Emergency Reporting Act

This bill tells the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to listen, learn, and report after major disasters so phone and internet service get more reliable. Each year, if the FCC’s Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) was turned on for at least 7 days for any event, the FCC must hold a public hearing with people from affected communities, governments, first responders, and communications providers. Within 120 days after each hearing, the FCC must post a report online about how long outages lasted, how many users and how much equipment were affected, how 9-1-1 calling and caller location were disrupted, and how to strengthen networks, while leaving out any confidential details.

Within one year, the FCC must also study and publish a report on whether adding visual information in outage notices to 9-1-1 centers would help public safety, how many 9-1-1 outages might be going unreported under current rules, and what rule changes could fix gaps—all posted on the FCC’s website. This does not give the FCC any new power over broadband providers beyond what’s written here.

• Who is involved: residents of affected areas; state, local, and tribal governments; first responders and 9-1-1 leaders; communications providers; and other experts invited to the hearings.
• What changes: yearly public hearings after major DIRS activations; public reports on outages and 9-1-1 impacts; a one-time study on improving outage notifications and uncovering unreported 9-1-1 outages; possible recommendations to update FCC rules.
• When: first hearing within 1 year of the law; reports posted within 120 days after each hearing; the study and its report posted within 1 year of the law.