IPAWS Legislation Passes House of Representatives

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation recently to formally authorize, for the first time, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). The legislation passed the Senate in July 2015, and is now headed to the President to be signed into law.

The IPAWS Act ensures that all parts of the nation's emergency alert systems - broadcast radio and television alerts, cell phone text messages and other communications pathways - are unified and interoperable. This enables all levels of government to issue warnings through a singular means rather than a patchwork of systems.

In addition to establishing technical implementation and system requirements that modernize IPAWS, this legislation aims to further the proliferation of this unified alert system by establishing:

1. A training program to ensure that federal, state, tribal and local government officials are properly instructed on system use; and
2. An IPAWS Advisory Subcommittee composed of federal, state and local representatives, as well as members from various industry groups - including NAB - to oversee and make recommendations to Congress on the program.

NAB applauds Congress’ work to modernize and implement this important tool.