FCC Chairman Michael Powell and Dennis Strigl, president and CEO of Verizon Wireless and executive vice president for Verizon Communications, will appear before the NGA's Economic Development and Commerce Committee on Monday to discuss the amount of spectrum allocated for states to use for public safety.
At the Economic Development and Commerce Committee meeting, governors will address concerns over the portion of spectrum that states need for public safety, which is currently occupied by television broadcasters. Under the law, that portion of spectrum does not have to be vacated and provided to states until 2006, at the earliest.
Without that spectrum many law enforcement and emergency response agencies are forced to operate on different and incompatible frequencies. As a result, first responders from different agencies can't communicate with each other. Inadequate spectrum was a critical issue after the Oklahoma City bombing and during the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center on September 11.
President Bush signed a bill last month that delays indefinitely the ability of the FCC to auction the portion of spectrum. The action could help states by forcing federal legislation to set a date when the spectrum must be provided to states.
Homeland security issues will also be the focus of a session for all meeting attendees. The session will feature Louise Richardson, executive dean at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and Joseph Henderson, former CDC bio-terrorism division director and now vice president and chief public health officer with Scientific Technologies Corp.
Richardson will discuss what other countries are doing to combat terrorism, the patterns of terrorism, and other international terrorist "hot spots." Henderson will share his experiences when he was with CDC during the anthrax attack, and the improvements needed in public health infrastructure to deal with bio terrorism.
