§576 Emergency Communications Preparedness Center

Summary

Creates the Emergency Communications Preparedness Center (the Center). The Secretary, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Commerce, the Attorney General, and other federal department and agency heads (or their designees) must run the Center together under an agreement called the "Emergency Communications Preparedness Center (ECPC) Charter." The Center must be the central place for agencies and governments to share information and coordinate so emergency responders and officials can keep communicating during natural disasters, terrorism, and other man-made disasters, and to support interoperable emergency communications while avoiding overlap or conflicting actions. Each year the Center must send Congress a strategic assessment of federal coordination on these goals. In making that assessment, the Center must consider the goals in the National Emergency Communications Plan under section 572. The Center also performs other tasks listed in the ECPC Charter.