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As a Texan who witnessed the damage and devastation that Hurricane Harvey caused firsthand, I couldn’t be happier to see a bill that Sen. Ted Cruz introduced to protect us from the next disaster nearing congressional passage.
Former Department of Homeland Security chief Elaine Duke recently stated that his legislation, The AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, will soon receive a key committee vote in Congress. The bill addresses the number of automakers who have chosen to remove AM radios from their vehicles, typically offering them at an upcharge instead.
The government has always offered AM radio for free as a public service because of how vital it is for broadcasting news — especially breaking news before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of emergency situations. And the automakers who have received billions in subsidies from the government have always been expected to retain it. But now they’re trying to evade this responsibility despite AM radio’s proven history of keeping us safe when no other communications medium could.
As Cruz put it, “When other forms of communication go down, AM radio is consistently the most resilient to help people get out of harm’s way.”
That was exactly Texas’ experience during Hurricane Harvey. Daven Solis, a Federal Emergency Management Agency first responder, stated that when he deployed to Texas with FEMA during that treacherous 2017 storm, “AM radio represented the only way that thousands of Texans received critical alerts and updates from their local public safety professionals.” Their phones and computers got knocked out from the storm, he said, but the “alerts available via the radio remained as strong as ever.”
Pete Gaynor, who ran FEMA at the time, had the same recollection. He was “was moved by the many station managers who slept on the floor of their offices for days because they knew they were the only way thousands of Texans could receive the latest news about recovery teams, shelters, and water recession levels.”
Every other leader of FEMA from the Clinton through Trump administrations has endorsed Sen. Cruz’s bill for the same reason as Solis and Gaynor. In a joint letter they sent to congressional leadership in support of the legislation, they highlighted Hurricane Harvey as an example of how the government’s AM radio-powered National Public Warning System has saved “countless lives.”
I think I speak for everyone when I say that saving lives is more important than billion-dollar automakers saving a few pennies.
When our power, cell towers, and Internet go dark during spouts of bad weather and during times of high demand, we need a way to know what’s going on in the world. That information shouldn’t get hidden behind an auto manufacturer-created paywall. Especially not when these auto giants — some of the wealthiest companies in the country! — are already doing just fine for themselves. They don’t need to make more money off the backs of their customers and our nation’s national security interests when we're already subsidizing them handsomely.
Thanks to Sen. Cruz’s leadership, they won’t. He could have easily avoided taking on this major, multi-billion dollar interest and opted not to introduce this bill, but instead, he chose to stand with us little guys as he always does. I couldn’t be prouder to call him my senator and I look forward to seeing his bill get speedily enacted into law.
Matt Mackowiak is the president of Potomac Strategy Group, served in the Bush administration at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, and was a senior communications aide to two U.S. Senators and a Governor.
