Luján, Heinrich Announce Bipartisan Bill to Enhance 9-1-1 Emergency Response System Passes Senate

The legislation would improve Americans' ability help when dialing 9-1-1, including during natural disasters, and make important updates to the classification of 9-1-1 dispatchers

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) announced that their bipartisan Enhancing First Response Act - introduced with Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) - has passed the Senate. This legislation would make important updates to the nation's 9-1-1 emergency reporting system to improve Americans' ability to reach help when they dial 9-1-1, including during natural disasters.

The legislation will also reclassify 9-1-1 dispatchers as protective service workers, ensuring their job classification appropriately recognizes the lifesaving nature of their work.

"When an emergency or natural disaster strikes, New Mexicans depend on reliable communications networks to get the help they need," said Senator Luján. "I'm proud that our bipartisan legislation passed the U.S. Senate and is one step closer to becoming law. The Enhancing First Response Act is crucial to strengthening our 9-1-1 emergency response system and recognizing dispatchers for their lifesaving work."

"I'm very grateful that our legislation to help New Mexicans' get help during an emergency or natural disaster has passed the Senate. This bill will improve the resiliency and reliability of 911 services, saving lives in the process. It will also ensure dispatchers are finally recognized for the essential work they do by officially classifying them as first responders, helping them access the important benefits they need and deserve," said Senator Heinrich.

Specifically, the Enhancing First Response Act would:

1. Require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a report after major natural disasters on the extent to which people were unable to reach 9-1-1 during the disaster and subsequent recovery efforts, and make recommendations to improve the resiliency of 9-1-1 systems to prevent future service disruptions;
2. Require the FCC to study the unreported 9-1-1 outages and develop recommendations to improve outage reporting and communication between mobile carriers experiencing network outages and 9-1-1 centers;
3. Update the classification of 9-1-1 dispatchers from clerical workers to protective service workers in the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) to better reflect the life-saving work they perform each day. The SOC is a tool used by federal agencies to classify the workforce into useful, occupational categories; and
4. Require the FCC to report on the extent to which multi-line telephone system manufacturers and vendors have complied with Kari's Law, which Senator Klobuchar worked to pass into law in 2018 to require the manufacturers of multi-line telephone systems to create systems that allow callers to reach 9-1-1 without dialing a prefix or postfix.

In addition to Luján, Heinrich, Klobuchar, and Blackburn, the legislation is cosponsored by Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D) and Senators Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ted Budd (R- N.C.), Angus King (I-Maine), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

This bill now goes to the House of Representatives for a vote.

Full bill text is available here.

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