Sponsors (4)
Introduced March 27, 2025 by Suzanne Bonamici · Last progress March 27, 2025
The bill increases transparency, accountability, and survivor-centered reporting options across NOAA and related maritime operations—strengthening protections for personnel and enforcement officers—but does so in ways that raise substantial privacy risks for victims, add administrative and compliance costs, and broaden criminal exposure that could impact public protest and due-process concerns.
NOAA employees, observers, commissioned officers, and related personnel will see increased transparency and accountability because the bill requires case synopses and expanded annual reporting on harassment, assault, and equal-employment cases, which can deter misconduct and inform safety reforms.
Victims and NOAA personnel can make confidential (restricted) disclosures and limit personally identifiable information (PII) sharing while still accessing services, helping survivors get support without automatic public exposure.
Observers, at-sea monitors, catch monitors, Regional Fishery Management Council members and other personnel are explicitly covered and statutory lines of accountability for NOAA vessels are clarified, bringing consistency about who is protected and responsible under the law.
Victims, complainants, and other employees face substantial risk of involuntary identification because published synopses and expanded public reports could disclose PII or identifying details, which may deter reporting and harm survivors.
Mandatory vessel reporting that requires names and contact information, combined with broadly worded exceptions for 'serious or imminent' threats, increases the chance victims' identities are shared with additional agencies, risking privacy and over‑disclosure.
Broadening the obstruction offense (removing the 'forcibly' requirement and applying it off-vessel) creates criminal exposure for nonviolent or passive resistance and for people who impede officers during shore-based interactions, raising free-speech and due-process concerns for ordinary citizens and protesters.
Based on analysis of 9 sections of legislative text.
Strengthens NOAA sexual harassment/assault rules by expanding reporting, defining covered personnel (including observers), protecting victim PII, requiring vessel reporting, and barring certain sex offenders from NOAA Corps.
Requires NOAA to expand transparency, reporting, definitions, privacy protections, and mandatory reporting related to sexual harassment and sexual assault involving NOAA personnel and those who work on NOAA missions. It adds new data and synopsis requirements to agency policies and annual reports, creates rules for limited disclosure of victim personally identifying information (PII), updates restricted-reporting options, requires vessels under NOAA contract to report incidents to the Coast Guard, broadens certain criminal-prohibition language under the Magnuson‑Stevens Act, and bars people convicted of certain sexual offenses from serving in the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps.