructure so that wireless 
networks are more resilient to disasters.
    During the Tubbs fire, roughly 70 cell towers were knocked 
out of service within the first several hours of the fire due 
to damage, loss of power, or loss of terrestrial 
communications. Based on our experience, mandating reasonable 
requirements, like installation of fail-safe battery backup at 
cell towers, increasing the number of sites with backup 
generators, and sufficient fuel to operate for a maximum of 72 
hours, requirements for reciprocity between cell providers so 
that, in the event of cell sites going offline during a 
disaster, sharing of cellular networks will hopefully be able 
to maintain at least a minimum level of emergency messaging and 
support, retrofitting existing cell tower sites, and enhanced 
vegetation management, and defensible space standards near cell 
towers could significantly improve our response capabilities.
    In addition to hardening the telecommunications 
infrastructure, our alerting system plays a significant role in 
protecting people. Even as our recovery is still ongoing, the 
City has taken critical steps, including commissioning an 
After-Action Report to identify problems and implement 
solutions that will make the City more resilient in future 
disasters.
    Our plan incorporate mitigation principles into future 
infrastructure projects and improves altering systems available 
for public notifications, alert, warning, and advisories. The 
alerting systems now available to the City include IPAWS--and I 
won't go into detail due to lack of time; SoCo Alert, which is 
an opt-in system; Hi/Lo Sirens, which are included on all of 
our police and fire apparatus; Nixle, which is an information 
service; and altering and outreach campaigns, which the City 
has created a robust system to disseminate throughout the City.
    The City would also like to acknowledge the work FEMA is 
doing to update IPAWS to implement enhancements to the WEA 
System and has been working closely with the City of Santa Rosa 
and other local governments to deploy Next Generation of WEA 
technology, which will increase the maximum character from 90 
to 360 characters; and support Spanish Language wireless 
emergency alerts; add two new alert categories, in addition to 
the presidential, AMBER and Imminent Threat; and enhance geo-
targeting reaching 100 percent of the target area with more 
than one-tenth of a mile overshoot and other improvements.
    For these reasons and many others that I won't get into due 
to time, this is why we support the RESILIENT Networks Act. The 
City of Santa Rosa is working closely with the whole community, 
including Government and nonprofit private sector partners to 
ensure our residents, and first responders, emergency managers 
have the proper planning, equipment, and personnel to prevent 
and respond to the next disaster.
    Again, thank you for providing me the opportunity to 
testify today and I look forward to answering any of your 
questions. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Gossner follows:]

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    Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
    Mr. Gerst, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF MATTHEW GERST

    Mr. Gerst. Chairman Pallone, Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member 
Walden, Ranking Member Latta, and members of the subcommittee, 
on behalf of CTIA and the wireless industry, thank you for 
holding this important hearing and your longstanding leadership 
of public safety issues.
    Each member of this subcommittee has felt the impact of 
disaster. And in particular, I want to thank Chairman Pallone, 
who was instrumental in forging a framework in the aftermath of 
Superstorm Sandy. That framework has encouraged wireless 
providers to share resources and support each other's 
customers, all to maintain service and accelerate the recovery 
from recent disasters for millions of Americans.
    Today, we are stronger than we were after Sandy and there 
is more we can do together to reinforce our networks, our 
responses, and our performance.
    Americans are relying on wireless services more than ever. 
We reach for our wireless devices to call or text 9-1-1. We use 
mobile apps to organize rescues. And wireless emergency alerts 
ring the warning bells that spur us to action. That is why 
wireless providers prepare, respond, and invest in resiliency.
    Over the last decade, the wireless industry has invested 
$253 billion to build redundant, diverse, and densified 
networks. So even if some cell sites go down, providers have 
fortified large-coverage cell sites to support critical 
communications. And providers enhance and restore wireless 
coverage with cell sites on the backs of trucks, that we call 
COWs, and dedicated teams ready to repair networks and heal 
communities with chargers and a helping hand.
    These investments in resiliency have paid dividends. 
Ninety-five percent of cell sites maintained service throughout 
Hurricane Harvey. Eighty-one percent of cell sites withstood 
the intensity of Hurricane Michael. Ninety-six percent of cell 
sites were online while millions of Californians were without 
power last year. And just last month, sixty-eight percent of 
cell sites withstood a 6.4 magnitude earthquake that knocked 
out power across Puerto Rico.
    Now these numbers do not diminish the challenges in the 
hardest hit areas. And wireless providers have applied lessons 
learned, like burying fiber to avoid damage during hurricane 
recovery efforts in Florida; hardening towers and cell sites to 
withstand high winds in Puerto Rico; elevating equipment to 
avoid flooding in Texas; and diversifying backup power 
solutions with cabinet-sized batteries and truck-sized 
generators in California.
    The investments that wireless providers make in time, 
material, and people to prepare and respond to wildly diverse 
emergencies have made our networks and our Nation stronger but 
coordination and communication are also essential to rapidly 
respond and restore services. In light of recent experiences in 
Florida and California, wireless providers and electric 
utilities are taking steps to enhance coordination.
    Today, I am pleased to announce that CTIA and the Edison 
Electric Institute recently agreed to convene our member 
companies to identifying near-term actions that can improve 
information sharing and preparedness. We will focus on lessons 
learned over the last year of hurricane and wildfire events and 
we will keep this subcommittee apprised of our progress.
    Now even as our networks are getting stronger, storms and 
disaster events are too. This subcommittee is right to ask: 
What more can be done to enhance wireless services during 
emergencies? We support the goals of Chairman Pallone and 
Representative McNerney's RESILIENT Networks Act. By 
recognizing that wireless networks are nationwide, that 
emergency events are local, the bill directs the FCC to set 
clear expectations for roaming, mutual aid, backup power, and 
information sharing during disasters.
    We look forward to working with the subcommittee to improve 
the bill's focus on policies that further situational awareness 
among public safety stakeholders.
    We support Representative McNerney's READI Act, which can 
help ensure that wireless emergency alerts remain a trusted 
tool by encouraging alert originators to avoid false alerts and 
harness new capabilities.
    And we support Ranking Member Walden's FIRST RESPONDER Act 
because State and local governments shouldn't undermine public 
trust and safety by diverting any of the $2.6 billion in 9-1-1 
fees that they collect from wireless consumers every year.
    We also support this subcommittee's effort to make it 
easier to access the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by 
implementing 9-8-8. Call centers need sufficient funding to 
help people in crisis and we need an effective and equitable 
way to do that.
    In closing, we will continue to invest in resiliency and 
enhance our coordination to make our network stronger. And we 
will work this subcommittee to set reasonable and flexible 
expectations that ensure wireless is there when Americans need 
it most.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I 
look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Gerst follows:]

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    Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
    Mr. Torres, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

                   STATEMENT OF JOSEPH TORRES

    Mr. Torres. Chairman Doyle, Ranking Member Latta, Chairman 
Pallone, Ranking Member Walden, and esteemed members of the 
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify about the 
life and death issue of ensuring that communications networks 
properly serve all people in the United States, especially in 
times of crisis.
    I am the Senior Director of Strategy and Engagement at Free 
Press and Free Press Action. I am here today on behalf of 1.4 
million members in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and 
Puerto Rico.
    Over the past couple of years, since Hurricanes Irma and 
Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, Free Press has worked with 
allies to ensure that lawmakers and regulators are crafting 
policies to rebuild communications in Puerto Rico and to hear 
directly from Puerto Ricans impacted by the disaster.
    I am Puerto Rican and I grew up in New York City. Like so 
many Puerto Ricans growing up in the States, I often traveled 
as a kid to the Islands to visit my grandmother. Four of my 
Free Press colleagues also have their personal connection to 
Puerto Rico.
    Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm, knocked out power and 
nearly the entire communications network on the Islands. This 
impacted recovery efforts. FEMA said it struggled to gain 
situational awareness and assess the status of critical 
infrastructure, in part, due to Puerto Rico's communication 
outages.
    The president of Puerto Rico's Association of Emergency 
Managers told the Associated Press the biggest crisis after 
Maria was communication and that it unleashed an endless number 
of problems. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people died as a result of 
Maria, making it one of the worst tragedies in U.S. history. An 
inability of Puerto Ricans to communicate was a factor in the 
death toll.
    My colleagues and I worked with Puerto Rican activists, 
when we traveled to Puerto Rico in 2018, to learn how the 
communication collapse impacted the people's lives. Residents 
of Vieques and Comerio told us how the lack of communication 
limited their mobility, left them without knowing where to 
search for food, water, medical care, and how to reach loved 
ones, or get information about mudslides. This is why a 
coalition of Puerto Rican groups and leaders, and racial 
justice and public interest groups have called on the Federal 
Communications Commission to conduct an independent 
investigation into all the factors that contributed to the 
communication crisis. Well, so far, the FCC has failed to do 
so.
    In contrast, the FCC did investigate the communication 
disruptions in the Florida Panhandle following Hurricane 
Michael, also a Category 4 storm. The Commission found that the 
lack of coordination among wireless and landline service 
providers, power crews, and municipalities prolonged the 
restoration of service. We applauded the Commission for 
conducting the investigation but we also are troubled by the 
disparity in treatment when it comes to Puerto Rico. We believe 
that the longest-known communications blackout in modern U.S. 
history warrants and investigation.
    Earlier this month, in a letter to Representative Yvette 
Clarke, Chairman Pai praised the telecom carriers for applying 
the lessons they learned after Hurricane Maria to rapidly 
restore service in areas of Puerto Rico impacted by the recent 
earthquakes but the lessons the Chairman alludes to have yet to 
be made public.
    Meanwhile, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel criticized the 
Commission last September for not having a clear picture of how 
telecom companies, who have received Federal funding from the 
FCC, have spent that money and for not knowing the precise 
status of communication facilities on the Islands. She called 
this approach an invitation for waste.
    We urge the committee to use its oversight power to ask 
Chairman Pai to publicly share the lessons the carriers and the 
Commission have learned from Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans 
deserve to know the truth about what happened. They deserve a 
comprehensive investigation into all the factors that 
contributed to the communication crisis in Puerto Rico. They 
deserve to know the FCC's response and they deserve to know the 
industry's response. Learning about what happened in Puerto 
Rico is critical to adopting policies to prevent this from 
happening again, not just in Puerto Rico but everywhere else in 
the country. The intensities of the storms and extreme weather 
is only increasing damage due to climate change and hurricanes 
like Maria may become the norm. This is why Free Press Action 
is pleased that this committee is considering eight bills that 
address various telecom issues, such as resilience, because 
improving our communications networks following disaster is a 
matter of life and death.
    Thank you, Chairman.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Torres follows:)

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    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    We have now concluded our openings. We are going to move to 
member questions. Each member will have 5 minutes to ask 
questions of our witnesses.
    I will start by recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gossner, when your department responded to the fires in 
the communities you serve, what were the challenges you and 
other first responders faced when the communication networks 
went down for the people who live there?
    Mr. Gossner. For us, this was a no-notice event, right? So 
it happened very quickly and it impacted a large group of 
people in both Napa and Sonoma Counties.
    One of the things that we tried to use was SoCo Alert, 
which is a wireless technology to notify our constituents out 
there to get out of the way. Due to the towers going down, we 
had up to 70 towers go down early on in the process, the system 
did not reach everyone, which made us, the Fire Department and 
law enforcement, both City and Sheriff, go door-to-door. We had 
to actually active get people out of the way. We could not 
really fight the fire because we were too busy moving people 
out of the way.
    There were a few instances where we had to put equipment on 
bigger buildings with a lot of people in it, to make sure that 
they survived, but the majority of the crews were out hustling 
trying to get people out of their houses and just trying to get 
them out of the way.
    And when you have a fire of that magnitude, by the time it 
hit us, it was you know five miles wide with winds 60-70 miles 
an hour. It is very difficult to evacuate an area as quickly as 
it needs going door-to-door.
    So it was, without the towers, without the ability to send 
the wireless alerts, it really hampered our ability to notify 
the community to tell them to get out of the way.
    Mr. Doyle. Yes, we all on this committee want to thank you 
and your heroic first responders for what you did. That was--it 
is just hard to imagine the devastation that fire brought on 
that community.
    Mr. Torres, why was it so devastating when communication 
services went down in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and 
what did the people lose access to? And also, given the 
earthquake that just hit the Island, do you think the Islands' 
communication networks were any better prepared?
    Mr. Torres. We would like to know whether that is true or 
not because the FCC has failed to investigate what happened. We 
don't know whether--like Commissioner Rosenworcel said, we 
don't know the state of communication facilities. The fact that 
31 percent of the wireless outages in Puerto Rico following 
the--it shows that there still needs--resiliency still needs to 
be hardened in Puerto Rico even after Maria.
    But we, yes, we just--we are concerned. Even the inklings, 
the little break comes that the telecom carriers have said 
after Maria, telling to their investors, there is questions 
whether they are going to invest. One company said they are not 
sure they are going to reinvest. They are going to replace 
wired lines. They are going to get people wireless instead of 
giving--replacing the wired line.
    So there are questions. That is the little bit of evidence 
we have that leaves us concerned that perhaps companies are not 
going to do everything they can on all different areas of 
Puerto Rico to restore service the way it originally was prior 
to it.
    Mr. Doyle. Ms. Atkerson, in your testimony, you talked 
about why it is so important for suicide crisis call centers to 
have the resources they need to respond to meet the current 
needs and to deal with the potential influx of calls, when a 
national three-digit number is implemented. Can you talk about 
what we risk if these call centers do not have the resources to 
respond to the calls?
    Ms. Atkerson. Sure, absolutely. And just by way of 
background, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 
currently a network of about 170 local call centers scattered 
in States across the country. And at this time, the funding for 
those centers is primarily comes from State funding--or I am 
sorry--county and other local funding sources.
    There are some States that answer the majority of their 
calls in-State. When a call center isn't adequately equipped, 
those calls can be routed to one of the six national backup 
centers, when a particular call center, depending on changes in 
volume, becomes overwhelmed. That is not ideal for a number of 
reasons. We like when people--when the calls can be answered in 
the State in which the caller is. They have a better knowledge 
of the local resources can connect them more quickly to needed 
services.
    So at this time, there are already States that are 
struggling to keep up with the volume. When we see an 
implementation with 9-8-8, we do expect to see a pretty drastic 
increase in the volume of calls. And the concern is that, if 
these call centers aren't adequately through a more braided 
approach, including Federal appropriations, the existing State 
options, giving States the authority to collect fees from local 
carriers and their other local sources, that more and more 
calls will have to be answered out of State.
    Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Latta for questions.
    Mr. Latta. And again, Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for 
holding today's hearing. Again, thanks to our witnesses for 
being here. We really appreciate your testimony.
    And I would like to follow up, Ms. Atkerson, if I may, on 
what the chairman was just talking about because, again, as I 
mentioned, I had Chairman Pai in my district in the last week. 
We were at the Rescue, Mental Health, and Addiction Services, 
which is one of the many Lifeline call centers across the 
country. And again, our goal is to make sure we get this 
deployed as rapidly as possible because, as mentioned, once we 
get the implementation out there, it is likely to at least 
double the number of calls that we had in 2018. So we want to 
make sure that this is done right and get it done so we can be 
on that front line to make sure that we are helping people and 
also saving lives.
    But if I could just follow up, as we talk about the 
legislation calling for that implementation deadline in one 
year, what would happen if 9-8-8was implemented in one year and 
the call centers weren't adequately prepared to handle that 
influx of calls, especially when we are looking at that massive 
number that could come in?
    I know when I was in Toledo with the Chairman, just seeing 
how exponentially each year it has been going up. So what would 
happen if we didn't have that ready to go?
    Ms. Atkerson. And you are correct about that. The Lifeline 
actually experiences year-over-year increases of 50 percent--or 
15 percent in their calls to the Lifeline without the 9-8-
8legislation. So when we see this drastic uptick in calls, the 
primary concern is that callers will--the calls will go 
unanswered. They will have long wait times and hang up or, if 
those calls go unanswered in the State in which they are 
located, that those will roll to one of these six national 
backup centers, which, again, is not ideal because those folks 
don't have the local knowledge of the support and resources and 
can't connect the caller to emergency services, if needed.
    Mr. Latta. Let me follow up with one more. What type of 
flexibility, if any, should we have out there during this 
transition period?
    Ms. Atkerson. Flexibility in?
    Mr. Latta. For making sure you know make sure we can get 
this done correctly and if you have to have some flexibility in 
the implementation.
    Ms. Atkerson. Sure. And not being a communications expert, 
I do want to say that we fully support the FCC's recommendation 
around the timeline and encourage--we support Congress to work 
closely with the FCC, mental health providers, other key 
stakeholders, people with lived experience, and the crisis call 
centers themselves in coming up with an implementation plan 
that is thoughtful but also rapid.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Gerst, if I could turn to you, would you provide an 
update on how the FCC is expanding the voluntary Wireless 
Resiliency Framework to include electric utilities and provide 
better coordination with 9-1-1 call matters?
    Mr. Gerst. Sure. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
    So I just want to first start by acknowledging the stories 
we heard and the way that people rely on wireless services 
during emergencies. It is one of the first things you grab when 
an emergency happens, whether you are calling 9-1-1, whether 
you need to receive a wireless emergency alert, whether you are 
trying to connect with friends or family. And those services, 
9-1-1, wireless emergency alerts, they depend on the wireless 
networks being there and wireless depends on power being there 
to maintain its services as well.
    We have taken steps to make sure that we can maintain our 
services in the event of significant power outages but we need 
to enhance our collaboration and coordination. And that is what 
the FCC has been encouraging us to do.
    We do work with the power companies in a number of 
different places. As Mr. Bell said, we work in State Emergency 
Operation Centers. We work at tabletop exercises in-between 
hurricane and wildfire seasons so that we can try to enhance 
our coordination.
    And we just announced today that the Edison Electric 
Institute and CTIA are going to be bringing our member 
companies together in a different way because we know that, 
even with all those efforts, we have still had challenges after 
Hurricane Michael in California.
    So we do think that there is more work that can be done and 
we are hopeful that this new collaborate effort, this voluntary 
collaborative effort will help to enhance our capabilities.
    Mr. Latta. Thank you.
    Mr. Bell, would you like to follow up on--in my last 30 
seconds on that?
    Lower your mic, please.
    Mr. Bell. The Disaster Recovery Group and the BDAC will be 
issuing a report, hopefully, by the end of March. We are 
meeting to finalize that this afternoon on ways that the two 
industries can work together.
    The communication industry has changed over the years. It 
used to be there were very large bundles of copper that fell on 
the ground and they worked, even when they were falling on the 
ground. And typically, the electric utility would go in first, 
and the telephone company would follow, and we wouldn't have to 
be there at the same time.
    Today, fiberoptic cable carries a whole lot more--has a 
whole lot more capacity than those do and so a break in a fiber 
optic cable can cause a very significant problem. So the 
communication industry is there at the same time we are and 
that is one of the issues we are working through is how do we 
coordinate that effort.
    Mr. Latta. Well, thank you very much.
    And Mr. Chairman, I yield back and thank you for your 
indulgence.
    Mr. Doyle. I thank the ranking member.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. McNerney for 5 minutes.
    Mr. McNerney. I thank the chairman for holding this 
hearing. I thank the witnesses this morning. I appreciate your 
testimony, especially Mr. Gossner. I appreciate your work in 
Santa Rosa and in helping us here in our legislative process.
    As Fire Chief of the City of Santa Rosa, is wildfire season 
something that you are worried about only during May to October 
or has it become a year-round concern?
    Mr. Gossner. It is definitely becoming a year-round 
concern. We do have a wet season in northern California but I 
will tell you that our fire seasons start earlier, so a month, 
month and a half earlier and they are lasting a month to two 
months longer. So while it is not completely year-round, when 
it is not active firefighting, we are preparing for the next 
season. So we consider it a year-round endeavor.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
    In your written testimony, you noted the benefits of 
installing more fail-safe battery systems at cell towers and 
increasing the number of sites with backup generators. Can you 
expand a little bit on how this will help your first responders 
during emergencies?
    Mr. Gossner. Yes, this allows us to communicate with all of 
our constituents within the city and then it helps with 
constituents in the county. We work really close with Sonoma 
County emergency managers so we are always trying to--how do we 
make sure we meet our expectations, and their expectations that 
they are notified as quickly as they can?
    So when you harden a tower, you are not going to be able to 
harden it against everything but you can harden it to withstand 
a little bit of a heat threat. You can harden it to stand--
withstand some earthquake. You can harden these resources and 
have backup batteries or generators that when there is a power 
outage, due to a power shutoff or for whatever reason, they are 
up and running and we are able to communicate to our members 
the needs that they are going to have to take or the actions 
that they are going to have to take.
    On a no-notice fire, where it takes out numerous cell 
towers, you can't get the message out and it is deadly, right? 
So it is one thing I will tell you, we had the Kincade fire in 
2019 but we had notice of that fire and we were able to 
evacuate the City of Healdsburg, the City of--the Town of 
Windsor, and a large portion of Sonoma County because we had 
the ability and time to do it, and we had the resources to do 
it. Back in 2017, we just didn't because there were too many 
cell towers that were down.
    Mr. McNerney. Thank you.
    Mr. Gerst, during the wildfire season this past fall, there 
were hundreds of cell towers that went down in Contra Costa 
County, which is part of my district. We lost 88 cell towers. 
Since that time, when the wildfires took place, what additional 
investments have members made in backup power capabilities?
    Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question. And 
first, again, thank you for your leadership in the RESILIENT 
Networks Act and the READI Act.
    And I want to acknowledge the challenges that your 
constituents probably faced in the last power-down issues in 
California, and we are committed to doing better. Two of the 
ways that we are going to do that is by enhancing our 
coordination and collaboration with the electric utilities. 
That is the main reason for our announcement today with the 
Edison Electric Institute. We have to do something differently 
there.
    The second thing we are going to do is evaluating our 
backup power capabilities. We have hundreds of thousands of 
cell sites throughout the country. We have thousands of cell 
sites, as you know, throughout California. Each one of them, we 
have to look at a case-by-case basis of what backup power 
solutions we can have available to us. We are talking about 
different types of battery sizes, right? We are not talking 
about the batteries you can go to CVS and get. We are talking 
about cabinet-size batteries. We are talking about truck-size 
generators. And those all come with different challenges in how 
we deploy them.
    We are committed to looking at existing cell sites, new 
cell sites, and diversifying the solutions because, if this is 
going to be the new normal, we need to maintain service.
    Mr. McNerney. Well, good. The RESILIENT Networks Act would 
ensure that we have the necessary backup power during times of 
emergency and I hope we can move quickly on this piece of 
legislation.
    Mr. Gossner, again, in your written testimony, you note 
that when it comes to targeting a WEA alert, knowing that 
towers--knowing where the cell towers are located is critical. 
Did the City of Santa Rosa have access to information about 
cell tower locations during recent wildfires?
    Mr. Gossner. We have general information. So we don't--when 
I say that, we did some testing. And if you have a--I will just 
use Verizon and AT&T handset, one might go off and the other 
one won't because we are hitting a certain tower in that 
geofencing. What we really need is where are those towers and 
how, during an emergency those towers need to cross-communicate 
so they hit everyone, not based on your carrier but based on 
the emergency.
    And so that is, the geofencing wall, it is very big right 
now and they are going to tighten it down. When I say big, it 
spills over a great deal and notifies communities that aren't 
even near the impacted area when you try to target it. So the 
geotargeting is great, as long as all of the cell towers are, 
within the system, working as they are supposed to and they 
communicate with each other in time of need. We can't have one 
cell tower activated and the other one not because of your 
carrier. It is an emergency.
    And you know it is a touristy area, too. So you have got 
people from other areas.
    Mr. McNerney. I go there.
    Mr. Gossner. Yes.
    Mr. McNerney. So at any rate, Mr. Chairman, before I yield 
back, I would like to present a letter for the record from PG&E 
about the RESILIENT Act.
    Mr. Doyle. Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes my good friend from Houston, Mr. 
Olson, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Olson. I thank the Chair and welcome to our six 
experts. Texas 22 is the southwest suburbs of Houston, Texas. 
Right now, we have one million people in Texas 22. That makes 
it the largest congressional district in America and that 
growth means problems when a disaster hits, like a hurricane.
    We have many monikers about my home area. It is the home of 
the Imperial Sugar Company. It is called the Energy Capital of 
the World. It is called Space City, U.S.A. And it is also 
called part of Hurricane Alley. And we will get hit by a 
hurricane again. It is not a matter of if but when.
    We have suffered the worst natural disaster in our 
country's history, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900; 12,000 
people were killed with no chance to know it was coming their 
way. We had Hurricane Carla in 1961, the most intense Gulf 
hurricane ever. We had Hurricane Alicia in 1983. It wiped out 
the Texas Medical Center. We had Hurricane Ike in 2008, which 
rebounded. The storm surge came back down Galveston Bay and hit 
Galveston on the back side. And as you all know, we had Harvey 
hit us twice in 2017.
    A working communication network saves lives during 
disasters. The system during Harvey was much better than during 
Hurricane Ike. We had real-time information about tornadoes 
that popped up, about roads that were impassible, about routes 
to get away from your home that may be flooded, where gas 
stations were open, grocery stores were open. That information 
saved lives.
    So my question is for you, Mr. Gerst, if you want to add in 
Mr. Henry, is I support a robust disaster information reporting 
system for carriers, broadcasters, and cable providers so they 
can report their operational status during these emergencies 
but currently, the system is voluntary and certain information 
is kept confidential. Why is that the case for the 
communications industry, in particular?
    Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you very much for the 
question and acknowledging the challenges that increasing 
severity and intensity of these storms are going to present, 
particularly for your area.
    We were actually very proud of the experience of Hurricane 
Harvey in terms of the availability of services. Ninety-six 
percent of cell sites were up, 300 wireless emergency alerts, 
96,000 9-1-1 calls made, people organizing themselves for 
rescues.
    In other emergencies--in all emergencies, it is important 
for first responders and public safety stakeholders to have 
information about the status of communication networks so that 
they can better prioritize where their resources are going to 
go. That data about cell tower information, though, is both 
competitively sensitive and, potentially, a national security 
threat in terms of how it is exposed. We are committed to 
working with the FCC, with this committee, and with 
stakeholders to identify ways to expand access to that 
information in a way that can protect that information.
    Just tomorrow, we expect that the FCC is going to be 
opening up a new public meeting that will be talking about that 
exact issue and we look forward to a robust record developing 
there. And we think that there will be some new information 
gained by engaging with stakeholders there. But we are 
absolutely committed to enhancing information sharing with 
public safety stakeholders.
    Mr. Olson. Thank you. Mr. Henry, any comments on the 
question, sir?
    Mr. Henry. Yes. And first, thank you for the question and 
for the opportunity--excuse me--to discuss this. We share 
sentiments with CTIA on this that we really do need a more 
robust information flow going to and from public safety.
    I think the only thing that I would like to add on to this, 
and you know Houston is the perfect example: 9-1-1 is public 
safety and public safety is, at the end of the day, Homeland 
Security.
    Mr. Olson. Yes.
    Mr. Henry. And public safety can be trusted with this 
information, whether it you know--be you know competitively 
sensitive or sensitive in the sense of national security.
    You know when the threat to national security is a city 
being wiped out by a natural disaster, that is as much of a 
concern as anything else. Public safety has established 
standards and practices for dealing with sensitive information. 
We do it every day and don't have any sort of hesitation about 
being able to keep that visible to only eyes that need it.
    Mr. Olson. I do have to thank your industry for what you 
did during Hurricane Harvey because I was there for Hurricane 
Ike and people didn't have information. They got on the roads 
when they should not have. Probably 50 people died and that is 
a big standard of deaths in terms of how well we are doing. And 
Brazoria County, right there on the Gulf of Mexico, had zero 
deaths during Hurricane Harvey. And the entire county was 
basically flooded from the Gulf halfway up to Pearland, Texas. 
So thank you for making that happen.
    A big transition--and this is for you, Ms. Atkerson. Back 
home, my church had--I am involved with a small bible study 
group that gets together every Monday after the weekly service 
to just talk about this service and lessons learned.
    This past week was a very different meeting. We spent the 
entire hour, bumped it up to an hour and a half talking about a 
very tragic situation. One of our members, he works at a local 
store down there in Sugar Land, a co-worker lost his son to 
suicide this past week. She had lost a second son to suicide a 
few years ago and I cannot believe the pain she is going 
through.
    And my question is this--I support this bill that gets 9-8-
8going because we don't know if these boys could have had a 
number to call when they were in their crisis, can they reach 
out, could they, what happened? We will never know but how--do 
you have any advice I can tell her from you what is going to 
happen with this system and how she can utilize it to make sure 
she is not--this never happens again, that these kids, who are 
about they think the ultimate thing to do to take their lives, 
have a vehicle to vent and get some help to stop those suicidal 
thoughts?
    Ms. Atkerson. Yes, absolutely. And I am very sorry to hear 
about the loss in your community. This is, obviously, a very 
difficult topic. Just one suicide death is estimate to affect 
at least six other people or more. And so we see a tremendous 
ripple effect and the numbers just continue to increase, as you 
all know, year after year in this country. It is a tragedy.
    One of the challenges has been that there hasn't been a 
comparable system to what we have for medical emergencies. We 
don't have an easy--most of us can't remember a time when we 
just didn't have 9-1-1 available to us, no matter where we are 
in this country to rapidly access medical care.
    Sadly, the same kind of three-digit rapid response has not 
been available for people in a mental health crisis. And as you 
are saying firsthand, people in a suicidal or mental health 
crisis, it can be just as life-threatening as a stroke or a 
heart attack. So transitioning the National Suicide Prevention 
Lifeline from a difficult to remember ten-digit hotline that 
still many, many people in this country don't have memorized or 
just imagine how difficult it is to try to think about what 
that number is if you are a mother with a child that is 
suicidal trying to remember a ten-digit number versus you know 
9-1-1 or 9-8-8.
    So what I can say is, going forward, the urgency, this is a 
moral imperative for us to pass this legislation so that 9-8-
8can be easily recognizable and accessible to all of our kids, 
family members, parents, to anyone in this country anytime.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Olson. Thank you.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Olson. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence. I yield 
back.
    Mr. Latta. The Chair recognizes Ms. Clarke for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank our 
ranking member for this very enlightening hearing today. I want 
to thank our witnesses for bringing your expert testimony to 
bear.
    This is an extremely important hearing today. As a New 
Yorker, I can reflect on my experiences in the aftermath of 
both the 9/11 terrorist attack and, years later, Superstorm 
Sandy to refresh my memory on how important network resiliency 
is to my constituents and to all Americans.
    Today I want to first discuss the Americans who the Trump 
administration has too often treated with disdain and 
overlooked, the citizens in Puerto Rico. They have experienced 
a series of natural disasters that have become more frequent 
and more severe due to climate change.
    To echo Mr. Torres' statements in his written statement, 
quote, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but, tragically, their 
voices have been largely absent from this crucial debate and 
the restoration and rebuilding processes have suffered as a 
result, end quote.
    The earthquakes that rocked Puerto Rico left the territory 
without power and led to 31.7 percent of cell sites down and 
left approximately 260,000 cable and wireline subscribers 
without service. My colleagues, Congressman Ruiz, Soto, and I 
read a letter to the FCC to raise concern about the fragility 
about the communication infrastructure on the Islands.
    So my first question is actually to you, Mr. Torres. The 
FCC is supposed to measure whether broadband is being deployed 
in a timely fashion across the United States and it is supposed 
to know when and where the networks go out in times of 
disaster.
    Can you discuss how the lack of real-time information on 
the network outages impacted people on the Islands and their 
loved ones in the rest of the United States trying to reach 
them?
    Mr. Torres. Sure, I will give you two examples. One is the 
most recent example, the earthquakes. There was a person, a 
well-known activist tweeting can anyone--on Twitter because she 
didn't have communications. She didn't have a mobile--can 
anyone let me know if there is a tsunami coming? Because they 
didn't--they weren't aware whether there was a tsunami warning 
because there was a lot of fear in Puerto Rico that a tsunami 
potentially was going to happen.
    The second example I give is from the Public Safety 
Workshop that the FCC held a couple of years ago after Maria in 
the hurricane season 2017. And so this is a regional emergency 
communications coordinator of FEMA who said the voluntary--
testifying to the FCC at a hearing--at a workshop--the 
voluntary word needs to go, when it comes to like wires 
resiliency. We have a commercial entity selling themselves as 
public-safety grade. If you are going to make a profit saying 
you are a servant to the community with public safety grade 
communications, then you need to be able to prepare an answer 
in response as to where communications are available. The point 
was being made, at that workshop, that they are not getting 
information fast enough at the FCC. And because of issue of it 
is voluntary, it is proprietary, they are saying by the time we 
are getting information, especially in the case of Puerto Rico, 
it was already up. It was sending people to places to repair 
cell sites and all that and they were already repaired in some 
cases. They didn't--it was wasting time to be able to serve 
other places.
    So we have examples of people on the ground worried about 
tsunami warnings. We have a FEMA official concerned they are 
not getting real-time data fast enough. So we need--so Puerto 
Ricans needed, and everywhere else needs data information much 
more quickly to first responders.
    Ms. Clarke. So can the FCC do more to gather and 
disseminate information about communication network reliability 
during and immediately after such storms?
    Mr. Torres. Say that one more time.
    Ms. Clarke. Yes. I am saying can the FCC do more to gather?
    Mr. Torres. Absolutely. First of all like we don't believe 
there should be voluntary. It should be mandatory that they 
participate. And also you know the Wireless Resiliency 
Framework like is voluntary and we don't believe it should be 
voluntary. We need it to be more rigorous oversight over these 
companies because they have to be held--folks have to be held 
accountable for not responding.
    It is a life and death issue. So like this gentleman said, 
the FEMA official, that it can't be voluntary. There has to be 
some sort of process of accountability.
    Ms. Clarke. Very well. Mr. Gerst, would you want to respond 
to that?
    Mr. Gerst. Sure. First let me start by saying, Congressman, 
thank you for the question.
    Maria was a devastating event for everyone. Our companies 
had to go to unprecedented lengths to restore services there. 
In fact, one of our member companies had their generator 
actually powering the airport, at one point, just to get 
supplies into Puerto Rico. But we have invested in Puerto Rico 
and I think the results show that we have moved from wood poles 
to steel poles. We have invested in backup power. And after the 
earthquake, 68 percent of cell sites were up.
    I know there is a close relationship between first 
responders in New York and Puerto Rico. And in fact, I have 
talked to a few who say that, after the earthquake, nothing 
worked in Puerto Rico except the wireless service. So it wasn't 
everywhere and we need to do more but we have learned lessons 
and applied them in Puerto Rico.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentlewoman's time has expired. Thank you.
    Mr. Johnson, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Bell, you know while ensuring network resiliency is 
certainly an important overarching goal, I want to be sure that 
the electric and communications industries aren't faced with 
one-size-fits-all requirements that fail to consider the 
realities on the ground.
    Can you walk us through how your industry engages with 
State Emergency Operation Centers during emergencies and how 
that coordination could inform priorities for restoration 
efforts? For example, how the fact that it is harvest time in 
one area or geographical factors in a particular area where an 
outage might come into play factor into prioritization?
    Mr. Bell. Certainly. Thank you for the question.
    It is actually our primary contact at the Emergency 
Operations Center is a member of my staff. And as soon as the 
center opens up, he goes over there and is there you know for 
the duration of the storm working on shifts, as we can. And 
there is where the communication takes place.
    We get priorities from things that we may not be aware of 
and to go through them. In some cases, there was an example in 
Hurricane Michael where we actually got a call from the Florida 
Emergency Operations Center that an ILEC in Florida thought 
there was a hold on a pole in Georgia put on by the Georgia 
DOT. And so it was just a whole cascade of events that someone 
on the ground could not figure out how do I find out if I can 
go ahead and proceed with this. All the people who are right 
there in the Emergency Operations Center are able to determine 
no, everything is clear with that; you can keep going and get 
the people back to work in the field.
    So it is--in Hurricane Michael as well, one of the critical 
issues is not something you would normally think of. It was 
actually at peanut harvest time. And a lot of the damage that 
came through Georgia came through one of the largest areas 
where we grow peanuts. And so a lot of the focus was was to get 
the infrastructure back in place so those peanuts could be 
processed while still working on the rest of the storm and 
making sure all the other critical infrastructure is being 
done.
    Mr. Johnson. So it is a pretty real-time dynamic kind of 
thing.
    Mr. Bell. It is absolutely real-time.
    Mr. Johnson. OK.
    Mr. Gerst, you referenced many of the mobile cell units in 
your testimony from COWs or Cells on Wheels to COLTs or Cells 
on Light Trucks. I am curious if there are regulatory obstacles 
that make it difficult to move those assets from region to 
region or State to State.
    Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question.
    Yes, we have many tools at our disposal that we attempt to 
use to maintain service and these are things that we have used 
applying lessons learned from previous storms. And some of the 
things we have incorporated into our Cooperative Framework, 
including things like mutual aid, where we will actually repair 
each other's cell sites, and you know coordinating with local 
governments.
    But yes, we have--where we do have outages, we have the 
ability to bring in temporary cell sites and we actually call 
them a barnyard of solutions because there are cells on the 
back of trucks but we call them COWs, and COLTs, and GOATs. But 
we are starting to actually even use drones now, where you can 
add coverage where a cell site might have gone down and call it 
the Flying COW.
    Mr. Johnson. Are there Government regulations that make it 
difficult for you to do that kind of move from region to region 
and State to State, though?
    Mr. Bell. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, there are challenges 
but we are engaged with the State Emergency Operations Center 
and, typically, we can address those issues and get those 
resources in those areas. Certainly the SANDy Act helped by 
making sure that communications were prioritized as being part 
of that effort.
    So yes, there are challenges but we are working with local 
governments on that.
    Mr. Johnson. OK. Ensuring continuing--ensuring previously 
established procedures and coordination amongst wireless 
providers, backhaul providers, and power companies before a 
disaster strikes is critical to effective restoration efforts 
when power and communication systems go down. The FCC's 
Disaster Response and Recovery Group is currently looking at 
these types of issues and hopes to submit best practice 
recommendations to the FCC soon.
    So Mr. Bell, can you talk a bit about this group, its work, 
and its importance?
    Mr. Bell. Well yes, and I will commend Commissioner Pai for 
establishing the BDAC. It is a much better way for us to 
resolve issues like this. The old way was they would put out a 
request for comment; you would submit your comments and hope 
that somebody actually read them and try and advocate on them. 
Here----
    Mr. Johnson. Because my time is running out----
    Mr. Bell. OK.
    Mr. Johnson [continue]. Can you add to your answer? Would 
it be prudent for Congress to review this group's 
recommendations for best practices before contemplating 
legislative action?
    Mr. Bell. Absolutely. Absolutely.
    Mr. Johnson. OK. All right, well thank you very much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes Mr. Veasey for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I wanted to ask Mr. Gossner a question. In Texas, we have 
had some issues with wildfires in the past as well and I don't 
know that that was something that has been in the news a lot 
around California, particularly your area. And I wanted to know 
what you thought about the access to batteries.
    I know that, for instance, cell phone companies that may 
have--that are trying to replenish batteries that only can last 
a few hours can have trouble getting to certain areas if they 
are in evac zones or if certain roads have been blocked off or 
cut off. What sort of lessons should we learn about being able 
to have access to those areas in the time of wildfires? Is 
there anything differently that can be done as far as being 
able to give them the access that they need so people can have 
their cell coverage restored in a more faster fashion?
    Mr. Gossner. Yes, thank you.
    I think you know part of it is they have to understand the 
environment they are going into. So I don't know who they are 
talking to. From our perspective, if we need to get power back 
up into a certain area and we can allow them, we will. 
Sometimes we send a crew with them to make sure it is safe. 
Sometimes their crew don't want--doesn't want to go into it 
because they don't feel safe.
    So there is multiple factors that drive why some towers get 
back up and some don't but those are all real discussions we 
have to have now and figure that out so, when we entertain 
these ideas in the future, we can work through the process 
quickly and figure out is this a critical tower or is it not a 
critical tower. If it is a critical tower, we have got to make 
every effort to get those up and running so we can provide the 
communication and then build out from there.
    But there is multiple reasons why crews can or cannot go in 
on both sides of the fence. So it is literally face-to-face 
sitting down. How do we work through this?
    Mr. Veasey. Right. Right, exactly.
    One of the things that I read about the California 
incidents that interested me was, you know obviously, the use 
of internet. And I was reading that the internet landlines 
almost all, you know a lot of them mostly failed, but that the 
traditional-based copper landlines did not fail. Do you think 
that there needs to be some sort of a--just to maybe sort of 
make people think about using more traditional products that 
live in these more rural areas that are hard to reach, where 
they may be more affected by wildfires?
    I know that we are very reliant, obviously, up on the 
newest technology but do you think, under these sorts of 
circumstances, that maybe, until a lot of these problems can be 
addressed, that we need to like maybe look back at more 
traditional landline products?
     Mr. Gossner. Yes, traditional landlines do last longer 
than the voiceover internet protocol-type lines. They are not 
failsafe but they do last longer.
    What I am being told today is that they are trying to 
transition out of copper altogether because the wireless 
technology, and the cable, the fiber optics is so much more 
powerful and better.
    Mr. Veasey. Right.
    Mr. Gossner. So they are trailing away from the copper. 
Copper doesn't need power to maintain that connectivity, where 
everything else does.
    So I will tell you in Sonoma County--I am going to get 
these numbers a little bit wrong but Sonoma County ten years 
ago, there were 350,000 people that had copper lines. Today, it 
is about 170,000 because everyone is making the transition to 
wireless. That is another reason why these towers need to be 
hardened. Everything needs to be to that standard, where we can 
rely on these components much more than we can now.
    Mr. Veasey. This is fascinating.
    What about as far as translation for people that live in 
these areas? Obviously, things need to be, especially in a 
State like Texas, or even California, obviously things would 
need to be translated into Spanish, for instance. Is there 
sufficient information out there as far as translation is 
concerned? Do you feel that that is being adequately addressed?
    Mr. Gossner. It is being addressed. I don't know if I would 
say it is adequately being addressed. I will tell you, though, 
that WEA 2.0 and 3.0 addresses that. So the 360 characters also 
adds a translation for Spanish, where the initial WEA product 
did not, right, 90 characters and there was no Spanish 
translation.
    So they are working towards that but, again, it is a 
process and it is a slow process.
    Mr. Veasey. Yes. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate 
your time.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    Mrs. Brooks, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding 
this important hearing.
    When I first came to Congress, I was co-chair--or I was 
chair of the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, 
and Communications. And I just want to thank all of you for 
your work because I think we all know that in a time of 
disaster, this supercomputer we hold is often kind of our only 
lifeline and it is so important that we figure out how to make 
sure that we are as resilient as possible in times of disaster.
    Mr. Gerst, I am co-chair of the 5G Caucus and so I want to 
ask a little bit about 5G, as the country is transitioning to 
the Next Generation of technology, what this transition means 
for the resiliency of wireless networks. And clearly, there is 
a different architecture. Companies are deploying these small 
cells, naturally densifying networks, having actually maybe a 
lot more. Can you tell me how this important conversion, what 
resiliency is going to be impacted by the rollout of the 5G 
across the country?
    Mr. Gerst. Absolutely, Congresswoman. Thank you for your 
question and thank you for your leadership on 5G issues, making 
sure that the U.S. is the global leader and 5G is a priority 
for everyone I know, including you.
    5G is going to bring incredible opportunities--the high 
capacity/low latency capabilities, particularly for public 
safety. And public safety can use those capabilities actually 
in the field for innovations that Mr. Henry could probably talk 
to you about.
    But you know from our perspective, we need hundreds of 
thousands of new cell sites to make that happen to get to that 
level of service for 5G. And the way that we build networks now 
is we do build them in redundant, diverse, and densified ways. 
So even if some cell sites go down, we do try to maintain 
coverage for emergency communications. By adding hundreds of 
thousands of new cell sites that 5G is going to bring, we 
absolutely believe it will help to improve resiliency.
    And we think that the RESILIENT Networks Act is a forward-
looking bill. It talks about 5G, and how it might improve 
resiliency, and we appreciate that.
    Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. Anyone else want to comment on 5G 
resiliency or capabilities?
    OK, I will move on, then.
    Mr. Henry, how does the practice of diverting 9-1-1 fees 
affect the ability to ensure 9-1-1 systems keep pace with 
technological changes and the ability to engage in effective 
long-term planning? Because we need to ensure that 9-1-1 
services, obviously, provide the best emergency service as 
possible, so can you talk to us a bit more about--you talked 
about the number of States that we know that do divert and 
yet--and the practice that our States have to maintain to make 
sure that communities aren't diverting?
    Mr. Henry. Sure and thank you for the question.
    I guess top line, 9-1-1 fee diversion hurts not just the 
public but it also hurts public safety. It hurts in the sense 
that the folks making budget decisions about 9-1-1 are often 
not the people operating the PSAPs and they are not the people 
that are directing a State's 9-1-1 budget planning and 
policies.
    One of the big effects that we have seen over the decade or 
so that FCC has been keeping records on these things, is that 
diversion often happens in sort of fits and spurts. And so the 
9-1-1 authority in the State, or you know the 9-1-1 governance 
structure in a State, may be surprised by a diversion of funds 
from the top of the State level.
    And so the aggregate effect of that is that you know you 
have always got to prepare for you know a budgetary tornado to 
come through and wipe out a good chunk of your funding for 9-1-
1. You get into a damage control mode, instead of a continuous 
improvement and a continuous innovation mode, where you are 
preparing for the next thing. You are constantly, instead, 
preparing for the next disaster, whether that be a literal 
disaster or a budgetary disaster.
    Mrs. Brooks. What percentage would you say of the 9-1-1 
capabilities now are text capabilities?
    I know our State has texting capabilities in 9-1-1. Is that 
very common now in many of the other States?
    Mr. Henry. It is, I wouldn't say very common; probably 30 
to 40 percent coverage. And of course, the difficulty with that 
is that you don't find out that you can't text 9-1-1----
    Mrs. Brooks. Right.
    Mr. Henry [continue]. Until you find out you can't text 9-
1-1.
    Mrs. Brooks. OK, thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I just want to mention, in response to our 
colleague Ms. Clarke's question about the FCC doing more to 
garner or to gather and information and disseminate data during 
disasters. The FCC is planning on acting tomorrow on a second 
further notice of proposed rulemaking to do just that, I have 
been informed by staff. I just thought I would share that we 
should look for further proposed rulemaking tomorrow.
    With that, I yield back.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Ms. Eshoo for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all of 
the witnesses for your testimony.
    If I were to summarize all the various things that have 
been said, there are two things that stand out: what kind of 
system we have and how much more we need to do to optimize the 
system that we have. And when there are cracks in the system, 
people's lives are at stake.
    I want to read two of many messages I received from 
constituents during the PG&E shutoffs last October, which 
resulted, of course, in the loss of cellular communications. A 
family from a rural area of my district--yes, Silicon Valley, 
does have some very beautiful rural areas--quote, when PG&E 
cuts the power off, those of us who live in rural areas are not 
only left without electricity, we are left without 
communications. Cell phones don't work. Landlines don't work. 
Generators don't keep the Wi-Fi on. Why are we being left out 
to dry? We have no way to call 9-1-1 in an emergency and no way 
to get alerts if there is danger and we need to evacuate.
    Another constituent wrote: During the second more recent 
outage, we had broadband and phone for only 15 hours. It then 
failed, leaving us with no means of communication. That is a--
that is a scary term: no means of communication in the United 
States of America.
    This is a serious safety concern. This is not just an 
annoyance. If there were to be a fire in our highly vulnerable 
tinder-dry area, we wouldn't be able to report it, wasting 
precious time while it spreads. The same is true if there were 
any sort of medical emergency.
    So these people are understandably: A) they are vulnerable; 
B) they are afraid. And they are justifiably upset and so am I. 
So, we have to help them.
    Chief Gossner, I want to salute you, as others have, for 
your absolutely superb leadership. You, your department, and 
the people of Sonoma County and Santa Rosa have been through 
actual hell--lives lost, devastation, homes lost, hope lost.
    And when I went up to visit and to hear from the entire 
team, it will always remain with me, grown men weeping and 
these were first responders who were going door-to-door to try 
and save people's lives because they had no communication 
system whatsoever.
    Now, we have a problem in--it is an ambiguity, actually, in 
Federal law relative to what States can and cannot do. And I 
thank you for your support of the WIRED Act. It is very 
important.
    Mr. Gerst, I know that CTIA hasn't--doesn't have any 
position on this but I ask you to really take a hard look at 
the legislation. And the reason I am asking you to is rather 
obvious. You used the word resiliency--I tried counting and 
then I lost count but that is an operational word. And if 
States cannot have a say in setting resiliency, sometimes it 
happens, a lot of times it doesn't and we have to clear the 
weeds out of this. States should have a hand in that and 
really, that is what the legislation does. So, I appreciate the 
work that CTIA is doing.
    Mr. Torres, you gave beautiful and profoundly sad 
testimony. What I would like to ask you is if there is one 
thing that you want us to do, what is it?
    Mr. Torres. It is for this committee to use its oversight 
powers.
    Ms. Eshoo. But for what? What item is the top thing for you 
being at the bench today?
    Mr. Torres. I was advocating a couple of things. One, 
advocate Puerto Ricans. Just, we want to know why. So just if 
we know what happened----
    Ms. Eshoo. Well, I think that there should be a letter 
circulated to all members of this subcommittee, signed by 
everyone on a bipartisan basis, to make sure that what is 
needed there, and the assessment that is not public be made 
public.
    Mr. Torres. Well I think, as I mentioned before, the fact 
that it has been mentioned already, I believe it is 60 percent 
of households are wireless only and it is only going up, right? 
But yet, according to GAO, the length of outages from 2009 to 
2016 has doubled when it comes to wireless, right? And so the 
fact that this is a growing problem.
    And so it is a fact that there is DIRS, right, to make sure 
it is mandatory, but also the Wireless Resiliency Framework. It 
is just we don't believe it should be voluntary. And so there 
has to be an oversight to make sure that first responders--
first of all, that the networks are resilient but then first 
responders are actually and other folks are able to respond to 
disasters.
    So it should not be voluntary.
    Ms. Eshoo. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    Ms. Eshoo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
    Mr. Walden, welcome back. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Walden. Thank you. I was downstairs at the other 
hearing.
    So, I appreciate all your testimony and the comments. I 
know you have covered most of the ground.
    I think back in my own experience and, again, in small 
market radio, and covering fires, and seeing some of these 
disasters. And you know I have had--I had five transmitters. I 
had three antenna sites. I had some that were under threat of 
fire that were up on top of a ridge top. And I am trying to be 
balanced here in saying how do you--how do we mandate a 
resilient network in the face of a conflagration-like tragedy? 
You had to deal with it in Santa Rosa. I drove through there 
and I mean it is just it is unbelievable in Paradise and those 
areas, as we see the video.
    And so I want to be thoughtful about this. I know as a 
broadcaster, we had all these interconnections. We had radio 
connections to our law enforcement. We could talk. We could 
listen to each other. That was one of our EAS stations. We had 
backup on that. But sometimes, when these disasters happen, 
there is no--I mean you are just done, right? I mean you rely 
on ham radio operators. You create your own networks.
    But I am just curious with some of the voluntary work a 
couple of you talked about. Can you speak to that a little bit 
more, the things you have just announced in the last--I guess 
today maybe even, Mr. Gerst, Mr. Bell?
    Mr. Gerst. Thank you, Congressman and Ranking Member. Thank 
you for the question. And I appreciate your experience--vast 
experience on these issues.
    You know with the increasing severity and intensity of 
these storm events, we are constantly having to reevaluate----
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Mr. Gerst [continue]. How we make our networks resilient.
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Mr. Gerst. We have, since Superstorm Sandy, through the 
Cooperative Framework, taken significant steps working amongst 
competitive wireless providers, enabling them to support each 
other's customers----
    Mr. Walden. Right. Makes sense.
    Mr. Gerst [continue]. Enhancing collaboration with 
utilities.
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Mr. Gerst. So yes, we are doing all these things on a 
voluntary basis but, even with all those things, we do think 
new tools could be helpful here. So I would like to explore 
that.
    Mr. Walden. Like what?
    Mr. Gerst. Well we think you know, certainly, having the 
FCC set expectations at a national level, both for wireless and 
having the--and including the power industry, would be helpful 
because one of the things we have learned with the Framework 
with all these voluntary commitments is that a lot of the folks 
at the local level, and you may have experienced this, bring 
their own expectations to what you are supposed to be doing in 
an emergency.
    And by having a national framework around what we are 
supposed to be doing, could help make sure that everybody knows 
what wireless providers are supposed to do, what electric 
providers are supposed to do and that could help to enhance the 
resiliency----
    Mr. Walden. Yes.
    Mr. Gerst [continue]. While still giving us the flexibility 
to work at the local level.
    Mr. Walden. All right, Mr. Bell.
    Mr. Bell. Currently, in FEMA you know there are the 
emergency support functions, each one. And if you were to look 
up or Google, you know best practices in disaster recovery, you 
would find volumes of information on best practices that are 
out there.
    I think what we need to improve on is the communication 
industry has their volumes and the electric industry has their 
volumes. And as the two industries get more and more 
intertwined, there has to be a whole lot more communication 
between the two. And I think that is what this will provide the 
opportunity to do is to start making sure that we are----
    Mr. Walden. You are talking to each other and have a common 
plan.
    Mr. Bell. Absolutely. We are not working in silos.
    Mr. Walden. Yes, that is important.
    I know I have heard over the years there were some people 
that thought you ought to have a generator and a propane tank 
at every cell site. Is that practical?
    Mr. Bell. It is not practical but I will tell you that----
    Mr. Walden. Should we mandate it?
    Mr. Bell. We are one of the few utilities in the country 
that actually has our own telecom provider. And it is for that 
very reason we want to be able to know that they will be there 
when we have a problem. And they proved their worth in 
Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Michael. We were able to use 
them throughout the storm and they do have backup generators.
    Mr. Walden. At every site?
    Mr. Bell. It is expensive--yes.
    Mr. Walden. Mr. Gerst?
    Mr. Gerst. Sure, Congressman. You know backup power is a 
great tool in the toolbox for resiliency.
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Mr. Gerst. But we have hundreds of thousands of cell sites 
so we have to look at it on an individual case-by-case basis. 
We have got huge boomer towers out there, just like yours----
    Mr. Walden. Yes.
    Mr. Gerst [continue]. And we have got towers and antennas 
on the sides of buildings. And we are going to need hundreds of 
thousands of more sites for 5G that is going to be coming. In 
each one of those cell sites, we have to consider what the 
backup power solution is going to be because we are so 
dependent on power. And that includes--you know these are 
batteries that are the size of cabinets, you know, generators 
the size of trucks, right, and we have to consider space, 
noise, local regulations, and air quality requirements, even in 
the type of fuel that we are using----
    Mr. Walden. Right.
    Mr. Gerst [continue]. Because we sure don't want to have 
the type of fuel that would be caught up in a fire.
    Mr. Walden. Right, explosive. Right.
    Mr. Gerst. So it is a big challenge but a reasonable and 
flexible approach we think would be helpful here.
    Mr. Walden. All right. Thank you very much.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. Sure.
    The Chair recognizes Ms. Matsui for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Matsui. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 
thank the witnesses for being here today for this very 
important hearing.
    The Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, has an 
obligation to assist State and local governments to prepare 
for, respond to, and learn from disasters. However, the 
Agency's response to significant emergencies has been 
inconsistent. As the number and severity of natural disasters 
increase, it is critical that the FCC responds adequately and 
swiftly.
    My Emergency Reporting Act would require the FCC to 
standardized its emergency response by conducting field 
hearings, issuing reports, and making policy recommendations 
whenever disasters strike. Our current approach of relying on 
Members of Congress to call on the FCC to act is no longer 
sustainable. We need to set a baseline level of responsiveness 
to ensure local officials have the support they need to secure 
our communication networks in the face of rapidly changing 
climate.
    Mr. Torres, can you describe the shortcomings of the FCC's 
existing emergency reporting structure and how standardizing 
the Agency's emergency response approach might improve network 
resiliency?
    Mr. Torres. Yes, as I mentioned already before, that there 
isn't--one example, again, Puerto Rico, it wasn't coming fast 
enough. The information that the first responders needed didn't 
come fast enough.
    And it is critically important because, as I failed to 
mention when the Congresswoman Eshoo was here, that currently 
the FCC, there is no--they have no measurements. The wireless 
resiliency network doesn't have any way to measure the metric 
of whether the Framework is going to work.
    Ms. Matsui. Absolutely.
    Well, when conducting field hearings, my bill requires the 
FCC to not only consider consulting public safety experts, 
academics, and industry representatives but, also, individuals 
affected by the emergency.
    Why is this perspective necessary to truly understand the 
full impact of the disaster?
    Mr. Torres. It is important to hear from people on the 
ground because you get a perspective on what the needs are of 
everyday people, particularly as we--more folks are wireless 
only. There is a sense of urgency that is needed in order to 
respond to disasters that are happening all the time.
    Ms. Matsui. Right.
    Mr. Torres. And more importantly, it is going to inform--it 
is going to help to inform policy going forward. It is 
critical. It is critical that we have them.
    Ms. Matsui. Sure. OK, my Emergency Reporting Act would also 
require the FCC to initiative a rulemaking to develop improved 
standards requiring communication network operators to notify 
9-1-1 centers when they are experiencing outages that prevent 
consumers from completing 9-1-1 calls or when emergency calls 
do not include vital information like location or number data.
    Mr. Henry, have you heard of instances in which consumers' 
9-1-1 calls do not include location or number data and what 
challenges do 9-1-1 centers have--face in dispatching help in 
these cases?
    Mr. Henry. Sure and thank you for the question.
    Outages or outages in either any, or a location, or a phone 
number delivered to a PSAP are common enough that you can speak 
to almost any telecommunicator and they will tell you about an 
experience----
    Ms. Matsui. OK.
    Mr. Henry [continue]. With that, where there is no call-
back number or there is no location.
    If there is no location, then the call taker must hope that 
the person calling 9-1-1 is able to communicate verbally their 
location, which means that they both have to know their 
location and they have to be able to speak.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. And Chief Gossner, I imagine the Santa Rosa 
Fire Department experience situations in which limited 
information of a resident's 9-1-1 call has prevented effective 
response. Is that correct?
    Mr. Gossner. That is correct.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. While the FCC has notification obligations 
for network outages, the threshold remains high and 9-1-1 
centers are often left in the dark about service outages in 
their territory, jeopardizing public safety.
    Mr. Henry, do you believe a more effective network outage 
notification threshold would help improve the flow of 
information to 9-1-1 centers?
    Mr. Henry. Absolutely, 9-1-1 and all of public safety would 
benefit greatly from network outage reports that are better 
tailored to their needs.
    Ms. Matsui. OK. I recently sent a letter to Chairman Pai, 
urging him to include wildfire-specific recommendations in the 
Wireless Resiliency Framework. While the FCC has solicited 
comments on improving the Framework in the context of 
hurricanes, Chairman Pai would not commit at our oversight 
hearing to doing the same for wildfires.
    I am glad to see the RESILIENT Networks Act, introduced by 
Chairman Pallone and Representative McNerney, takes steps to 
mandate elements of the Framework. In addition, I believe there 
is an opportunity to require the FCC to finish long-overdue 
efforts to modernize the Framework, including recommendations 
specific to wildfires and other disasters.
    Mr. Torres and Chief Gossner, do you believe that wildfire-
specific recommendations would help local responders better 
prepare for communications outages associated with wildfires? A 
yes or no, please.
    Mr. Torres. Yes.
    Mr. Gossner. Yes.
    Ms. Matsui. OK, fine.
    Thank you and I yield back my time.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentlelady yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Walberg for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the 
panel for being here.
    Representing Michigan's Energy District, I appreciate the 
fact and am proud, at times, when I have seen consumers' energy 
trucks, and crews, and DTE heading south and east during 
disaster situations to provide mutual aid and knowing the fact 
that, as that develops, if there ever is an emergency, a 
national disaster in Michigan, which we think of as a place 
that is heaven all year round, great weather wherever you find 
it, that the industry is growing in their understanding of 
working together to improve coordination.
    Mr. Bell, can you describe for us today some of the multi-
stakeholder groups that electric utilities and communications 
providers participate in to develop best practices to reduce or 
eliminate outages?
    Mr. Bell. Well, obviously, there is the BDAC. We have 
addressed that already. They are specifically addressing that 
very issue and there are multiple stakeholders in there.
    In Georgia, there is a group called the Georgia Utility 
Coordinating Council. It is made up of all utilities and their 
main focus is how utilities can best work on the right-of-way, 
whether it be constructability or damage prevention. And then 
of course, there is Georgia 8-1-1, that is made up of multiple 
utilities, including both electric and communication, that is 
specifically focused on damage prevention, whether it be in 
normal construction or you know what is referred to as 
extraordinary circumstances, when a hurricane occurs.
    So and Georgia has those, as well as most States around the 
country have some sort of collaboration, where the focus is how 
can the utilities work together you know to have both a safe 
and reliable infrastructure.
    Mr. Walberg. And this information is passed on aggressively 
to other parts of the country as well?
    Mr. Bell. Yes, there is a lot of sharing, best practice 
sharing through different organizations. You know the Common 
Ground Alliance will have a conference in a couple of weeks out 
in California and most of the--just all the States, including 
Canada and Australia will be represented out there. The very 
purpose is to share best practices on that type of information.
    Mr. Walberg. Mr. Gerst, do you have anything to add to 
that?
    Mr. Gerst. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
    Yes, Mr. Bell is right that there are places where there is 
best practices being developed and shared, and we rely on them 
extensively, and but we--given the experiences we have had, 
particularly in Hurricane Michael in that race to restore 
service, where we were tripping over each other trying to get 
power and wireless services up, or even in the recent events in 
California, we recognized that we need to do something a little 
bit different now. And that is why we have announced this 
effort with the Edison Electric Institute, where we are going 
to, for the first time, bring leaders in our member companies 
together. That is not something that has happened before in 
that way, the way that we are talking about, and we are going 
to try to identify some near-term actions. That may yield best 
practices but at least establishing those lines of 
communication are going to be helpful.
    But ultimately, we may need even further more tools. We 
don't yet know exactly how those will work out but we do expect 
that you know making sure that we have lines of communication 
that folks in the state and local level know what resources are 
available and it is consistent in terms of resiliency is going 
to be very helpful.
    Mr. Walberg. OK.
    Mr. Gerst, I understand the FCC's rules currently 
prescribed--prescribe an aging process for numbers that would 
provide a grace period for customers affected by wildfires or 
other disasters.
    Rather than drastically reinvent the system under the PHONE 
Act, are there ways that the FCC could modify its existing 
rules that would make sure that residential subscribers who 
have been displaced by natural disaster would not lose their 
landline telephone number that was assigned to them?
    Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question because, 
in an emergency, we know that people reach for wireless device 
and that is the first thing, one of the first things they grab 
when they leave their house to evacuate. And the benefits of 
mobile wireless is that they can take both their service and 
their telephone number with them. So this isn't really an issue 
affecting the wireless industry or wireless consumers.
    The FCC has very robust policies in place to make sure we 
don't exhaust the pool of telephone numbers that we have and 
how we allocate them. And it also enables competition by making 
sure that folks aren't hoarding numbers in a way. So this is 
something that we would be happy to work on and work with your 
office on.
    Mr. Walberg. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Soto for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Soto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When Hurricane Michael 
hit Florida, that very next day I had contacted one of my 
colleagues, Congressman Dunn, who represents the Big Bend area, 
via text to assure him that our staff would help him with any 
casework that would come up because his office was inundated. 
He received that text about three months later, unfortunately. 
And we were able to get a hold of him because of a satellite 
phone a few days later. But it shows that cell phone service 
can interrupt just basic interactions between offices as we are 
dealing with these issues.
    In Puerto Rico, it was even worse after Hurricane Maria and 
Hurricane Irma. We had mayors given sat phones that didn't 
work. They were required to fill out applications on the 
internet for FEMA relief and had no internet. And it went on 
for months and months. It was just dumbfounding that that could 
still happen nowadays but it really alerted me to the fact that 
we have a resiliency issue that we need to work together on to 
fix.
    I wanted to start with Mr. Gerst and Mr. Torres. Issues 
like are addressed in the WIRED Act and the READI Act, will 
those help us avoid situations of breakdowns like we saw in 
Puerto Rico and Florida with regard to cell phone service or 
communications?
    And I will start with you, Mr. Gerst, and then go to Mr. 
Torres.
    Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for the question.
    The events of Hurricane Maria were devastating for 
everyone. As I noted before, our member companies had to go to 
considerable lengths just to restore services. It took months 
to get back to some level of normalcy. It took some of our 
member companies working directly with the local governments to 
try to get resources in. In fact, at one point, one of our 
member company's generators was powering the airport to 
actually just get supplies into the Island.
    We do think that our member companies have invested in 
Puerto Rico to make it stronger and that was evidenced last 
month, when the earthquake hit, knocking out power across the 
Island; 68 percent of the cell sites stood up. And the reason 
they were up is because we are invested in steel poles and we 
are invested in diverse backup power solutions.
    So we do think that there is more that we can do to try to 
work together to invest in both Puerto Rico and to address some 
of the challenges we saw in Hurricane Michael, where we were 
all racing to try to restore service between utilities and 
wireless, and we need to enhance our coordination capability.
    One of the things that we appreciate about the RESILIENT 
Networks Act is that it does focus on collaboration as one of 
its primary goals to try to bring its stakeholders together at 
the national level. And so we do think that that could be very 
helpful.
    Mr. Soto. And we do understand it is not your burden to 
bear alone, which is why we have these bills together to try to 
help out.
    Mr. Torres, it would be great to hear from you about how 
critical the WIRED Act, the READI Act, and other legislation 
before us is to help----
    Mr. Torres. We support both Acts. We believe they will 
help. We also support the RESILIENCE Act. But for us, there has 
to be more. More needs to be done.
    As I mentioned before, the Wireless Framework is only a 
couple of years old, right, and it is voluntary. We already 
have folks from FEMA saying, testifying that it is too slow. 
And so what we need, as I mentioned in my testimony with Puerto 
Rico, we need to know what happened. I am hearing the CTIA 
saying the improvements they have made. We don't know what--if 
the improvements were made. We don't know. We have to take it 
from the word of industry. We don't have any official 
Government report. So we need reporting to know what happened 
and make sure that, as Commissioner Rosenworcel said: Is the 
money being spent to address the actual situations?
    Mr. Soto. And I think the reporting is very important and I 
think you will get a lot of common ground.
    I wanted to turn to Mr. Bell, our neighbors to the north in 
Georgia, which you rarely probably hear. What gaps did you see 
when Hurricane Michael both hit our State and your State and 
what can we do to help?
    Mr. Bell. I think it is the first time we realized or the 
first major storm we had, where communication and the electric 
industry had--were as intertwined as they are.
    There was a lot of confusion in the beginning about fiber 
cuts and that is because, on a normal storm, a Category 1 
storm, it is electric tree crews that are out there clearing 
the trees and the debris. But when you have a storm the 
magnitude of Michael, it is not us. It is the local government 
and the DOT that is clearing the roads.
    And so the assumption was the electric utilities were 
cutting fiber and that wasn't the case but no one was talking 
to the DOT and the local governments any critical fiber. There 
was a communication between the electric and the 
communications.
    So it is something I think we all learned from that and 
will use moving forward, for sure.
    Mr. Soto. OK, thank you. My time has expired.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Bilirakis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
    Mr. Gerst, there is an increasing prevalent problem with 
the use of contraband cell phones in prisons with intent to 
commit crimes behind bars. I worked on this issue in the 
Florida legislature as well. Even though they are prisoners, 
there are many cases where public safety is truly at risk, such 
as crimes aiding in physical and sexual violence against the 
public.
    Can you discuss what steps the wireless industry has taken 
to help address this problem and what challenges exist to crack 
down on this contraband?
    Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you for your question and 
thank you for your leadership and attention to this very 
important issue.
    You know we don't want our wireless devices to be misused, 
in the way that you are being described, and so we have fully 
embraced working directly with State Departments of 
Corrections, working with the Bureau of Prisons, working with 
the FCC to find solutions to this growing problem.
    There is no one way to solve this issue. It takes a mix of 
technology and processes to address the issue. We have actually 
worked and tested various solutions that could help the State 
officials identify where these devices are used and then help 
us to stop them but we probably need some more teeth to really 
make it a deterrent for the use of these contraband devices.
    And so we do think that, for example, putting the FCC as 
the cop on the beat to do something there could be helpful but 
we certainly appreciate your leadership and attention to this 
issue.
    Mr. Bilirakis. And again, I am willing to sit down again 
with you, and all of you, to find a solution to this problem 
because we are going to file some legislation. So any input you 
have, please don't hesitate.
    And then you know, again, I would like your support on 
these issues but, of course, you have to look at the final 
draft before you make a decision.
    In closing, I want to highlight the importance of the 
McNerney-Bilirakis READI Act to the people of my district, on 
the coast into Florida. Actually, I am in the Tampa Bay area, 
the coastal area of Tampa Bay. This bill can save lives by 
ensuring FEMA emergency messages get to at-risk people during a 
hurricane or flood. And I thank the chairman for the READI Act 
inclusion at this legislative hearing.
    And if anyone would like to comment on that particular 
piece of legislation, I would be happy to listen.
    Mr. Gerst. Again, Congressman, thank you very much for your 
leadership and your support of that bill.
    From our perspective, wireless emergency alerts have 
quickly become one of the most effective alerting tools in the 
country, and we need to ensure that consumers continue to trust 
the information that they are getting from the wireless 
emergency alerts, and make sure that alert originators, who 
send the alerts to warn us to get us to evacuate from these 
areas, have the tools and the training that they need to be 
able to use it most effectively.
    The READI Act can help do that by encouraging alert 
originators to develop best practices, to avoid false alerts, 
to harness the new capabilities we just rolled out in wireless 
emergency alerts. As Chief Gossner mentioned, there is all new 
capabilities that just came online last year, thanks to hard 
work from the FCC, from the wireless industry, and from FEMA. 
And so we are looking forward to continuing to improve and keep 
wireless emergency alerts a trusted source.
    Mr. Bilirakis. I appreciate it very much.
    And anyone else? I don't have much time. Anyone else?
    Well, thank you very much and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair recognizes Mr. Cardenas for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate this opportunity for us to have this public hearing 
so that the public can understand a little bit more as to why 
all of these issues are so important to individuals and family 
members across our country.
    First, I want to thank you, Mr. Gossner, and all of you for 
your expertise, but Mr. Gossner and thousands of firefighters 
and first responders in California and across the country who 
are on the front lines every day, risking their lives to 
protect everybody from devastating fires and other disasters.
    I am glad we have an opportunity today to discuss the 
importance of technology in wireless communications in 
emergencies and natural disasters, and also to explore ways to 
strengthen America's telecommunications infrastructure to 
ensure public safety.
    Last year, during its 7,860 wildfires, California 
experienced significant cell phone service interruptions during 
these disasters. In one county, over half of the 280 cell phone 
tower sites lost service, as well as some landlines experienced 
connectivity failures. These fires threaten not only American 
lives but homes, businesses, and wildlife. As climate change 
worsens, these wildfires will only continue to grow in 
intensity, frequency, and ferocity, as they have in recent 
years. We need to bolster our telecommunications infrastructure 
to ensure their resiliency during emergencies.
    I welcome today's thoughtful discussion and my first 
question is to you, Mr. Gossner. For many of us, it is obvious 
why we want to be able to communicate during a natural disaster 
but I worry that some don't necessarily understand the 
importance of doing all we can to keep our networks up and 
running.
    Can you explain a little more about why it is so vital for 
public safety officials to be able to communicate with the 
public during a natural disaster?
    Mr. Gossner. Sure. Thank you for the question.
    It is imperative that we build a system that is resilient 
enough that can withstand a certain amount of damage so, when 
that emergency is starting to unfold, we are able to 
communicate with the public and give them the information that 
they need to either evacuate, or shelter in place, or whatever 
it may be.
    There are times when it is community members talking to 
community members through different social media platforms. 
Those go down as well.
    It really gives us the ability to notify folks that there 
is impending danger. And that is really what this is. We will 
never be able to build a system that stays 100 percent all the 
time. I don't think that is what we are asking. But we need to 
build some resiliency, some capacity that those towers will 
last for enough time to notify the folks that we need to notify 
to get out of harm's way. And that is really what we are 
looking for is to build in that resiliency so we can make those 
notifications.
    Mr. Cardenas. And there are various ways to do that, 
correct, I am sure. To the general public, redundancy sounds 
redundant. It sounds like who would want to be involved in 
redundancy, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. But 
when it comes to issues like this, isn't redundancy something 
that is critical to making sure that, when something bad 
happens, there are alternative routes or alternative 
opportunities to make sure that people can still communicate?
    Mr. Gossner. Yes, so for me, it is not only redundancy but 
it is hardening the entire network. You have got bare cables 
doing up into a framework of a tower. Insulate those in the 
Wildland Urban Interface so that they can withstand some heat.
    Simple things--I think are simple. Maybe they are not so 
simple but they seem reasonable. And like I say, we are not 
going to build something that is going to last forever but we 
need to be able to provide assurance to the community that we 
can get them the alerts that they need to get out of harm's 
way.
    Mr. Cardenas. Can you briefly discuss what it was like for 
residents in Santa Rosa who were without phone or internet 
service during the wildfires that devastated their community?
    Mr. Gossner. Yes, it was complete pandemonium. You know it 
ranged from all of the emotions you can expect. And not only 
could we not communicate, that meant we had to go in there and 
knock on doors, and use sirens, and get everyone out, and then 
you had to get everyone out while the fire was chasing you 
through the community.
    So when you lose connectivity during--this is a no-notice 
event, which is different than a hurricane. We all kind of know 
when a hurricane is coming, for the most part, so you can 
prepare a little bit differently. But this is one of those no-
notice events that is very impactful to the community and 
public safety when it is happening in your neighborhood. And it 
is happening up and down the State, as we have witnessed 
since--for a long time, right?
    So I go back to the Valley Fire in 2015 in Lake County and, 
from that, you can name--tick off the fires in the State of 
California, both northern and southern.
    Mr. Cardenas. The responsible thing for us to do as 
Congress, in my opinion, is to make sure that the RESILIENT 
Networks Act actually gets through the process and signed into 
law so that locals can actually reap the benefits of this 
important legislation.
    I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair now recognizes Mr. Gianforte for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gianforte. Thank you Chairman Doyle. I especially want 
to thank you for including H.R. 4194, the National Suicide 
Hotline Designation Act of 2019 in today's hearing. This is a 
critical piece of legislation that can help Americans facing a 
crisis.
    Our Nation truly faces an epidemic of suicide and 
Montanans, tragically, are all too familiar with it. Montana 
has the highest suicide rate in the nation. Unfortunately, 
mental health care is not available to many Montanans. In fact, 
more than 600,000 Montanans live in an area where there is a 
shortage of mental health professionals.
    Last year, I held two mental health and substance abuse 
roundtables in Montana. Providers and experts described the 
need for more resources to address mental health care and 
prevent suicide. We need a multipronged approach to combat this 
tragic situation.
    Ideally, everyone would have access to preventive mental 
health care. Folks who live in rural and frontier communities 
face overwhelming obstacles to receive mental healthcare. That 
is why the 9-8-8is so important.
    The goal of the National Suicide Hotline is to ensure 
people know about and have access to the services they need in 
the face of a crisis. Our bill provides this essential service 
for anyone facing a mental health crisis and helps our 
communities grow healthier and stronger.
    In addition to this bill, I have also introduced a bill 
with Representative Beyer to conduct a national suicide 
prevention campaign. We need to ensure that those struggling 
with depression, anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses 
don't feel stigmatized. Everyone needs to know that it is OK to 
ask for help and, in the case of an emergency, where they can 
find it.
    I thank you again for the opportunity to discuss this 
important piece of legislation and I look forward to seeing the 
National Suicide Hotline Designation Act signed into law.
    And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman yields back.
    The committee now welcomes one of our most esteemed members 
of the full committee to the subcommittee. Mr. Engel, you have 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 
Thank you for the opportunity to participate.
    I want to speak about an issue of critical importance that 
has flown under the radar for quite some time, which is the 
preservation of a lifesaving radio spectrum known as the T-
Band. For decades, the T-Band has supported vital public safety 
radio communications among our first responders. It allows 
police, firefighters, and EMS providers to communicate even 
when cell towers, electricity, or the internet are down. It 
functions deep underground in tunnels and inside concrete 
buildings.
    But now, thanks to a provision of law passed back in 2012, 
the FCC is required to relocate an auction the T-Band spectrum 
for use by the private sector in 2021. This would endanger 
crucial public safety communications where in my district in 
Bronx, New York, and Westchester, New York, as well as in major 
metropolitan areas across the United States.
    It would also force police, firefighters, and EMS providers 
to spend billions of dollars, change their systems, and buy new 
equipment.
    According to the National Public Safety Telecommunications 
Council and the GAO, roughly $6 billion would be needed to 
relocate public safety users off the T-Band. The cost to the 
New York area alone would be $1.4 billion.
    In December 2019, FCC Chairman Pai underscored the 
importance of this issue by writing, and I quote him: The 
Agency has extensively analyzed the T-Band and concluded that 
moving forward is not viable. I am calling on Congress to 
repeal the T-Band mandate. I am hoping that Congress can 
resolve this matter without delay. Unquote.
    The GAO agreed, reporting to Congress that the T-Band 
mandate is unworkable and could deprive first responders of 
their current ability to communicate by radio.
    The urgent need to address the issue is clear. To further 
emphasize the point, I would like to submit some letters to the 
record, including a letter dated December 9, 2019 from the 
International Association of Fire Chiefs, the International 
Association of Firefighters, the National Sheriffs Association, 
the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National 
Public Safety Telecommunications Council, the Greater Boston 
Police Council, the Los Angeles Regional Interoperable 
Communications System, and others; a letter dated November 13, 
2019 from the New York State County Executives Association; a 
letter dated October 8, 2019 from the New York State 
Association of Counties; a letter dated August 2, 2019 from the 
Police Commissioner of the City of New York; a letter dated 
July 2019 from public safety officials in Harris County, Texas; 
and a letter dated June 24, 2019 from the U.S. Conference of 
Mayors and the National League of Cities. I have more letters 
but I will stop for now.
    To resolve this issue, I introduced the bipartisan Don't 
Break Up the T-Band Act. My legislation would repeal the 2012 
provision of law that is at the heart of this problem and would 
allow law enforcement, fire officials, and EMS providers to 
continue using the T-Band spectrum to operate their radios for 
day-to-day lifesaving operations.
    Mr. Chairman, for including my legislation in this hearing. 
I understand that our ranking member, Mr. Walden, has also 
introduced legislation, the FIRST RESPONDER Act, to address 
this issue. I look forward to working with Mr. Walden and the 
rest of our colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee to 
harmonize our legislation and resolve this issue.
    Today's hearing also includes other bills that are of 
critical importance to improve communication networks in times 
of emergency. Included among them is the RESILIENT Networks 
Act, which picks up where the SANDy Act left off, and will 
ensure that communications networks are prepared for the worst.
    Let me ask Mr. Gerst. Let me ask you this question. My city 
was New York City. It was devastated by Superstorm Sandy. The 
destruction was immeasurable. Can you tell me what lessons the 
wireless industry learned from the storm and whether we are 
better prepared today than we were back in 2012? In your view, 
will legislation in front of our subcommittee today help 
prepare us for future storms and rising seas?
    Mr. Gerst. Congressman, thank you so much for the question.
    Yes, Superstorm Sandy was sort of a touchdown moment for 
our industry and led to the development of the Wireless 
Resiliency Cooperative Framework, including through the 
leadership of Chairman Pallone. That Framework, its pillars 
were increasing coordination and collaboration between wireless 
providers who were competitive but they have done things since 
Superstorm Sandy like sharing resources, repairing each other's 
towers, and making sure each other's customers can use service 
on each other's networks.
    We have also increased local coordination through new best 
practices from the local governments and we have enhanced our 
consumer education tools all under the Framework because of 
Superstorm Sandy.
    In my testimony, I go through a number of different 
examples of how we think our networks are stronger and we know 
that there is more that can be done. That is why we are 
supporting the goals of the RESILIENT Networks Act. It has some 
of the very similar pillars as our Framework. It has enhanced 
collaboration and coordination. It has making sure that 
wireless providers are using--have reasonable and flexible 
expectations around roaming, mutual aid, and backup power, and 
it is forward-looking in terms of how can 5G advance 
resiliency.
    So we are making steady improvements on resiliency in the 
wake of Superstorm Sandy.
    Mr. Doyle. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Engel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Doyle. The Chair requests unanimous consent to enter 
the following into the record: A letter from APCO; a letter 
from Craig Fugate former FEMA Administrator; a letter from 
IAFF; a letter from Mental Health Liaison Group; a letter from 
NAB; a letter from the National League of Cities; a letter from 
U.S. Telecom; a letter from Reps Moulton and Stewart on H.R. 
4194; a Chairman Pallone letter to the GAO about the 2017 
hurricane season.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
    Mr. Doyle. I want to thank the witnesses for their 
participation in today's hearing.
    I want to remind all members that, pursuant to committee 
rules, they have ten business days to submit additional 
questions for the record to be answered by the witnesses who 
have appeared. And I would ask that each witness respond 
promptly to any such questions that you may receive.
    At this time, the committee is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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