00:00The quorum call be vitiated. Without objection. Mr. President, while we're waiting for our
00:05colleague to come, if I could, my colleague, I so appreciate Senator Murray and Leader Schumer
00:12out here speaking on these important issues. But as a committee who's thought a lot about storms
00:17lately, we're not just putting PBS at risk here. We're putting millions of Americans who depend on
00:22local media for life-saving information. And what's in this rescission request is really
00:29making sure that public broadcasters don't have that ability, at least in 20 states where they
00:35have emergency plans. So what happens is that NPR manages public radio satellite systems. They
00:43receive emergency alerts. They tell us to get out of the way. PBS operates those warning alert and
00:49response networks, which then transmits over 11,000 emergency alerts alone last year, a 30% increase
00:57from the previous year. So why are we talking about cutting off emergency alerts? That's 1,000 times
01:04these stations were warned to tell people that their lives were in danger. Let me explain what PBS's
01:11warning system means for American families in plain English. When emergency managers such as someone at
01:17FEMA or the National Weather Service or local officials hit send on a life-saving alert, it normally travels
01:25through wireless carriers infrastructure to reach cell towers. But what happens when those cyber attacks
01:31or those infrastructures are crippled? When the fiber lines don't work or they're cut in a storm? When
01:36disaster like fire or flood or hurricane knocks them out? What happens to the communication
01:42infrastructure then? Well, that's what PBS WARN does. It fills in. PBS stations also on the radio
01:51through the airwaves because they don't have to rely on physical infrastructure. They basically communicate
01:57to more than 340 PBS stations nationwide. These stations running on backup generators are built to broadcast
02:05through disasters. I mean, I think if anybody's got any history to them, they realize that there has been lots of
02:12life-saving information over the airwaves. So local infrastructure like TV receivers, local regional facilities grab that
02:20alert signal from the PBS broadcast, no internet required, and they get the information out to us. This system and these
02:29critical alerts are the primary thing that we use in the nation when everything else goes dark. That means that every PBS
02:37transmitter becomes a backup lifetime line for emergency alerts, ensuring that warnings about tornadoes,
02:45fires, floods, and evacuations reach your cell phone in seconds. Just think about that. If you don't, if you have this
02:53flood we had in Kerrville and you don't have a communication system, the PBS system is the one that sends the alerts
02:59because they've gotten it through the airwaves. This administration, and my colleagues now want to pull the plug on this,
03:07just look at yesterday's alerts alone on flash flooding in North Carolina, in Central Texas, in Arizona,
03:14a statewide missing person alert in Kentucky, a tornado warning across Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin,
03:21and double and dozens more. Why would we want anybody to miss a disaster alert? It could even be about boiling
03:30water and making sure that you have the right water. These are all important communication systems,
03:36and they're important when cell phones and the internet don't work. On November 30th, 2018, a magnitude 7.1
03:43earthquake shook south-central Alaska. In Anchorage, roads split apart, buildings crumbled, power lines snapped, cell towers went down within seconds, and people panicked as they tried to reach loved ones. The internet failed. But Alaska public media never stopped broadcasting. Operating on backup power,
04:03they immediately activated their emergency protocols. As the aftershocks, including a 5.7 trimmer, continued to rock the region, APM provided real-time updates on road closures, school evacuations, and tsunami warnings.
04:23They broadcast which bridges had been damaged, where emergency shelters had opened, most critically assured isolated communities that the help was on the way. For thousands of Alaskans, that familiar voice on radio was their only connection to vital information during the most terrifying memories that they have had.
04:42In a letter to the editor of Anchorage Daily News, one person wrote, quote, commercial radio may be helpful down south, but rural Alaska is different. Pick any rural Alaskan community with exposure to these dangers, and you will find probably that they don't have a commercial radio station. They probably do receive the NPR station.
05:03In rural Alaska, they continued, there is no market-driven solution to ensure emergency broadcasts are available in a disaster. That reoccurs on a hundred-year scale time, end quote.
05:20So, it's not just Alaska that has this problem. Consider what happened in Kentucky during the historic tornadoes in December of 2021, when the devastating EF4 tornado carved a 160-mile path of destruction on one of the longest tornado tracks in our nation's history.
05:40WKMS Public Radio became the sole source of news for thousands of Kentuckians.
05:46As the tornado ripped through Mayfield at 930, destroying the town's candle factory with 110 people stuck inside, commercial power failed across western Kentucky, and those cell towers toppled, the internet connections vanished, and WKMS kept broadcasting on a backup power, guiding search and rescue teams through darkness.
06:09It is time that, in the words of station managers, quote, in these kinds of moments, your emergency radio or your car radio is literally the only thing to have to get you life, to get you any news or a lifeline, end quote.
06:26I ask my colleagues, please do not cut off emergency broadcast funding.
06:32How could you possibly think that's a wise idea in the events that we are facing in our nation?
