The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act will help protect our emergency infrastructure

On Feb. 22, millions of Americans lost complete access to their cellular reception thanks to signal blackouts that crossed the entire country. This episode, while unfortunate, demonstrates just how crucial it is for Congress to begin shoring up the United States’ emergency infrastructure. 

Losing cell service for significant periods does not just present work and scheduling inconveniences. It also poses grave threats to public safety. 

During the peak of the Feb. 22 outages, various first responders made this point abundantly clear. The San Francisco Fire Department expressed concern about the lack of reception impacting people’s ability to reach emergency services, as did the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office in Florida and countless other emergency managers. 

When disasters strike, the citizenry needs access to life-saving information. Cell towers and internet signals are notorious for going down in such instances. They are extremely vulnerable to bad weather and the traffic spikes that frequently occur in emergencies. 

Moreover, as highlighted by a Tuesday Reuters report, which indicated that Moscow may be developing a space nuclear weapon to knock out key U.S. infrastructure satellites, cell towers and internet signals are also highly vulnerable to malign foreign influence campaigns. The first strike capability such a weapon presents could prevent Americans from communicating through these channels.

In response to the Reuters report, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) went so far as to say that future foreign cyber attacks will prove “100 times worse” than the Feb. 22 cellphone blackouts that took the U.S. by storm. Most defense analysts agree with him. 

For all these reasons, Congress, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Communications Commission worked together to create an emergency management system capable of withstanding even the worst disasters. By all accounts, the culmination of their efforts — the National Public Warning System (NPWS) and Emergency Alert System (EAS) — has exceeded all expectations. 

Given today’s political climate, where geopolitical relations remain tenser than at any point in the last two decades, and where cyber attacks and blackouts have become increasingly prominent, protecting Americans’ access to effective public warnings through the NPWS and EAS remains more important than ever. Unfortunately, however, America’s public warning infrastructure faces more worrisome threat today than ever before.  

Some automakers have begun to compromise America’s public warning systems by removing AM radios from their car dashes. This is problematic because AM radio is the foundation of both the NPWS and EAS. While other communications platforms like cell and Internet are important to public safety, they have neither the reach nor the resiliency of AM. As was witnessed during the Maui fires and countless other disasters, where there was no power and cell towers quickly became overwhelmed, radio is often the only communication available to those in harm’s way. That is why it has always been the fail-safe communication system public safety leaders rely upon to keep the citizenry safe and informed — and why FEMA has cautioned carmakers away from removing AM.  

Fortunately, this prescient issue is not lost on lawmakers, who are working overtime to protect America’s national public safety infrastructure from this accessibility threat. 

Most significantly, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, a popular bipartisan bill that would ensure automakers retain AM in their dashes for years to come. The legislation, endorsed by the Department of Transportation this month and every head of FEMA from the Clinton through Trump administrations last year, already cleared the relevant Senate committee of jurisdiction and is awaiting a vote in Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ (R-Wash.) House Energy and Commerce Committee. 

The auto industry is opposing the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, arguing that new digital streaming services and cellphones can adequately keep the population informed. However, millions of Americans have limited to no cell coverage on a good day and rely on AM radio stations for critical emergency information. 

As the Feb. 22 nationwide cell outage illustrated, even those in America’s largest cities can lose connectivity. The impact of a more nefarious attack on the U.S.’ communications infrastructure would be devastating, and it would be malpractice for the government to allow a few companies to take away its most effective means of keep the public informed.

Now is a more important time than ever to protect America’s emergency infrastructure. Last week’s cell outage and the revelation of Russia’s capacity to disrupt U.S. communications satellites should be a sobering wake-up call to Congress that it is time to pass the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act. Here’s hoping Congress listens to the nation’s leading public safety experts and acts before the consequences of inaction become tragically significant. 

Pete Gaynor served as administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.