Enhancing First Response Act

This bill aims to make 911 and emergency communications more reliable after major disasters. When a serious event leads the FCC to turn on its Disaster Information Reporting System (used during severe weather and other emergencies so providers can report outages), and it stays on for seven days or more, the FCC must hold at least one public hearing. Within 120 days after the hearing, the FCC must publish a report that lists how many and how long the outages were (internet, phone, and wireless), how many people and facilities were affected, any 911 problems like missing caller location or blocked calls, and steps to make networks stronger, without sharing company‑specific details .

The FCC must also study and report within one year on ways to improve outage reporting—such as whether adding visual information to outage alerts would help 911 centers, how many 911 outages may go unreported under current rules, and any rule changes needed. The bill recognizes public safety telecommunicators (the people who answer and coordinate 911 calls) as a protective service job in federal statistics within 30 days, highlighting their lifesaving work. Within 180 days, the FCC must publish a report on how well Kari’s Law is being enforced; that law requires multi‑line phone systems to let you dial 911 directly, without dialing a code first .

Key points

• Who is affected: People in disaster‑hit areas, 911 centers and telecommunicators, first responders, and phone/internet providers.
• What changes: Annual public hearing(s) after long emergencies; a detailed FCC report on outages and resilience; a one‑year study on improving 911 outage reporting; recognition of 911 telecommunicators as protective service workers; an FCC report on enforcing Kari’s Law .
• When: Hearing(s) each year for events where the system was on 7+ days; outage report within 120 days of the hearing; improvement study within 1 year; job classification within 30 days; Kari’s Law enforcement report within 180 days .