Reps Matsui and Bilirakis Introduce Pair of Bills to Strengthen Emergency Communications

Reps Doris Matsui (D-CA-07) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL-12) introduced a pair of bipartisan bills to improve the reliability and resiliency of America’s emergency communications networks. Together, the Emergency Reporting Act and the Kari’s Law Reporting Act would ensure that Americans can count on strong, effective, and modern 9-1-1 systems when disaster strikes. 

• The Emergency Reporting Act would strengthen 9-1-1 networks by requiring the Federal Communications Commission to issue reports following major natural disasters on the extent to which people were unable to reach 9-1-1, and to develop recommendations to improve outage reporting, resiliency, and coordination with state and local officials. The bill also directs the FCC to review unreported outages and develop recommendations for mobile carriers to better notify 9-1-1 centers of disruptions, ensuring that first responders are not left in the dark during life-threatening events.
• The Kari’s Law Reporting Act would build on the 2018 Kari’s Law by requiring the FCC to report on the extent to which multi-line telephone system manufacturers and vendors have complied with the requirement that callers be able to reach 9-1-1 directly without dialing additional digits.