Sponsors (4)
The bill would provide a federal channel to warn people about shark attacks and improve local response coordination, but it raises the risk of alert fatigue, potential economic harm to coastal areas from broad alerts, and modest administrative costs for governments.
Beachgoers, swimmers, and coastal communities would receive wireless alerts about shark attacks, enabling faster evacuation or avoidance of affected areas.
Local governments and first responders could more quickly notify the public via an established federal alert channel, improving coordination during marine safety incidents.
Beachgoers and the general public could experience alert fatigue if Wireless Emergency Alerts are used for rare shark incidents, reducing the likelihood people heed future WEA messages.
Coastal businesses and local tourism could suffer unnecessary economic losses if national or wide-area wireless alerts for localized shark incidents cause public alarm and reduced visitation.
Local agencies and the FCC could incur administrative and implementation costs to develop protocols and integrate shark-incident reporting into WEA transmission.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires the FCC to designate shark attacks as an eligible Wireless Emergency Alert event and issue that order within 180 days.
Introduced March 11, 2025 by Gary James Palmer · Last progress March 11, 2025
Requires the Federal Communications Commission to issue an order within 180 days directing that a shark attack be designated as an eligible event for transmission as an "Alert Message" under the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system. The measure is narrowly focused on adding shark attacks to the types of events that can be pushed to mobile devices through the WEA framework and does not appropriate funds or create other programmatic requirements.