WHEREAS, It is in the public interest for the Congress of the United States to enact legislation to establish and implement an effective, reliable, integrated, flexible, and comprehensive system that will alert and warn the American people in situations of war, terrorist attack, natural disaster, or other hazards to public health, safety, and well-being, taking into account the functions, capabilities, and needs of all people, the private sector, and governments, to ensure that universal communication is at all times and in all places available to warn the American people of impending danger; and

WHEREAS, It is in the public interest for Congress to investigate and conduct hearings to inventory, evaluate, and assess capabilities of federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local public alert and warning resources in order to develop an integrated public alert and warning system; and

WHEREAS, Alerting and warning protocols, standards, terminology, and operating procedures of the public alert and warning system should be designed without the need for maintaining a database of personal information so that the privacy of all Americans is protected; and

WHEREAS, An integrated public alert and warning system should be designed to deliver secure and coordinated messages to the American people through as many communication pathways as practical, and should be developed using the latest technology so warnings and timely alerts may be delivered to the entire population when surface infrastructure does not exist or has been compromised; and

WHEREAS, The public alert and warning system should be designed so that the distribution and content of communications may be adapted based on location, risk, or user preference; and

WHEREAS, The public alert and warning system should have the capacity to alert and warn all Americans, including people who have disabilities, who do not speak English, or who are in remote areas of the country; and

WHEREAS, Cooperation with owners and operators of communication facilities is necessary to maintain, protect, and restore communications facilities and capabilities of the public alert and warning system; and

WHEREAS, Direct access to training, annual tests, and exercises for the public alert and warning system should be established and provided to appropriate federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial entities; and

WHEREAS, It is in the public interest to establish public education efforts so that federal, state, territorial, tribal, and local governments, the private sector, and the American people know how to access, use, and respond to information delivered through the public alert and warning system; and

WHEREAS, Federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, and media communication organizations should be required to consult and coordinate with the private sector, including emergency response providers and users, for the implementation of a state-of-the-art public alert and warning system; now, therefore, be it