DENNIS A. CARDOZA: “my amendment is a simple sense of Congress stressing the importance of interoperability in emergency communications. We…”

“my amendment is a simple sense of Congress stressing the importance of interoperability in emergency communications. We all know the importance of overcoming interoperability problems, which have been prevalent for years but only brought to light due to the 9/11 tragedy. In this day and age, Mr. Chairman, it is critical that our first responders be able to communicate with each other in the field. The reality, however, is that firefighters, police and other emergency responders simply cannot communicate during times of emergency. For example, police chiefs in my district have informed me that officers are forced to communicate on their cell phones literally from across the street because their radios cannot operate on the same frequency; and, recently, radio communications were ineffective and created an extremely dangerous situation in the 2006 canyon fire that devastated 34,000 acres in the western portion of Stanislaus County. The need for improved emergency communications is not new.”