Hudson Eyes Stopgap NG911 Money as Funding Mechanism Remains Unresolved
House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., confirmed after Tuesday's subpanel hearing that there's still no clear funding mechanism for proposed federal grants to pay for next-generation 911 technology upgrades. However, he said he's open to providing a smaller first tranche of money to states and localities while trying to establish a new cost estimate for the full buildout. Witnesses at the hearing praised the Hudson-led Next Generation 911 Act (HR-6505), as expected (see 2512150035), even though it doesn’t include a defined amount of NG911 funding. A previous iteration of the measure in the last Congress allocated $15 billion for the tech upgrades (see 2303240067)
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“I’ve been having discussions with” House GOP leadership and congressional Democrats on “the best way to” fund NG911, but there’s still not a definite solution, Hudson told us Tuesday. NG911 advocates have been pressing for an alternative funding mechanism since congressional Republicans decided earlier this year against allocating future spectrum auction revenue for it in the budget reconciliation package (see 2507080065).
“One of our challenges is we don't know … how much money it's going to cost,” given concerns that the existing 2018 NG911 estimate from NTIA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration may no longer reflect the current price tag, Hudson said. NTIA and NHTSA found that full deployment of the technology would cost $9.5 billion-$12.7 billion (see 1810050051). But Hudson acknowledged that a new study of NG911’s cost, which he called for earlier this year (see 2505140062), could “slow things down.”
Hudson also said congressional action on a smaller pot of NG911 money to jump-start deployment is “on the table” as a stopgap option, after National Emergency Number Association CEO John Provenzano advocated for it in a recent interview. “I want to get moving and move as fast as we can,” Hudson told us. “We're in the realm of the art of the possible right now, so I’m having discussions with my colleagues and trying to figure it out.”
During Tuesday's hearing, House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., blamed Republicans for the NG911 funding uncertainty. “Republicans’ decision to use spectrum auction proceeds to pay for tax breaks for billionaires [makes the] task of funding [NG911] that much more difficult,” Pallone said. “Our first responders shouldn't be left without” NG911 because House Commerce Republicans “walked away from” their backing of previous bills like the 2023 Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (see 2305240069), which would have funded it, Matsui said.
Capt. Jack Varnado, 911 director for the Livingston Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Office and Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) president, told Hudson on Tuesday that he didn’t “have an updated” estimate for how much money Congress needs to allocate to NG911 beyond the $15 billion in the previous iteration of the NG911 Act. But “we don't need to kick the can down the road anymore,” Varnado said. “We need to get this going … because what we're doing is we are leaving the smaller, more rural, less-funded centers behind.”
Hudson told Varnado he wants APCO to “help us drill down and figure out what exactly” the NG911 cost estimate is now. “We have finite resources, and we want to make sure we're deploying them efficiently.” The true cost now “may be less than [$15 billion] because a lot of other folks have upgraded” since 2018, he said, or “it might be more than [$15 billion] because the technology is more expensive than it was a few years ago.”
Meanwhile, the Fraternal Order of Police and Public Safety Broadband Technology Association (PSBTA) criticized the Public Safety Communications Act (HR-1519) ahead of Tuesday's hearing. The bill would create an Office of Public Safety Communications within NTIA to administer NG911 funding and communicate policies to public and private entities. Varnado -- along with Wilkinson Barker’s Matthew Gerst, testifying on behalf of CTIA, and Jennifer Manner, AST SpaceMobile's senior vice president of regulatory affairs and international strategy -- praised the measure Tuesday.
HR-1519 “materially alters the existing FirstNet governance structure” that Congress created in 2012 by inserting NTIA “as an additional layer of federal management over the FirstNet Authority Board, which Congress intentionally designed to include strong public safety representation,” PSBTA Executive Director John Paul Jones said in a letter to Hudson and House Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky. “This expansion of the NTIA’s role would create confusion, slow decision-making, and reduce public safety’s input and [oversight] on the future direction of the FirstNet program.”
The Fraternal Order of Police believes HR-1519 “would encroach on” the FirstNet board’s “role by adding unnecessary and harmful layers of bureaucracy,” said President Patrick Yoes in a letter to Guthrie and Hudson. “Any changes to the governance of FirstNet absolutely must include input and consultation with the public safety community. The FOP wants to ensure the [FirstNet board] continues to oversee FirstNet and make decisions about [its] future investments and network improvements because that Board has proven to be highly responsive to our input and that of the wider public safety community.”