"The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) today announced the adoption of a new digital message format for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), the nation's next generation emergency alert and warning network.
The new digital message format being adopted by FEMA is the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
(OASIS) Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v1.2 Standard.  This open standard will enable alert messages to be easily composed by emergency management officials for communication with citizens using a much broader set of devices to reach as many people as possible.
The three documents defining the FEMA IPAWS technical standards and requirements for CAP and its implementation are:  (1) OASIS CAP Standard v1.2; (2) IPAWS Specification to the CAP Standard (CAP v1.2 IPAWS USA Profile v1.0); (3) CAP to EAS Implementation Guide.
Additional information and documentation on CAP technical standards can be found on the OASIS web site.