Emergency Reporting Act - Directs FCC on Disaster Communications and Network Outage Reporting

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Union Calendar No. H. R. 5200

119 CONGRESS TH 2 ESSION

[Report No. 119-]

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

S 8, 2025 EPTEMBER Ms. M(for herself and Mr. B ) introduced the following bill; DATSUI SILIRAKIS which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce F --, 2026 EBRUARY Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, and ordered to be printed

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A BILL

To direct the Federal Communications Commission to issue reports after activation of the Disaster Information Re- porting System and to make improvements to network outage reporting, and for other purposes.

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Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3

This Act may be cited as the ''Emergency Reporting 4 Act''. 5

SEC. 2. REPORTS AFTER ACTIVATION OF DISASTER INFOR-6 MATION REPORTING SYSTEM; IMPROVE-7 MENTS TO NETWORK OUTAGE REPORTING. 8

-9(a) RAADIEPORTSFTERCTIVATION OFISASTERN .-- 10SFORMATIONEPORTINGYSTEM .-- 11(1) PUBLIC HEARINGS .--Not later than 1 12(A) REQUIREMENT year after the date of the enactment of this Act, 13 and annually thereafter, the Commission shall 14 hold not less than 1 public hearing relating to 15 all events during the preceding 1-year period 16 for which the System was activated for not less 17 than 7 days. 18 19(B) INCLUSION OF CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS .--For each public hearing held 20IN HEARINGS under subparagraph (A), the Commission shall 21 consider including-- 22 (i) representatives of State govern-23 ments, local governments, or Indian tribal 24

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governments in areas affected by such 1 events; 2 (ii) residents of the areas affected by 3 such events, or consumer advocates; 4 (iii) providers of communications serv-5 ices affected by such events; 6 (iv) faculty of institutions of higher 7 education; 8 (v) representatives of other Federal 9 agencies; 10 (vi) electric utility providers; 11 (vii) communications infrastructure 12 companies; and 13 (viii) first responders, emergency 14 managers, or 9-1-1 directors in areas af-15 fected by such events. 16 (2) R .--Not later than 120 days after 17EPORTS the date on which a public hearing held under para-18 graph (1) concludes, the Commission shall issue a 19 report that includes, with respect to the events to 20 which such hearing relates and to the extent known 21 without requiring the collection of additional infor-22 mation-- 23 (A) the number and duration of any out-24 ages of-- 25

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(i) broadband internet access service; 1 (ii) interconnected VoIP service; 2 (iii) commercial mobile service; and 3 (iv) commercial mobile data service; 4 (B) the approximate number of users and 5 the amount of communications infrastructure 6 potentially affected by an outage described in 7 subparagraph (A); 8 (C) the number and duration of any out-9 ages that prevent emergency communications 10 centers from receiving caller location or number 11 information or receiving emergency calls and 12 routing such calls to emergency service per-13 sonnel; and 14 (D) any recommendations of the Commis-15 sion on how to improve the resiliency of af-16 fected communications services or networks. 17 .--In devel-18(3) DEVELOPMENT OF REPORTS oping a report required by paragraph (2), the Com-19 mission shall consider information collected by the 20 Commission with respect to the events to which such 21 report relates, including information collected 22 through the System and the relevant public hearing. 23 .-- 24(4) PUBLICATION OF REPORTS

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.--Except as provided in 1(A) IN GENERAL subparagraph (B), the Commission shall pub-2 lish each report required by paragraph (2) on 3 the website of the Commission upon the 4 issuance of such report. 5 .--In publishing a report 6(B) EXCLUSION under subparagraph (A), the Commission shall 7 exclude information that is otherwise exempt 8 from public disclosure under the rules of the 9 Commission or that was submitted to the Com-10 mission with a proper request for confidential 11 treatment as described in section 0.459 of title 12 47, Code of Federal Regulations (or any suc-13 cessor regulation). 14 -15(b) I O RMPROVEMENTS TOETWORK UTAGE EPORT .--Not later than 1 year after the date of the enact-16ING ment of this Act, the Commission shall conduct an inves-17 tigation and publish on the website of the Commission a 18 report on-- 19 (1) the value to public safety agencies of origi-20 nating service providers including visual information 21 to improve situational awareness about outages in 22 the notifications provided to emergency communica-23 tions centers, as required by the rules of the Com-24 mission; 25

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(2) the volume and nature of 9-1-1 outages 1 that may go unreported under the outage notifica-2 tion thresholds of the Commission; 3 (3) the balance between the value described in 4 paragraph (1) to public safety agencies and the bur-5 den and practicality for originating service providers 6 of including visual information in outage notifica-7 tions as described in such paragraph; and 8 (4) recommended changes to the rules of the 9 Commission to address the matters reported under 10 paragraphs (1) and (2). 11 .--Nothing in this sec-12(c) RULE OF ONSTRUCTION tion shall be construed to provide the Commission or any 13 other person authority over any provider of broadband 14 internet access service beyond what is specifically author-15 ized under this section. 16 .--In this section: 17(d) DEFINITIONS .-- 18(1) B ROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE The term ''broadband internet access service'' has 19 the meaning given such term in section 8.1(b) of 20 title 47, Code of Federal Regulations (or any suc-21 cessor regulation). 22 .--The 23(2) C OMMERCIAL MOBILE DATA SERVICE term ''commercial mobile data service'' has the 24 meaning given such term in section 6001 of the Mid-25

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dle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 1 (47 U.S.C. 1401). 2 .--The term 3 (3) C OMMERCIAL MOBILE SERVICE ''commercial mobile service'' has the meaning given 4 such term in section 332(d) of the Communications 5 Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 332(d)). 6 .--The term ''Commission'' 7 (4) C OMMISSION means the Federal Communications Commission. 8 .-- 9 (5) E MERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS CENTER .--The term ''emergency 10 (A) I N GENERAL communications center'' means-- 11 (i) a facility that-- 12 (I) is designated to receive a 9- 13 1-1 request for emergency assistance; 14 and 15 (II) performs 1 or more of the 16 functions described in subparagraph 17 (B); or 18 (ii) a public safety answering point 19 (as defined in section 222 of the Commu-20 nications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 222)). 21 .--The func-22 (B) F UNCTIONS DESCRIBED tions described in this subparagraph are the fol-23 lowing: 24

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(i) Processing and analyzing 9-1-1 1 requests for emergency assistance and in-2 formation and data related to such re-3 quests. 4 (ii) Dispatching appropriate emer-5 gency response providers. 6 (iii) Transferring or exchanging 9-1- 7 1 requests for emergency assistance and 8 information and data related to such re-9 quests with 1 or more other emergency 10 communications centers and emergency re-11 sponse providers. 12 (iv) Analyzing any communications re-13 ceived from emergency response providers. 14 (v) Supporting incident command 15 functions. 16 -17(6) I ; NDIAN TRIBAL GOVERNMENT LOCAL GOV .--The terms ''Indian tribal government'' 18ERNMENT and ''local government'' have the meanings given 19 such terms in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford 20 Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 21 U.S.C. 5122). 22 .-- 23(7) I ; NTERCONNECTED VOIP SERVICE STATE The terms ''interconnected VoIP service'' and 24 ''State'' have the meanings given such terms in sec-25

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tion 3 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 1 U.S.C. 153). 2 .--The term ''outage'' has the 3 (8) O UTAGE meaning given such term in section 4.5 of title 47, 4 Code of Federal Regulations (or any successor regu-5 lation). 6 .--The term ''System'' means the 7 (9) S YSTEM Disaster Information Reporting System of the Com-8 mission. 9