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Source: Congress.gov
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Today's subcommittee markup on public safety communications in the United States. We're considering several bipartisan bills that will improve public safety and communications for first responders here in this country. In December, we held a hearing to look at legislative improvements to public safety communications. This markup will be the next step in advancing the important legislation before us. Important things like upgrading our 911 call centers, improvements to our wireless emergency alerting, and improvements to our outage reporting are crucial improvements that we now look at through a legislative lens.
Alongside my friend, Representative Carter from Louisiana, I recently introduced the Next Generation 911 Act. This legislation would establish a grant program at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, for next generation 911 technology. I would also establish a nationwide Next Generation 911 Cybersecurity Center and a National Next Generation 911 Advisory Board. Upgrading our nation's call centers to NG911 technology is crucial for public safety. This internet protocol-based system will open the door for advanced tools for both the public and our first responders to use. This legislation will also enable deployment nationwide. patchwork of call centers that still have aging, outdated legacy systems, risk a communication landscape that is uneven and non-interoperable. I've been a longtime supporter of NG911 deployment nationwide, and I'm proud to lead the legislation that's going to finally make it happen. I do want to note that while we're taking steps to advance this legislation towards law, we are still working on finding an appropriate dollar amount to fund this grant program. It's critical we balance the need to fund this important program while making sure we maintain fiscal responsibility. This markup also includes many of my colleagues bipartisan bills to ensure alerts for natural disasters and potential risks are received in a timely manner. I'm glad to see our subcommittee prioritizing safety and communications for all Americans. Our public safety and law enforcement officers put their lives on the line every day to help us in our time of need. And we must make sure that they have the best tools to do their jobs and best serve all Americans. I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their continued commitment to this issue and for their work developing these proposals. I look forward to moving these bills through the committee and onto the House floor so we can deliver results for the American people.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate they were marking up bipartisan legislation today. to strengthen public safety communications. In an emergency, there's no time to waste, whether it's a parent trying to get help for their child, an older adult needing help after a fall, or a wildfire closing in. People deserve absolute confidence that a call to 911 will go through. That's why today's markup matters. I am proud to work with Congressman Villaraquez on two bills before us. I look forward to advancing these bills and others today, and I'm committed to continuing this work to improve public safety as a whole, from strengthening resiliency and outage reporting to getting next generation 911 fully funded and deployed. And with that, I yield back.
Thank you, Chairman Hudson. I'm pleased the subcommittee is holding this markup of six bills to improve our nation's public safety communications capabilities. Americans make roughly a quarter billion calls to 911 every year, and the proportion of those calls that originate from wireless phones continues to rise as more households abandon landline phone service. And while wireless technology continues to progress in its ability to deliver reliable dispatchable location information to 911 centers, this trend away from landline service puts more pressure on public safety telecommunicators to obtain a caller's whereabouts from the caller directly. Whether a person calling 911 is not familiar with the area, doesn't speak the same language as the dispatcher, or is in a state of distress preventing them from describing their location or emergency, it is clear that there are still significant gaps in our emergency communications capabilities that delay emergency response and put more lives at risk. And each of these circumstances and many others can be improved upon in an end-to-end, next-generation 911 environment.
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