For nearly a decade, Congress and successive Administrations have worked to improve emergency communications across the nation. Although the issue of interoperable communications for first responders has drawn the most attention, there have also been several initiatives, including legislation, to upgrade the functionality of 911 call centers. Activities marking the 10 th anniversary of September 11, 2001, increased pressure on Congress to provide a comprehensive solution for better emergency communications to meet both local public safety needs and national goals. The 112 th Congress has examined—and is expected to continue to examine—assuring nationwide availability of state-of-the art communications capability for emergency response and recovery. If there is common agreement among most public safety and government officials, industry leaders, and policy makers for the need to act, a plan for action has not been agreed upon. The White House has supported allocating additional radio frequency spectrum and funding in support of a new, wireless public safety communications network. This position has received widespread support among the public safety community and some commercial stakeholders, such as the Public Safety Alliance. Proposed federal funding for this solution, however, has raised concerns about the cost to the government. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a public-private partnership that would use radio frequency spectrum to attract a commercial partner willing to share network infrastructure with public safety entities, reducing costs but also limiting the amount of spectrum capacity under the direct control of public safety agencies. The FCC's plans have received support from the commercial sector and stakeholders and policy makers who believe that it will increase competition and lower costs to all users of wireless networks. The number and variety of conflicting interests have made it difficult for Congress to reach agreement. Of the bills introduced in the 112 th Congress, as of the date of this report, S. 911 , as amended, and the amended Discussion Draft of the Jumpstarting Opportunity with Broadband Spectrum (JOBS) Act of 2011, which has been incorporated in H.R. 3630 , have been reported favorably by committee. This report identifies areas where changes in existing policies and practices may facilitate achievement of the important goals for emergency communications that Congress and others have identified. Why these goals have become important, and recent planning efforts to achieve these goals, is discussed first. Next, possible barriers to achieving these goals are identified and described. The conclusion revisits key options presently under consideration by Congress. Prior to September 11, 2001, planning for emergency communications rested largely with states and communities, with an emphasis on effective response by different types of service (police, fire, ambulance) at the local level. As radio technologies evolved, there was a growing awareness among first responders—long before 9/11—of the need for better coordination and communications interoperability. Their concerns crystallized after a commercial aircraft crashed into a bridge crossing the Potomac River between Washington, DC, and Arlington County, Virginia, in January 1982. As a result, new planning efforts for multi-jurisdictional and multi-disciplinary responses were put in place across the United States, with federal agencies often providing assistance through technical expertise and funding. In 1996, a report was published by the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC), which the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) had created to provide Congress with recommendations on meeting the communications needs of first responders. The committee's Final Report was considered a landmark in planning and goal setting for public safety communications. Post-9/11, the concerns raised by PSWAC received new attention. In 2003, a National Task Force on Interoperability, with the support of the Department of Justice, revisited the PSWAC report findings, reiterating needs such as investment in infrastructure, more funding, better planning, more coordination and cooperation among agencies, and allocation of additional radio frequency spectrum. In 2007, Congress created the Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and tasked it with the preparation of a National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP), which was published in 2008. Separately, Congress, also in 2008, required the National E9-1-1 Implementation Coordination Office (ICO) to prepare a national plan for migration to Next Generation 911 (NG9-1-1) and to identify possible actions for Congress to take in advancing goals identified through the planning process. The FCC's 2010 National Broadband Plan included goals for advancing "robust and secure public safety communications networks." All of these planning efforts included a broad base of stakeholders in the process. The plans, separately compiled and administered, have provided much of the basis for current federal policy and technology strategies. The common thread is the stakeholders who have participated in the various planning committees; for example, key public safety associations are consistently represented on these committees. The FCC's broadband plan advocated deploying IP-enabled technologies for NG9-1-1 and for wireless broadband networks for public safety radios. Planning efforts for both of these emergency communications have since been initiated by the FCC. Although many of the plans developed by federal agencies over the last decade have encouraged statewide and regional planning, the evolutionary path for providing emergency communications has favored local planning over federal, regional, and even state authority. In general, the larger cities and more prosperous counties have taken the lead in deploying new communications systems. Cities and towns with populations of less than 100,000 and rural counties apparently may struggle with implementing modern communications systems. Lack of funds to build infrastructure may not be the only difficulty; often these communities do not have the needed personnel, such as grants administrators or information technology managers, and therefore rely on sharing resources with neighboring counties. The Department of Homeland Security has advocated emergency communications planning from the bottom up, encouraging stakeholders to find their own solutions within frameworks established within DHS, evolving along a development continuum provided by the agency. Although localism offers many benefits for communities, the relative autonomy in choosing technology has led to incompatible equipment and small-scale, inefficient markets for equipment and infrastructure. Emergency communications technology choices have tended to be proprietary, tailored to specific needs of micro-markets, and closed to commercial, mass-market solutions. As a consequence, there is a notable gap between the level of technology available to the typical first responder or 911 call center operator and that used every day by the average American consumer. Today, emergency communications systems are typically local in reach and limited in applications. According to most experts, the emergency communications grid of the not-too-distant future is likely to be local, national, and international in reach, with flexible and accessible applications that can be instantaneously tailored to meet the needs of any emergency situation. The emergency communications technologies of the future are expected to be developed for common IP-enabled platforms that can operate on any IP-enabled network. IP-enabled wireless devices using technologies such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) will deliver advanced services anywhere, any time. Implementation of the next generation of emergency communications technology may alter the patterns of the past 30 years of technology development and adoption for public safety radios and systems. The transition might be facilitated by changes in the management of public safety resources, addressing questions such as the following: Who will be responsible for governance? Where will decision making and planning reside? How will reliable cost estimates be established? What sources of revenue are available? How will radio frequency spectrum assets be managed? How will technology be developed and applied? Current management of public safety resources—along with some comments about how these may be changed in the future—is discussed below in six sections: governance, decision making, cost estimates, sources of revenue, spectrum management, and technology. Current policies in these areas may be inadequate to achieve the desired levels of emergency capabilities for response and recovery in all regions of the country. Congress may therefore choose to consider these and other areas where policy recommendations or legislative actions may expedite improvements to emergency communications. Governance is a broad term that can include a number of factors. At the federal level, governance is closely associated with evaluation of existing programs and the management of federal expenditures, including grants. A number of federal agencies have roles in guiding and monitoring some decisions of states and localities through grant administration. Currently, over 40 active programs, administered by nine different departments and multiple agencies within those departments, are providing grants for funding emergency communications, and guidance and governance for those grants. Within DHS, the Office of Emergency Communications, the SAFECOM Program, and the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) are among the agencies that formulate policies, plan exercises, provide guidelines, and establish requirements. Two major grants programs within the Department of Justice provide funds for emergency communications; these are the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program and the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program. The NTIA administers grants made through the Broadband Technologies Opportunity Program (BTOP), some of which benefit public safety communications and 911 services. The NTIA shared responsibility with the Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, for a 911 grant program established by the ENHANCE 911 Act of 2004. The only federal grant program exclusively for improving 911, its sole appropriations was less than $50 million provided through the Digital Transition and Public Safety Fund, created by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. It is estimated that as much as $13 billion in federal funding, possibly more, was spent on emergency communications from FY2001 through FY2010. This total does not take full account of earmarks and other forms of assistance not reported as grants. Little information about how this money was spent is readily available. Grant programs provide a mechanism for governance by affecting performance and behavior; financial audits and other reviews of expenditures provide oversight. For investments in public safety communications systems and equipment, oversight seems to be mostly within the communities whose first responders use the systems that have been purchased. Federal audits usually are not performed at a level of detail that identifies the specific uses of federal grants by the ultimate recipients of the funds.