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Emergency Reporting Act
2/5/2024, 2:30 PM
Summary of Bill HR 7043
Under the Emergency Reporting Act, it would be mandatory for individuals to report any emergency incidents, such as fires, accidents, or medical emergencies, to the appropriate emergency services. This would help ensure that first responders are able to quickly and effectively respond to emergencies, potentially saving lives and reducing property damage.
The bill also includes provisions for the creation of a national database of emergency incidents, which would help track trends and improve emergency response strategies. Additionally, the Emergency Reporting Act would establish penalties for individuals who fail to report emergencies, in order to encourage compliance with the reporting requirements. Overall, the Emergency Reporting Act aims to improve the reporting of emergency incidents in the United States, with the goal of enhancing emergency response efforts and ultimately saving lives.
Congressional Summary of HR 7043
Emergency Reporting Act
This bill requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to publicly report on certain activations of the Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS). DIRS is a reporting system, activated during severe weather and other events impacting communications service, through which communications providers report outages and other degradations to service.
If the system was activated for at least seven days, the FCC must issue a preliminary a report that includes (1) the number and duration of any service outages, (2) the approximate number of users or the amount of infrastructure potentially affected by a service outage, and (3) the number and duration of any outages at public safety answering points (PSAPs) that prevent the PSAPs from receiving and routing emergency calls. The FCC must also hold at least one public field hearing in the area affected by the event, and it must issue a final report that includes recommendations on how to improve the resiliency of affected networks.
Separately, the FCC must publish a general report on (1) the volume and nature of 9-1-1 outages that are not required to be reported under current outage notification rules, and (2) the value to public safety agencies of the inclusion of visual information in outage notifications from communications providers.
