{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://barragan.house.gov/2025/12/15/law360-fcc-moves-forward-on-multilingual-wireless-alerts/", "Law360: FCC Moves Forward On Multilingual Wireless Alerts", "2025-12-15", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "House", "CA", "Nanette Diaz Barrag\u00e1n", "B001300", "barragan.house.gov", "barragan", "https://barragan.house.gov/news", "scraper", "By Christopher Cole \u2013 12/15/2025\n\nLaw360 (December 15, 2025, 7:22 PM EST) \u2014 The Federal Communications Commission will soon make effective a rule rolling out multilingual alert templates for cellphones during public emergencies following pressure from Democrats on Capitol Hill over alleged delays in the effort.\n\nAmid questions about the technical feasibility of using a variety of language templates in wireless emergency alerts, the agency published a late Biden-era rule updating the alerts in the Dec. 10 Federal Register.\n\nDemocrats claimed this summer that the FCC was dragging its feet in publishing the language templates even though it had been approved by the agency in January.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m pleased to see the FCC take this important first step toward ensuring that immigrants, tourists and other non-English speakers have the information they need to stay safe during emergency situations,\u201d Rep. Nanette Diaz Barrag\u00e1n, D-Calif., said in a statement Monday. \u201cLives are on the line, and I\u2019ll be watching closely to ensure that the FCC and mobile service providers follow through and work in good faith to implement this critical policy.\u201d\n\nThe FCC first agreed to the multilingual alerts rule in fall 2023, but an order in January created templates for use in wireless emergency alerts.\n\nWhen the templates had not been published months later, congressional Democrats decried how much time was going by without putting them into effect. Federal Register publication is a necessary formality to cement the rules into the regulatory code.\n\nAt the time, FCC officials said nothing should be construed as holding up the industry\u2019s provision of multilingual alerts as carriers send out warnings to the public about disasters and imminent dangers.\n\nIn fact, Carr told Barrag\u00e1n in a July response that as designed, the templates \u201cdo not and could not work today or for years to come \u2014 as the FCC itself has conceded.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor another, dozens of groups representing non-English speakers have made clear that the template approach would be \u2018counterproductive\u2019 and uncomprehensible to many non-English speakers,\u201d he said. \u201cPlowing ahead with an approach that does not work technically today and, even if it did work, would leave people without actionable information does not serve the public interest.\u201d\n\nThe FCC has also emphasized that nothing prevented mobile providers from sending out alerts in multiple languages, and that implying otherwise risked misleading alert originators.\n\nThis month\u2019s Federal Register notice sets a June 2028 effective date but reiterates an agency decision that \u201cthe multilingual templates we adopt today are optional for use by alerting authorities.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the event an alert originator does not find it appropriate to use the template, they are not obligated to,\u201d the agency said.\n\nThe FCC did not immediately respond to a press inquiry Monday.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://barragan.house.gov/2025/12/15/law360-fcc-moves-forward-on-multilingual-wireless-alerts/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7222667336463928, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}