FCC must publicly report on network disasters—no new rules, just transparency
H.R. 5200 — Emergency Reporting Act · Filed by Doris Matsui (D-CA) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 8, 2025 · Passed chamber
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What it does
This bill requires the FCC to hold annual public hearings and issue reports after major disasters disable communications networks for a week or longer, documenting outages, affected users, and infrastructure damage. It also directs the FCC to study whether telecom providers should include visual information in emergency alerts to 911 centers and whether current outage-reporting thresholds miss significant incidents. The bill creates a transparency and accountability mechanism for network resilience during disasters, with no new regulatory authority beyond what the FCC already has.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is to require the FCC to document and publicly report on network outages during major disasters and to study improvements to emergency notification. It is a transparency and accountability measure, not a deregulation, subsidy, or enforcement action.
What the text implies
- Annual public hearings and reports may create political pressure on telecom providers to invest in disaster resilience, even though the bill itself imposes no mandate—the transparency mechanism is the enforcement lever.
- The study of visual information in 911 alerts could lead to future FCC rules requiring providers to include outage maps or status data in emergency notifications, expanding operational burden on carriers.
- Publication of outage data on the FCC website may enable competitors and regulators to identify patterns of underperformance by specific carriers, creating reputational and competitive risk.
- The bill's explicit carve-out (Rule of Construction) stating the FCC gains no new authority beyond what is 'specifically authorized under this section' may limit the FCC's ability to act on findings without returning to Congress for new legislation.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain transparency into how communications networks fail during disasters and what can be improved, enabling public scrutiny of telecom resilience. The bill imposes no new costs on the public and creates no new restrictions on citizens' rights; it only requires the FCC to document and report on events that already occur, and to study whether emergency alerts could be improved.
Named in the bill
Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Disaster Information Reporting System, Emergency communications centers, Public safety answering points (PSAPs), State governments, Local governments, Indian tribal governments, Communications service providers, Broadband internet access service providers, VoIP service providers, Commercial mobile service providers, Electric utility providers — and 4 more
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 1 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Sep 8, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 8, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology”
- Jan 15, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Subcommittee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- Apr 9, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 517”
- Apr 20, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 386 - 7…”
- Apr 20, 2026 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Allen moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $50,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 85 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Doris Matsui, the sponsor, reported $1,026,688 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Peace Officers Research Association of California — $50,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 19, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,563 characters) on Jul 10, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 19, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“FCC must publicly report on network disasters—no new rules, just transparency” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr5200 Report an error
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