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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 159 / Friday, August 20, 2021 / Rules and Regulations
state, local, Tribal, and territorial governments and delivered over the radio, television, and mobile wireless devices. These announcements keep the public safe and informed and have increased in importance in the wake of the emergencies and disasters experienced by Americans in the past few years. Congress has determined that WEA and EAS rule changes are necessary to increase oversight over the distribution of state and local EAS alerts within states, increase the likelihood that the public will receive full alerts pertaining to national security, and increase false alert reporting capabilities to help ameliorate confusion or other harmful effects resulting from false alerts. Consistent with the congressional directives in the NDAA21, the Commission amends its WEA and EAS
rules to ensure that more people receive relevant emergency alerts, to enable EAS and WEA participants to report false alerts when they occur, and to improve the way states plan for emergency alerts.
Specifically, the Commission amends its rules to i replace WEAs existing Presidential Alert class with a National Alert class that would ensure that WEAenabled mobile devices could not optout of receiving WEA alerts issued by the President or the Presidents authorized designee or by the FEMA
Administrator; ii require participating Commercial Mobile Service CMS
providers that use WEA header displays that read Presidential Alert to change those alert headers to read National Alert or to remove such headers altogether; iii encourage chief executives of states to form SECCs if none exist in their states, or if they do, to review their composition and governance, update their State EAS
plans annually, and certify that they have met in person, via teleconference, or via other methods of conducting virtual meetings at least once in the twelve months prior to submitting the annual updated plan to review and update the plan; iv incorporate certain processing actions concerning SECCs and the FCCs administration of State EAS Plans; v enable false EAS and WEA alert reporting by the FEMA
Administrator as well as state, local, Tribal, and territorial governments; and vi provide for repeating EAS alerts issued by the President, the Administrator of FEMA and any other entity determined appropriate under the circumstances by the Commission, in consultation with the Administrator of FEMA.
The rules adopted in the Order are intended to increase participation by state, local, Tribal, and territorial
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governments in the administration of State EAS Plans, enhance administration of EAS alerting, hasten corrective action when any false alerts are issued, and better enable alert originators to repeat alerts. They will benefit the public by strengthening national, state, local, Tribal, and territorial alerting activities, minimizing confusion and disruption caused by false alerts, increasing the chances for the public to receive critical alert messages, and will facilitate the further development of a robust and redundant system for distributing vital alert information to all Americans.
B. Summary of Significant Issues Raised by Public Comments in Response to the IRFA
There were no comments filed that specifically addressed the proposed rules and policies presented in the IRFA.
C. Response to Comments by the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration Pursuant to the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, which amended the RFA, the Commission is required to respond to any comments filed by the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration SBA, and to provide a detailed statement of any change made to the proposed rules as a result of those comments.
The Chief Counsel did not file any comments in response to the proposed rules in this proceeding.
D. Description and Estimate of the Number of Small Entities to Which the Rules Will Apply The RFA directs agencies to provide a description of and, where feasible, an estimate of, the number of small entities that may be affected by the rules, adopted herein. The RFA generally defines the term small entity as having the same meaning as the terms small business, small organization, and small governmental jurisdiction.
In addition, the term small business has the same meaning as the term small business concern under the Small Business Act. A small business concern is one which: 1 Is independently owned and operated; 2
is not dominant in its field of operation;
and 3 satisfies any additional criteria established by the SBA.
Small Businesses, Small Organizations, and Small Governmental Jurisdictions. The Commissions actions may, over time, affect small entities that are not easily categorized at present.
The Commission therefore describes here, at the outset, three broad groups of
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small entities that could be directly affected herein. First, while there are industry specific size standards for small businesses that are used in the regulatory flexibility analysis, according to data from the SBAs Office of Advocacy, in general a small business is an independent business having fewer than 500 employees. These types of small businesses represent 99.9% of all businesses in the United States which translates to 30.7 million businesses.
Next, the type of small entity described as a small organization is generally any not-for-profit enterprise which is independently owned and operated and is not dominant in its field. Internal Revenue Service IRS
uses a revenue benchmark of $50,000 or less to delineate its annual electronic filing requirements for small exempt organizations. Nationwide, for tax year 2018, there were approximately 571,709
small exempt organizations in the U.S.
reporting revenues of $50,000 or less according to the registration and tax data for exempt organizations available from the IRS.
Finally, the small entity described as a small governmental jurisdiction is defined generally as governments of cities, counties, towns, townships, villages, school districts, or special districts, with a population of less than fifty thousand. U.S. Census Bureau data from the 2017 Census of Governments indicate that there were 90,056 local governmental jurisdictions consisting of general purpose governments and special purpose governments in the United States. Of this number there were 36,931 General purpose governments county, municipal and town or township with populations of less than 50,000 and 12,040 special purpose governments independent school districts with enrollment of less than 50,000.
Accordingly, based on the 2017 U.S.
Census of Governments data, the Commission estimates that at least 48,971 entities fall into the category of small governmental jurisdictions.
Radio Stations. This Economic Census category comprises establishments primarily engaged in broadcasting aural programs by radio to the public. Programming may originate in their own studio, from an affiliated network, or from external sources. The SBA has established a small business size standard for this category as firms having $41.5 million or less in annual receipts. Economic Census data for 2012
show that 2,849 radio station firms operated during that year. Of that number, 2,806 firms operated with annual receipts of less than $25 million per year, 17 with annual receipts
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