S. 725, Enhancing First Response Act

S. 725 would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to hold an annual public hearing and issue a report about all the disasters within the past year that caused its Disaster Information Reporting System to be activated for at least seven days. In addition, the bill would require the FCC to report on network outages and on the extent to which manufacturers and vendors of multi-line telephone systems have complied with a requirement that users of such systems may call 9-1-1 without dialing any additional digits. Finally, S. 725 would require the Office of Management and Budget to reclassify public safety telecommunicators as a protective service occupation under the Standard Occupational Classification within 30 days of enactment.

Using information about the cost of similar provisions, CBO estimates that implementing S. 725 would cost $1 million over the 2025-2030 period. However, because the FCC is authorized to collect fees each year sufficient to offset the appropriated costs of its regulatory activities, CBO estimates that the net cost to the FCC would be negligible, assuming appropriation actions consistent with that authority.

If the FCC increases annual fee collections to offset the costs of implementing provisions in the bill, S. 725 would increase the cost of an existing private-sector mandate on entities required to pay those fees. CBO estimates that the incremental cost of the mandate would be small and would fall well below the annual threshold established in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) for private-sector mandates ($206 million in 2025, adjusted annually for inflation).

S. 725 contains no intergovernmental mandates as defined in UMRA.

The CBO staff contacts for this estimate are David Hughes (for federal costs) and Rachel Austin (for mandates). The estimate was reviewed by Christina Hawley Anthony, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.