[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 5200 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 5200
To direct the Federal Communications Commission to issue reports after
activation of the Disaster Information Reporting System and to make
improvements to network outage reporting, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
September 8, 2025
Ms. Matsui (for herself and Mr. Bilirakis) introduced the following
bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To direct the Federal Communications Commission to issue reports after
activation of the Disaster Information Reporting System and to make
improvements to network outage reporting, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Emergency Reporting Act''.
SEC. 2. REPORTS AFTER ACTIVATION OF DISASTER INFORMATION REPORTING
SYSTEM; IMPROVEMENTS TO NETWORK OUTAGE REPORTING.
(a) Reports After Activation of Disaster Information Reporting
System.--
(1) Public hearings.--
(A) Requirement.--Not later than 1 year after the
date of the enactment of this Act, and annually
thereafter, the Commission shall hold not less than 1
public hearing relating to all events during the
preceding 1-year period for which the System was
activated for not less than 7 days.
(B) Inclusion of certain individuals in hearings.--
For each public hearing held under subparagraph (A),
the Commission shall consider including--
(i) representatives of State governments,
local governments, or Indian tribal governments
in areas affected by such events;
(ii) residents of the areas affected by
such events, or consumer advocates;
(iii) providers of communications services
affected by such events;
(iv) faculty of institutions of higher
education;
(v) representatives of other Federal
agencies;
(vi) electric utility providers;
(vii) communications infrastructure
companies; and
(viii) first responders, emergency
managers, or 9-1-1 directors in areas affected
by such events.
(2) Reports.--Not later than 120 days after the date on
which a public hearing held under paragraph (1) concludes, the
Commission shall issue a report that includes, with respect to
the events to which such hearing relates and to the extent
known without requiring the collection of additional
information--
(A) the number and duration of any outages of--
(i) broadband internet access service;
(ii) interconnected VoIP service;
(iii) commercial mobile service; and
(iv) commercial mobile data service;
(B) the approximate number of users and the amount
of communications infrastructure potentially affected
by an outage described in subparagraph (A);
(C) the number and duration of any outages that
prevent emergency communications centers from receiving
caller location or number information or receiving
emergency calls and routing such calls to emergency
service personnel; and
(D) any recommendations of the Commission on how to
improve the resiliency of affected communications
services or networks.
(3) Development of reports.--In developing a report
required by paragraph (2), the Commission shall consider
information collected by the Commission with respect to the
events to which such report relates, including information
collected through the System and the relevant public hearing.
(4) Publication of reports.--
(A) In general.--Except as provided in subparagraph
(B), the Commission shall publish each report required
by paragraph (2) on the website of the Commission upon
the issuance of such report.
(B) Exclusion.--In publishing a report under
subparagraph (A), the Commission shall exclude
information that is otherwise exempt from public
disclosure under the rules of the Commission or that
was submitted to the Commission with a proper request
for confidential treatment as described in section
0.459 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations (or any
successor regulation).
(b) Improvements to Network Outage Reporting.--Not later than 1
year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall
conduct an investigation and publish on the website of the Commission a
report on--
(1) the value to public safety agencies of originating
service providers including visual information to improve
situational awareness about outages in the notifications
provided to emergency communications centers, as required by
the rules of the Commission;
(2) the volume and nature of 9-1-1 outages that may go
unreported under the outage notification thresholds of the
Commission;
(3) the balance between the value described in paragraph
(1) to public safety agencies and the burden and practicality
for originating service providers of including visual
information in outage notifications as described in such
paragraph; and
(4) recommended changes to the rules of the Commission to
address the matters reported under paragraphs (1) and (2).
(c) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this section shall be
construed to provide the Commission or any other person authority over
any provider of broadband internet access service beyond what is
specifically authorized under this section.
(d) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Broadband internet access service.--The term
``broadband internet access service'' has the meaning given
such term in section 8.1(b) of title 47, Code of Federal
Regulations (or any successor regulation).
(2) Commercial mobile data service.--The term ``commercial
mobile data service'' has the meaning given such term in
section 6001 of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation
Act of 2012 (47 U.S.C. 1401).
(3) Commercial mobile service.--The term ``commercial
mobile service'' has the meaning given such term in section
332(d) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 332(d)).
(4) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Federal
Communications Commission.
(5) Emergency communications center.--
(A) In general.--The term ``emergency
communications center'' means--
(i) a facility that--
(I) is designated to receive a 9-1-
1 request for emergency assistance; and
(II) performs 1 or more of the
functions described in subparagraph
(B); or
(ii) a public safety answering point (as
defined in section 222 of the Communications
Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 222)).
(B) Functions described.--The functions described
in this subparagraph are the following:
(i) Processing and analyzing 9-1-1 requests
for emergency assistance and information and
data related to such requests.
(ii) Dispatching appropriate emergency
response providers.
(iii) Transferring or exchanging 9-1-1
requests for emergency assistance and
information and data related to such requests
with 1 or more other emergency communications
centers and emergency response providers.
(iv) Analyzing any communications received
from emergency response providers.
(v) Supporting incident command functions.
(6) Indian tribal government; local government.--The terms
``Indian tribal government'' and ``local government'' have the
meanings given such terms in section 102 of the Robert T.
Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42
U.S.C. 5122).
(7) Interconnected voip service; state.--The terms
``interconnected VoIP service'' and ``State'' have the meanings
given such terms in section 3 of the Communications Act of 1934
(47 U.S.C. 153).
(8) Outage.--The term ``outage'' has the meaning given such
term in section 4.5 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations
(or any successor regulation).
(9) System.--The term ``System'' means the Disaster
Information Reporting System of the Commission.
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