II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 725
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, to categorize public safety
telecommunicators as a protective service occupation under the Standard
Occupational Classification system, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
FEBRUARY25, 2025
Ms. K
LOBUCHAR(for herself, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. HEINRICH, Mr. SUL-
LIVAN, Mr. LUJA´N, Mrs. CAPITO, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. BUDD, Mr. KING,
Mr. T
HUNE, and Mr. KELLY) introduced the following bill; which was
read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation
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, to categorize public safety telecommu-
nicators as a protective service occupation under the
Standard Occupational Classification system, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 1
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Enhancing First Re-2
sponse Act’’. 3
SEC. 2. REPORTS AFTER ACTIVATION OF DISASTER INFOR-4
MATION REPORTING SYSTEM; IMPROVE-5
MENTS TO NETWORK OUTAGE REPORTING. 6
(a) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 7
(1) A
UTOMATIC LOCATION INFORMATION ; 8
AUTOMATIC NUMBER IDENTIFICATION .—The terms 9
‘‘Automatic Location Information’’ and ‘‘Automatic 10
Number Identification’’ have the meanings given 11
those terms in section 9.3 of title 47, Code of Fed-12
eral Regulations, or any successor regulation. 13
(2) B
ROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE .— 14
The term ‘‘broadband internet access service’’ has 15
the meaning given the term in section 8.1(b) of title 16
47, Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor 17
regulation. 18
(3) C
OMMERCIAL MOBILE SERVICE .—The term 19
‘‘commercial mobile service’’ has the meaning given 20
the term in section 332(d) of the Communications 21
Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 332(d)). 22
(4) C
OMMERCIAL MOBILE DATA SERVICE .—The 23
term ‘‘commercial mobile data service’’ has the 24
meaning given the 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
(5) C
OMMISSION.—The term ‘‘Commission’’ 3
means the Federal Communications Commission. 4
(6) I
NDIAN TRIBAL GOVERNMENT ; LOCAL GOV-5
ERNMENT.—The terms ‘‘Indian tribal government’’ 6
and ‘‘local government’’ have the meanings given 7
those terms in section 102 of the Robert T. Stafford 8
Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 9
U.S.C. 5122). 10
(7) I
NTERCONNECTED VOIP SERVICE ; STATE.— 11
The terms ‘‘interconnected VoIP service’’ and 12
‘‘State’’ have the meanings given those terms in sec-13
tion 3 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 14
U.S.C. 153). 15
(8) M
ULTI-LINE TELEPHONE SYSTEM .—The 16
term ‘‘multi-line telephone system’’ has the meaning 17
given the term in section 721(f) of the Communica-18
tions Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 623(f)). 19
(9) O
UTAGE.—The term ‘‘outage’’ has the 20
meaning given the term in section 4.5 of title 47, 21
Code of Federal Regulations, or any successor regu-22
lation. 23
(10) P
UBLIC SAFETY ANSWERING POINT .—The 24
term ‘‘public safety answering point’’ has the mean-25
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ing given the term in section 222(h) of the Commu-1
nications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 222(h)). 2
(11) S
YSTEM.—The term ‘‘System’’ means the 3
Disaster Information Reporting System. 4
(b) R
EPORTSAFTERACTIVATION OFDISASTERIN-5
FORMATIONREPORTINGSYSTEM.— 6
(1) P
RELIMINARY REPORT.— 7
(A) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 6 weeks 8
after the deactivation of the System with re-9
spect to an event for which the System was ac-10
tivated for not less than 7 days, the Commis-11
sion shall issue a preliminary report on, with 12
respect to such event and to the extent 13
known— 14
(i) the number and duration of any 15
outages of— 16
(I) broadband internet access 17
service; 18
(II) interconnected VoIP service; 19
(III) commercial mobile service; 20
and 21
(IV) commercial mobile data 22
service; 23
(ii) the approximate number of users 24
or the amount of communications infra-25
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structure potentially affected by an outage 1
described in clause (i); 2
(iii) the number and duration of any 3
outages that prevent public safety answer-4
ing points from receiving caller location or 5
number information or receiving emer-6
gency calls and routing such calls to emer-7
gency service personnel; and 8
(iv) any additional information deter-9
mined appropriate by the Commission. 10
(B) D
EVELOPMENT OF REPORT .—The 11
Commission shall develop the report required by 12
subparagraph (A) using information collected 13
by the Commission, including information col-14
lected by the Commission through the System. 15
(2) P
UBLIC FIELD HEARINGS.— 16
(A) R
EQUIREMENT.—Not later than 8 17
months after the deactivation of the System 18
with respect to an event for which the System 19
was activated for not less than 7 days, the 20
Commission shall hold not less than 1 public 21
field hearing in the area affected by such event. 22
(B) I
NCLUSION OF CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS 23
IN HEARINGS.—For each public field hearing 24
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held under subparagraph (A), the Commission 1
shall consider including— 2
(i) representatives of State govern-3
ment, local government, or Indian tribal 4
governments in areas affected by such 5
event; 6
(ii) residents of the areas affected by 7
such event, or consumer advocates; 8
(iii) providers of communications serv-9
ices affected by such event; 10
(iv) faculty of institutions of higher 11
education; 12
(v) representatives of other Federal 13
agencies; 14
(vi) electric utility providers; 15
(vii) communications infrastructure 16
companies; and 17
(viii) first responders, emergency 18
managers, or 9–1–1 directors in areas af-19
fected by such event. 20
(3) F
INAL REPORT.—Not later than 12 months 21
after the deactivation of the System with respect to 22
an event for which the System was activated for not 23
less than 7 days, the Commission shall issue a final 24
report that includes, with respect to such event— 25
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(A) the information described in paragraph 1
(1)(A); and 2
(B) any recommendations of the Commis-3
sion on how to improve the resiliency of af-4
fected communications or networks recovery ef-5
forts. 6
(4) D
EVELOPMENT OF REPORTS .—In devel-7
oping a report required under this subsection, the 8
Commission shall consider information collected by 9
the Commission, including information collected by 10
the Commission through the System, and any public 11
hearing described in paragraph (2) with respect to 12
the applicable event. 13
(5) P
UBLICATION.—The Commission shall pub-14
lish each report, excluding information that is other-15
wise exempt from public disclosure under the rules 16
of the Commission, issued under this subsection on 17
the website of the Commission upon the issuance of 18
such report. 19
(c) I
MPROVEMENTS TO NETWORKOUTAGEREPORT-20
ING.—Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment 21
of this Act, the Commission shall investigate and publish 22
a report on— 23
(1) the value to public safety agencies of origi-24
nating service providers including visual information 25
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to improve situational awareness about outages in 1
the notifications provided to public safety answering 2
points, as required by rules issued by the Commis-3
sion; 4
(2) the volume and nature of 911 outages that 5
may go unreported under the outage notification 6
thresholds of the Commission; and 7
(3) recommended changes to rules issued by the 8
Commission to address paragraphs (1) and (2). 9
SEC. 3. REPORTING OF PUBLIC SAFETY TELECOMMUNICA-10
TORS AS PROTECTIVE SERVICE OCCUPA-11
TIONS. 12
(a) F
INDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 13
(1) Public safety telecommunicators play a crit-14
ical role in emergency response, providing medical 15
instruction, gathering lifesaving information, and 16
protecting civilians and first responders. 17
(2) The Standard Occupational Classification 18
system is designed and maintained solely for statis-19
tical purposes, and is used by Federal statistical 20
agencies to classify workers and jobs into occupa-21
tional categories for the purpose of collecting, calcu-22
lating, analyzing, or disseminating data. 23
(3) Occupations in the Standard Occupational 24
Classification are classified based on work performed 25
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and, in some cases, on the skills, education, or train-1
ing needed to perform the work. 2
(4) Classifying public safety telecommunicators 3
as a protective service occupation would correct an 4
inaccurate representation in the Standard Occupa-5
tional Classification, recognize these professionals 6
for the lifesaving work they perform, and better 7
align the Standard Occupational Classification with 8
related classification systems. 9
(b) S
TANDARDOCCUPATIONALCLASSIFICATIONSYS-10
TEM.—The Director of the Office of Management and 11
Budget shall, not later than 30 days after the date of en-12
actment of this Act, categorize public safety telecommu-13
nicators as a protective service occupation under the 14
Standard Occupational Classification system. 15
SEC. 4. REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE KARI’S LAW 16
ACT OF 2017. 17
Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment 18
of this Act, the Inspector General of the Commission shall 19
publish a report regarding the enforcement by the Com-20
mission of section 721 of the Communications Act of 1934 21
(47 U.S.C. 623), which shall include— 22
(1) a summary of the extent to which multi-line 23
telephone system manufacturers and vendors have 24
complied with that section; 25
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(2) potential difficulties and obstacles in com-1
plying with that section; 2
(3) recommendations to the Commission, if nec-3
essary, on ways to improve the policies of the Com-4
mission to better enforce that section; and 5
(4) recommendations to Congress, if necessary, 6
on further legislation that could mitigate problems 7
like those that are addressed by that section. 8
Æ
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