STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
Re:   Wireless Emergency Alerts, PS Docket No. 15-91; Amendments to Part 11 of the Commission’s
Rules Regarding the Emergency Alert System, PS Docket No. 15-94.
Today’s Order on Reconsideration reaffirms the Commission’s timeframe for supporting basic 
geo-targeting for Wireless Emergency Alerts.  It also reaffirms the timeframe for the five largest mobile 
service providers to provide embedded references, but allows smaller, regional operators additional time 
to come into compliance with that requirement.  
While I support this effort to update the WEA system, recent events demonstrate the need to 
move with greater dispatch.  The very steps we address here could have saved life and property as 
wildfires made their way through Northern California and hurricanes made landfall in Texas, Florida, and 
Puerto Rico.  As Senator Harris and Senator Feinstein have noted, “emergency services in Northern 
California were not able to transmit lifesaving WEA messages, because of significant technical 
deficiencies in the WEA system.”  Those deficiencies include a lack of precise geo-targeting.  And before 
Hurricane Harvey even hit Houston, Harris County public safety officials warned that WEA cannot be 
used to order evacuation for a hurricane, “because it is not able to target geographic areas accurately 
enough to make sure that distinct emergency instructions are being received by geographically adjacent 
groups.”  
We shouldn’t be caught short like this again.  Last year, the Commission proposed additional 
steps to improve the WEA system—including more granular geo-targeting, preservation of WEA 
messages, multilingual WEA messages, inclusion of multimedia, and the addition of two-way 
capabilities.  We should address every one of these outstanding issues now—before the next disaster 
compels us to do so.