Review – Bills Introduced – 3-27-25

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate preparing to leave Washington for a long weekend, there were 144 bills introduced. Three of those bills may receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 2447 To increase cybersecurity education and job growth, and for other purposes. Lieu, Ted [Rep.-D-CA-36]

S 1180 A bill to abolish the Transportation Security Administration, and for other purposes. Lee, Mike [Sen.-R-UT]

S 1190 A bill to establish a Secretary of the Coast Guard, and for other purposes. Scott, Rick [Sen.-R-FL]

Space Geek Legislation

Under my space geek coverage, I would like to call attention to:

HR 2474 To require the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study on the capability of the Appalachian Regional Commission to include low-orbit satellites in broadband projects, and for other purposes. Taylor, David [Rep.-R-OH-2]

I will not be analyzing this bill in any depth (I am too far behind on my other legislative reviews), but I will be covering these Space Geek bills as they move along through their legislative journeys.

 

For more information on these bills, including legislative history for similar bills in the 118th, as well as a mention in passing of a software inventory bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/bills-introduced-3-27-25 - subscription required.

House Sends S 1180 (IPAWS) to President

This evening the House considered S 1180, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Modernization Act, under suspension of the rules. Using only 18 minutes of the 40 minutes allocated to debate of the bill, the House approved the bill by a voice vote.

Since this bill codifies responsibility for IPAWS in a new 6 USC 526, this should settle the ongoing disagreement between the House Homeland Security Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee over the which committee has oversight jurisdiction. This dispute is one of the things that held up the House from considering their two versions of this bill.

S 1180 Reported in Senate – IPAWS Modernization Act

Last week the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee published their report on S 1180, the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Modernization Act. The report contains some interesting supporting information from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as well as some background material on the existing IPAWS program.

Background

The existing IPAWS system which this bill is trying to codify and update was initiated in response to the 2006 EO 13407 signed by President Bush. The Report identifies two GAO reports (GAO-09-834 and GAO-13-375) that identified some of the problems that this bill attempts to resolve. The Committee Report does explain that improvements have been made at FEMA in response to those reports, but notes:

“This legislation will further this progress and help address many of the other problems stakeholders, Congress, and GAO previously identified, including helping to ensure sufficient training for emergency alerting officials, increasing collaboration at all levels of government, and ensuring Congress’s important role of oversight.”

CBO Information

The CBO is required to evaluate the costs of proposed legislation. For this bill they expect that the costs of the IPAWS upgrades would increase the funding needs over the next three years from the current spending level of $12 Million to $13 Million per year.

The CBO letter report explains that many of the requirement of this bill are currently being pursued by FEMA, but there are some new requirements for the system. Those new requirements include (pg 6):

∙ Training state and local governments and other stakeholders to use the system;

∙ Conducting nationwide testing of the system every three years: and

∙ Ensuring that IPAWS can withstand terrorist attacks.

Moving Forward

This bill was introduced by Sen. Johnson (R,WI) the Chair of the HSGAC. He has moved it expeditiously through his committee and I expect that it will make it to the floor, perhaps before the summer recess. It will almost certainly be passed under the unanimous consent provisions.

Two similar bills in the House, HR 1472 and HR 1738, are still pending publication of their respective Committee Reports. There is still the jurisdictional controversy that will have to be resolved by the House leadership before one of these bills makes it to the floor in the House. S 1180 would tend to support the House Homeland Security Committee’s claim to jurisdiction over the IPAWS oversight.

Bills Introduced – 05-04-15

There were eleven bills introduced in the Senate yesterday (the House not being in session). Only one of those bills may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

S 1180 A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to direct the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to modernize the integrated public alert and warning system of the United... Sen. Johnson, Ron [R-WI]

This is almost certainly the bill that will be marked up in the SHSGA Committee tomorrow. Until I see the actual text, I won’t be able to tell how this bill will affect the House committee conflict on this topic.