Vice President Joe Biden met with public safety officials on June 16 to discuss the future of S. 911, the Public Safety Spectrum & Wireless Innovation Act of 2011.

“The vice president gets it,” says APCO International Immediate Past President Richard Mirgon.

On June 16, one week after the Senate Commerce Committee held a bipartisan vote approving S. 911: The Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act of 2011 for consideration by the Senate, top Obama administration officials met with Mirgon and other leaders of the Public Safety Alliance (PSA) at the White House to discuss the bill’s future. Among the meeting participants were Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

S. 911 would help create a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network by reallocating 10 MHz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band known as the D Block to public safety, as well as fund the system’s build out and maintenance. After passing committee last week, the bill must now be brought to the Senate floor for debate and a vote.

Mirgon says, “[During the meeting, we] talked about the broadband initiative and how important it is to public safety and to America. … This group of people has not been on the same stage for a single issue publically since, maybe, the inauguration. They were all together on one stage talking about the need for the spectrum, being supported by Gov. O’Malley. This is a first. It’s a very distinguished crowd.”

He described the panel as supportive of the bill. The vice president in particular emphasized that this initiative goes beyond public safety.

“The most memorable part was Joe Biden, his heartfelt passion on the need for this network, and that it not only supports public safety, but the community,” says Mirgon. “The average citizen has got to have the ability to push more data, such as medical information, through a network and into the hands of the first responders. It’s extremely encouraging that the vice president has such passion [for this issue]. The vice president gets it.”

According to Mirgon, the fight to pass this legislation, which he has been a part of for almost two years, has been difficult, but that difficulty has been mitigated by the advocates public safety has found in Washington, including Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Kay Bailey Hutchison. 

“What has helped this process are the champions we have been able to engage in the White House and the Senate,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of people out there trying to help us. This network changes the way we do business forever; it improves the way we do business, and we have a lot of members in Washington trying to help us accomplish that end.”

Next Steps
Although Thursday’s meeting was positive, S. 911 still has a long way to go before moving to the House, which will be the PSA’s focus in the weeks to come.

In a release from the PSA after the meeting, Chief Jeff Johnson said, “We ask Majority Leader [Harry] Reid and Republican Leader [Mitch] McConnell to bring this overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation, S. 911, to the floor of the Senate before leaving for the August recess, and we ask the House Energy and Commerce Committee to either introduce their own bill or take up H.R. 607 immediately.”

Mirgon says, “We will be going back to our members, to our grassroots efforts, to once again start calling key senators [and asking them] to support the bill and support getting to the floor and to support its passage. Our strength is in our grassroots efforts,”

According to Mirgon, if S. 911 goes to the House, its greatest hurdle will be overcoming the debate about the federal deficit. He says, “We are asking for significant funding and they are trying to reduce the deficit. We need them to understand the specific value of the network, the jobs it will create and the lives it will save—it will become a hurdle.”

Be Proactive
Public safety’s grassroots effort includes you.

“Everybody in public safety needs to reach out their congressmen or senators today and call them and tell them how important it is for S. 911 to be passed,” says Mirgon. “It’s absolutely critical. The reason we have gotten this far is because of them as [public safety and APCO] members, and how we will bring this [legislation] home is for them to continue and repeat their outreach.”

For more information on this issue and to get involved, visit http://www.psafirst.org/.

About the Author
Natasha Yetman is associate editor for APCO International’s Public Safety Communications magazine. Contact her via e-mail.