As we wrote here, MMTC (a DC-based public interest group) had petitioned the US Court of Appeals for a Rehearing on its decision (about which we wrote here) upholding the FCC decision deciding not to impose any multilingual EAS obligations on broadcasters. The full Court of Appeals has just issued a one sentence order denying that reconsideration request. While, theoretically, MMTC’s next appeal would be to the Supreme Court, lacking an issue of major significance or constitutional importance, that is unlikely.
Thus, as we wrote here, the next step in any attempt to deal with multilingual EAS alerts will be with the FCC, which has agreed to further consider a survey of state EAS coordinators (“SECCs”) to see how best to insure that EAS alerts are distributed widely to the entire population. By May, SECCs are supposed to integrate information about non-English speaking groups within their states into their State EAS plans, and file those revised plans with the FCC. After that has occurred, we will see if the FCC takes further action in this area. So stay tuned, as the issue continues to evolve.