Sponsors (61)
Introduced January 29, 2025 by Edward John Markey · Last progress January 29, 2025
The bill prioritizes public safety by ensuring AM emergency-broadcast access in new vehicles and protects consumers during the transition, but does so at increased production cost (likely raising vehicle prices), centralizes standards federally, and creates some regulatory uncertainty and enforcement risks for manufacturers.
Drivers and passengers: new vehicles will include built-in AM broadcast access, improving their ability to receive emergency alerts from AM stations.
Consumers buying new vehicles before the rule's effective date (middle-class families): an interim ban on charging extra fees ensures AM access is not paywalled during the transition.
Small vehicle manufacturers: extended compliance time (at least four years) reduces near-term cost pressure on low-volume producers.
New-car buyers and taxpayers: mandating AM equipment increases production costs that may raise vehicle base prices for buyers.
State and local governments: federal preemption removes local flexibility to set different standards or pursue alternative innovations for in-vehicle broadcast access.
Manufacturers and drivers: a 10-year sunset could create regulatory uncertainty for manufacturers and limit long-term protections for in-vehicle AM access.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Requires the Secretary of Transportation, working with NHTSA and the FCC, to issue a rule within 1 year that new passenger vehicles sold, imported, or shipped in interstate commerce in the U.S. include AM-capable receivers as standard equipment and make AM access easy for drivers. The rule allows digital audio AM reception, sets staggered compliance deadlines (generally 2–3 years after the rule, with at least 4 years for low-volume manufacturers), requires interim labeling and no extra fee for AM access before the rule takes effect, preempts conflicting state/local laws, establishes federal enforcement, directs a GAO study on emergency alert dissemination, mandates five-year impact reports, and sunsets the rule and enforcement authority 10 years after enactment.