Sen. Jay Rockefeller (Reuters)
Following the dual natural disasters of last week's earthquake and this weekend's hurricane, Sen. Jay Rockefeller is pushing his Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act, legislation that would create a single dedicated nationwide network for first responders. He described the legislation earlier this year in an op-ed in
Roll Call [sub req]:
In January, I introduced a bill to set aside a portion of airwaves, or “spectrum,” to public safety. The spectrum will be used to build a high-speed nationwide wireless network for first responders. It will give public safety officials the communications capability that the 9/11 commission recommended — the same capability many teenagers have on their smartphones today.
Instead of outdated radios, first responders will have high-speed devices capable of transmitting video, image and data files.
In June, Rockefeller's Commerce Committee approved his bill, but Rockefeller is still pushing. In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski sent Friday, Rockefeller and ranking committee member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) argued for additional effort from the FCC to "move 'as quickly as possible' to finish its assessment of outages related to last week's 5.8 earthquake on the East Coast."
The letter, which was sent before Irene made landfall, combined both the earthquake and impending storm to press for government action on both reclaiming spectrum and creating the emergency net.
"Americans should expect that they can reach their loved ones during an emergency," they wrote. "But our commercial networks are asked to do much more. Because first responders still do not have a nationwide wireless broadband network of their own, they must rely on these same commercial networks if they hope to access any mobile data services, such as text messaging and emails.
"Despite being six years from the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and ten years from the tragic events of 9/11, we still do not have an interoperable wireless broadband network for public safety. We must not allow any more potentially life-threatening disasters to occur before our nation's first responders get the interoperable public safety communications system they need to keep us safe."
They put in a pitch for commercial spectrum as well. "The congestion following Tuesday's earthquake clearly demonstrates the need for more commercial spectrum," they said, "Indeed, network problems like we saw this week may become even more frequent if the government does not act quickly to make more spectrum available for advanced wireless services."
Even though Rockefeller's bill would be paid for by auctioning off spectrum, it's hard to see emergency response becoming a priority for House Republicans, particularly considering Majority Leader Eric Cantor's attitude. But Rockefeller is absolutely right that, a decade after 9/11 and six years after Katrina, not having made any progress toward a dedicated first responders is a huge governmental failure.