Sponsors (4)
The bill centralizes and regularly updates records of billion-dollar disasters, improving planning, research, and transparency, but it requires NOAA resources and risks misinterpretation, market effects, and under-recognition of cumulative smaller events.
Local and state governments (and emergency managers) gain better disaster planning and resource-allocation ability because the bill requires regular (at least biannual) updates of economic impacts and spatial distribution for billion-dollar disasters.
State and local governments, researchers, and the public gain access to a centralized, searchable record of billion-dollar disasters (costs, dates, types, and maps), making it easier to find and compare historical events.
Taxpayers and insurers benefit from greater transparency because economic impact data are made available for cost assessments and insurance-market analysis.
Homeowners and local communities could face higher insurance premiums or adverse market reactions if detailed disaster cost and location data are publicized and misinterpreted.
NOAA (and therefore federal budgets and possibly staff) will incur administrative and IT costs to maintain and update the database, potentially requiring additional funding or reallocation of agency resources.
Local governments and rural communities risk having cumulative damages under-recognized because using a $1 billion threshold may understate impacts from many smaller-but-frequent events if attention focuses on the 'billion-dollar' label.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires NOAA to create and maintain a public, biannual‑updated database and webpage listing U.S. billion‑dollar disasters with costs, dates, locations, types, and visual maps.
Requires the NOAA Administrator to build and maintain a public, searchable database and webpage that lists every U.S. "billion-dollar disaster," showing estimated costs, disaster type, location, dates, and visual maps and graphs. The database must use NOAA data, may be updated no less often than twice a year, may include other disasters at NOAA's discretion, and must preserve and update the existing NCEI disaster archive for research and public access.
Introduced October 28, 2025 by Joseph Neguse · Last progress October 28, 2025