NENA Members Prepare for 911 Hill Advocacy

"Nothing becomes law if it’s not bipartisan in this environment,” said Roger Sherman, senior counsel for the House Committee on Energy & Commerce Democratic staff. “It’s incumbent on staff to make sure the other body knows what you're working on.” Public safety issues can often attract bipartisan support, he added. He briefed the audience on how his committee operates and its consultation with the NTIA, FCC and White House staff. Committee staff try to avoid political pressure with FCC staff and seek out their input for a technical perspective when considering bills: “We never put FCC staffers in the position of being political” and “make efforts not to engage them that way,” Sherman said. “In the commissioners’ offices, obviously, there’s plenty of politics to go around.” The collaboration between Hill staff and the agencies was Sherman’s “biggest surprise” in his position, he said.

NENA provided members with talking points in its meeting packet. One card contains three bullet points. The first noted that the Next Generation 911 Advancement Act is “beginning to bear fruit.” The second said that Congress can offer incentives at no cost “by leveling the playing field for 9-1-1.” The third noted that Congress can hasten the next-generation deployment “by authorizing [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] NHTSA to create a national PSAP [public safety answering point] Credentialing Agency (also known as a ‘certificate authority') and to deploy a national Forest Guide.” In recent testimony, this definition was offered: “A Forest Guide is a national database that contains boundary information for lower-level routing servers at the state and/or local levels."

Sherman advised NENA members to keep their messages simple when meeting with Hill staffers this week and get to know whom they're talking to. “If you really want to get a bill to move, you should work closely with committee staff -- get their buy-in,” he added. NENA CEO Brian Fontes, a former FCC chief of staff, affirmed this message and the nonpartisan nature of the FCC staff in a later discussion. He described how the broad strokes of legislation are translated into action from the agencies. “The detail is formulated in the rulemaking,” Fontes said. He detailed the way the FCC attempts to deal with non-controversial items through the circulation process, with the effect on businesses, taxes and jobs coming into play. Fontes mentioned the “seismic” decision of the FCC to approve the T-Mobile acquisition of MetroPCS, which happened on the bureau level rather than through an official FCC commission vote: “That was pretty impressive.”

Fontes also discussed what he views as the “critical” enforcement role the FCC plays amid its licensing and described himself as a “big believer in compliance.” It’s “pretty astounding” that the FCC serves as the regulatory body for an industry that’s one of the largest in the country, given the agency’s limited resources and number of employees, he said.

One “improvement” in awareness is greater government attention to “survivability of 911 … front and center” in the wake of disasters like last year’s Superstorm Sandy and the June derecho, Fontes said. David Sobczyk, director of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting initiative program management office, briefed the 911 directors on ways they can receive free training on how to best report suspicious activities. “We all have skin in the game,” he said. He explained that tips come from communities of all sizes. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, inspired the initiative, and he showcased a video detailing multiple scenarios that 911 call takers may receive. “We want to empower state and local analysts,” Sobczyk said, calling the program a success so far. It’s received more than 26,000 reports in the system -- “raw information” -- and more than 1,400 of those reports have led to FBI terrorism investigations, he said.