Sponsors (4)
Official title: To amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 to address sexual harassment and sexual assault involving National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration personnel, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Suzanne Bonamici · Last progress March 27, 2025
The bill strengthens oversight, deterrence, and clarity around sexual harassment and vessel‑related incidents at NOAA—improving safety and legal consistency—while imposing privacy risks for victims, administrative costs, and some coverage and enforcement uncertainties that could reduce protections or burden maritime operations.
NOAA and other covered federal employees will see increased transparency and accountability because the bill requires standardized data collection, case synopses, and annual tracking of harassment/discipline (including No FEAR Act information) that Congress and agency managers can use to spot trends and drive fixes.
Victims at NOAA can seek confidential, restricted-reporting services and control release of their personally identifying information so they can get care and advocacy without automatically triggering formal investigations.
Maritime workers, observers, and at‑sea monitors gain better safety and operational oversight because the bill clarifies who is covered, requires vessel incident reporting (with notifications to responsible leaders), and summarizes alleged harassment/assault incidents and dispositions for observer safety.
NOAA employees, observers, and victims face real privacy risks because publishing case synopses and disciplinary details (and certain exceptions that allow disclosure to law enforcement/courts) could identify victims or reveal sensitive information and therefore deter reporting.
Taxpayers and NOAA will incur increased administrative, compliance, redaction, training, and reporting costs as agencies assemble, review, redact, and publish more detailed incident data and implement new coverage and reporting rules.
Some NOAA employees or affiliates could lose protections or access to remedies if changes to definitions or incorrect cross-reference defaults narrow who is 'covered' or fail to amend the intended statute, creating gaps for harassment survivors.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Expands NOAA harassment/assault coverage and reporting, adds confidentiality and limited-disclosure rules, requires vessel reporting, and increases annual report data and case synopses.
Makes changes to NOAA’s sexual harassment and sexual assault prevention, reporting, and privacy rules. It expands who is explicitly covered (including fisheries and protected-species observers and Regional Fishery Management Council staff and members), requires more detailed data and case synopses in NOAA’s annual reports, creates new limited-disclosure rules and confidential reporting protections, and requires immediate vessel-level reporting to a Coast Guard recipient for certain incidents. Also broadens a fisheries statute’s prohibited-interference language, adds a criminal-sex-offense prohibition to the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps’ applicability list, and updates statutory terminology and cross-references to reflect the expanded coverage and new reporting duties.