IB
Union Calendar No. 142
118THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 369
[Report No. 118–178]
To require the National Institute of Standards and Technology to conduct
research on public safety communication coordination standards among
wildland firefighters and fire management response officials.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY17, 2023
Mrs. K
IMof California (for herself, Ms. STANSBURY, and Mr. NEGUSE) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology
S
EPTEMBER1, 2023
Additional sponsors: Ms. L
EGERFERNANDEZ, Mr. MIKEGARCIAof
California, and Mr. J
ACKSONof North Carolina
S
EPTEMBER1, 2023
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Committee of the Whole
House on the State of the Union, and ordered to be printed
[Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert the part printed in italic]
[For text of introduced bill, see copy of bill as introduced on January 17, 2023]
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•HR 369 RH
A BILL
To require the National Institute of Standards and Tech-
nology to conduct research on public safety communica-
tion coordination standards among wildland firefighters
and fire management response officials.
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•HR 369 RH
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 ‘‘NIST Wildland Fire 4
Communications and Information Dissemination Act’’. 5
SEC. 2. RESEARCH ON WILDLAND FIRE COMMUNICATIONS 6
AND INFORMATION DISSEMINATION. 7
(a) I
NGENERAL.— 8
(1) P
UBLIC SAFETY RESEARCH .—Not later than 9
60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, 10
the Director, acting through the head of the Public 11
Safety and Communications Research Division and 12
in consultation with the Fire Research Division and 13
technology manufacturers, shall carry out research on 14
the following: 15
(A) Public safety communication coordina-16
tion standards among Federal, State, Tribal, 17
and local wildland firefighters, fire management 18
response officials, and member agencies. 19
(B) Improving and integrating existing 20
communications systems to transmit secure real- 21
time data, alerts, and advisories to and from fire 22
management response officials and wildland fire-23
fighters. 24
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•HR 369 RH
(2) FIELD TESTING AND MEASUREMENT OF IN -1
FORMATION DISSEMINATION AND TECHNOLOGY .—The 2
Public Safety and Communications Research Divi-3
sion, in consultation with the Fire Research Division 4
and member agencies, shall conduct both live and vir-5
tual field testing of equipment, software, and other 6
technologies to determine current times of information 7
dissemination and develop standards for the delivery 8
of useful and secure real-time data among member 9
agencies, fire management response officials, and 10
wildland firefighters, based on findings from research 11
under subsection (a). 12
(b) R
ECOMMENDATIONS.— 13
(1) I
N GENERAL.—The Director shall develop 14
and publish recommendations to improve public safe-15
ty communication coordination standards among 16
wildland first responders and fire management re-17
sponse officials. 18
(2) T
RANSMITTAL.—The Director shall transmit 19
the recommendations under paragraph (1) to the Of-20
fice of Management and Budget and the Office of 21
Science and Technology Policy for member agencies to 22
implement. 23
(3) R
EPORTING REQUIREMENTS .— 24
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•HR 369 RH
(A) IN GENERAL.—The Director shall sub-1
mit to the Committee on Science, Space, and 2
Technology of the House of Representatives and 3
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 4
Transportation of the Senate a report containing 5
the recommendations published under paragraph 6
(1). 7
(B) I
MPLEMENTATION.—Not later than 1 8
year after the date of the publication of the Di-9
rector’s recommendations under paragraph (1), 10
the Comptroller General of the United States 11
shall submit to the Committee on Science, Space, 12
and Technology of the House of Representatives 13
and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 14
Transportation of the Senate a report on the ex-15
tent to which member agencies have implemented 16
such recommendations. 17
(c) F
UNDING.—From amounts made available to the 18
National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Direc-19
tor shall allocate $3,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2024 20
through 2028 to carry out this section. 21
(d) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 22
(1) D
IRECTOR.—The term ‘‘Director’’ means the 23
Director of the National Institute of Standards and 24
Technology. 25
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•HR 369 RH
(2) MEMBER AGENCY.—The term ‘‘member agen-1
cy’’ means a member agency of the National Inter-2
agency Fire Center, including the Bureau of Indian 3
Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National Park 4
Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis-5
tration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Serv-6
ice, United States Fire Administration, and the De-7
partment of Defense. 8
(3) W
ILDLAND FIREFIGHTER .—The term 9
‘‘wildland firefighter’’ means any person who partici-10
pates in wildland firefighting activities. 11
(4) F
IRE MANAGEMENT RESPONSE OFFICIALS .— 12
The term ‘‘fire management response officials’’ means 13
regional fire directors, deputy regional fire directors, 14
agency officials who directly oversee fire operations, 15
fire management officers, and individuals serving on 16
incident management teams. 17
(5) T
ECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURERS .—The term 18
‘‘technology manufacturers’’ means private sector en-19
tities that manufacture communications technologies 20
used by Federal, State, Tribal, or local wildland fire 21
authorities. 22
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pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB Union Calendar No.
142
118
TH
CONGRESS
1
ST
S
ESSION
H. R. 369
[Report No. 118–178]
A BILL
To require the National Institute of Standards and
Technology to conduct research on public safety
communication coordination standards among
wildland firefighters and fire management re-
sponse officials.
S
EPTEMBER
1, 2023
Reported with an amendment, committed to the Com-
mittee of the Whole House on the State of the Union,
and ordered to be printed
VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:46 Sep 01, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6651 Sfmt 6651 E:\BILLS\H369.RH H369
pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB