Holland Reporter

State Rep. Bradley Slagh (R-Zeeland) recently introduced a bill that would protect the Michigan Emergency Alert System (EAS) from being devalued through use as an outlet for public service messages rather than emergencies.

Slagh’s legislation, named House Bill 6100, came about in response to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's increasing use of the system to push announcements of her growing number of executive orders onto the screens of Michigan residents’ cell phones, a release issued on the Michigan House Republicans website said.

“The EAS was designed to alert people of true emergencies, not to be employed for public service announcements,” Slagh said in the release. The continued overuse of the system by Whitmer’s office could desensitize residents to alerts, causing them to ignore warnings of immediate threats to their life and safety.

The plan Slagh has put forward would restrict the system for use only by first responders to alert the public to immediate or imminent threats to life, safety and property.

Situations the bill would permit the system to be used for include, “acts of terrorism, unresolved mass shootings, natural disasters, industrial explosions, train derailments and announcements of missing endangered individuals,” though it would not limit system usage to only those types of incidents, the release stated. Furthermore, the bill would prohibit the use of the system for making such public service announcements as introducing new laws or executive orders unrelated to immediate threats to life, safety or property.

“It seems as if our governor has confused the two in an effort to create another convenient medium for publicizing her unilateral mandates,” Slagh said in the release. “An overuse of the emergency system for non-emergencies sets a dangerous precedent because it will likely cause people to become numb to legitimate emergency alerts – the proverbial ‘boy who cried wolf' situation.”