EAS serves as the nation’s primary alerting system. It provides the President the capability to issue alerts and communicate to the public in response to emergencies. It was built on a structure conceived in the 1950s when over-the-air broadcasting was the best-available technology for widely disseminating emergency alerts. EAS has been upgraded numerous times since then, including in 2005 to include digital broadcast television as well as satellite radio and television. EAS was further expanded to include Internet-protocol-based television in 2007. FEMA, in partnership with FCC and NOAA, is responsible for operating and maintaining EAS at the federal level. NOAA’s National Weather Service and state and local alerting authorities, in conjunction with local radio and television stations, can also use EAS to disseminate emergency messages, including weather warnings, America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) Alerts, and other public emergency communications, targeted to specific regional and local areas and independent from a presidential alert. PEP stations are usually private or commercial radio stations, but FEMA also designated some satellite providers as PEP stations, such as SiriusXM Satellite and National Public Radio’s Satellite System News Advisory Channel. the country to radio and television stations that rebroadcast the audio and visual message to other broadcast stations, cable systems, and other EAS participants until all participants have been alerted. This retransmission of alerts from EAS participant to EAS participant is commonly referred to as a “daisy chain” distribution system. While FEMA is responsible for administering EAS at the national-level, FCC adopts, administers, and enforces rules governing EAS and the EAS participants. FCC rules require EAS participants to install FCC-certified equipment and transmit all national-level alerts; EAS participants can also voluntarily transmit alerts generated by the National Weather Service or state and local alerting authorities. EAS participants, through their State Emergency Communications Committee, may maintain state EAS plans that contain procedures for the distribution of national-level alerts as well as other voluntary alerts generated by state and local alerting authorities and the National Weather Service.relay network of each state, including the monitoring assignments of EAS participants for all national-level and other alerts. State EAS plans describe the EAS On November 9, 2011, FEMA conducted the first-ever nationwide test of the national-level EAS in response to our prior reports noting the lack of EAS testing. FEMA conducted the test in conjunction with FCC. In conducting the test, FEMA initiated a national-level alert to be distributed through the EAS daisy chain to EAS participants, which include about 26,000 broadcasters, cable operators, and other EAS participants. To obtain information on the results of the test, FCC directed all EAS participants to report either electronically or via paper report by December 27, 2011, on whether they received and retransmitted the alert. Although December 27, 2011, was the deadline, FCC continued to accept paper reports from EAS participants past the deadline. In addition to EAS, state and local alerting authorities may own and operate other warning systems, such as emergency telephone notification systems, sirens, and electronic highway billboards, to provide public emergency information. Additionally, NOAA provides alerts through the NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards system, which is a network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information, including warnings, watches, and forecasts directly from the nearest National Weather Service office. In 2004, FEMA initiated IPAWS to integrate EAS and other public-alerting systems into a larger, more comprehensive public-alerting system. In June 2006, the President issued Executive Order No. 13407, entitled Public Alert and Warning System, adopting a policy that the United States have a comprehensive, integrated alerting system. The order directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to “ensure an orderly and effective transition” from current capabilities to a more coordinated and integrated system and details the responsibilities of the Secretary in meeting the President’s directive. As shown in table 1, the executive order established 10 responsibilities for the Secretary of Homeland Security. It is FEMA’s intention that IPAWS be the programmatic mechanism to carry out the executive order. In addition, in 2006, the Warning, Alert, Response Network Act (WARN Act) was enacted, which required FCC to adopt relevant technical standards, protocols, procedures, and other technical requirements to enable commercial mobile service providers (e.g., wireless providers) to issue emergency alerts. The act required FCC to establish an advisory panel called the Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee to recommend technical specifications and protocols to govern wireless service providers participation in emergency alerting. In 2008, following public notice and opportunity for public comment as required by the Administrative Procedure Act, FCC adopted many of the committee’s recommendations for wireless providers to transmit alerts and began developing the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS), in conjunction with FEMA. We previously reported several factors that limited EAS effectiveness and delayed IPAWS implementation. For example, in 2009, we reported that a lack of redundancy and testing and gaps in coverage, including capabilities to reach individuals with disabilities and non-English speakers, significantly limited EAS reliability and efficiency. We also reported in 2009 that IPAWS program implementation had stalled, as state and local governments were forging ahead with their own alerting systems. We made several recommendations to FEMA to improve program management and enhance transparency about the progress toward achieving an integrated public-alerting system. FEMA implemented all our recommendations, including periodically reporting on the status of implementing IPAWS to congressional committees and subcommittees. Since we reported on these issues in 2009, FEMA has taken actions to improve IPAWS capabilities. In particular, FEMA implemented a federal alert aggregator in 2010, called the IPAWS Open Platform for Emergency Networks, which has increased alerting capabilities for authorities at the federal, state, and local level. The alert aggregator is capable of receiving and authenticating alerts from public-alerting authorities and routing them to various public-alerting systems. As of January 2013, 93 public-alerting authorities, including those in at least 35 states, have gone through the necessary authentication steps with FEMA to use IPAWS and an additional 110 alerting authorities have applications in process.compatible software to compose and transmit alerts via the Internet to the Authorized public-alerting authorities may use IPAWS- alert aggregator using a common standard, called the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). According to FEMA, once the alert aggregator verifies the credentials of the message, an alert may be distributed to the public through multiple alerting systems, which make up the components of IPAWS, as follows: EAS. As of January 2012, public-alerting authorities can disseminate CAP-formatted EAS alerts through the alert aggregator to television and radio stations. As of June 30, 2012, FCC required EAS participants (i.e., radio and television broadcasters, cable operators) to have in place CAP-compatible equipment and monitor the IPAWS EAS feed so they can retrieve and retransmit Internet-based EAS alerts. State and local alerting authorities’ use of IPAWS to send EAS alerts is voluntary and as of January 2013, no public-alerting authorities had used IPAWS to send an EAS alert. However, according to FEMA, state and local alerting authorities had sent 81 EAS test messages via the alert aggregator between January 2012 and January 2013. All-Hazards Emergency Message Collection System (HazCollect). NOAA’s HazCollect system connected to IPAWS in September 2012, and enables federal, state, and local alerting authorities to send non- weather emergency messages through IPAWS to the National Weather Service’s alerting systems, including NOAA Weather Radio’s nationwide network of radio stations. Examples of non-weather emergency message events can include wildfires, hazardous materials releases, terrorist incidents, AMBER alerts, and public health emergencies. According to FEMA, EAS participants generally monitor the NOAA Weather Radio directly for emergency alerts. As a result, IPAWS with HazCollect provides an alternate means for EAS participants to receive non-weather alerts from local alerting authorities, increasing the number of alerting channels and enhancing the likelihood that the public will receive timely alerts. According to FEMA, 22 NOAA Weather Radio messages had been sent via the alert aggregator as of January 2013. CMAS. Starting in April 2012, public-alerting authorities can use IPAWS to transmit alerts via the CMAS interface to disseminate mobile alerts, which are geo-targeted, text-like messages to mobile phones. These alerts are limited to 90 characters and emit a unique ring tone and vibration cadence, which is intended to, among other things, improve capabilities for notifying individuals with disabilities during an emergency. This new capability is designed to relay presidential (or national-level), AMBER, and imminent threat alerts to mobile phones using cell technology that is not subject to the congestion typically experienced on wireless networks during times of emergency. Most imminent threat alerts are issued by the National Weather Service, which began sending severe weather-related alerts to all regions of the country in June 2012. According to FEMA, as of January 2013, the National Weather Service had sent 2,667 weather alerts via CMAS. An additional 3 imminent threat alerts had been sent from one state related to Hurricane Sandy and 17 AMBER alerts had been sent from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. While CMAS became operational in April 2012, participation by wireless carriers is optional under the WARN Act. Nevertheless, according to CTIA—The Wireless Association, all of the major wireless carriers have agreed to participate. Some carriers may still be rolling out CMAS capabilities and not all cell phones are yet capable of receiving alerts, according to CTIA.