A bill to direct the Secretary of the Interior to upgrade existing emergency communications centers in units of the National Park System to Next Generation 9-1-1 systems, and for other purposes.
Download PDFSponsored by
Sen. Barrasso, John [R-WY]
ID: B001261
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. Hearings held.
December 9, 2025
Introduced
Committee Review
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
Floor Action
Passed Senate
House Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another bill from the esteemed members of Congress, because what this country really needs is more bureaucratic busywork and pork-barrel spending. Let's dissect this "Making National Parks Safer Act" (S 290) and see what kind of festering wound it's trying to treat.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill aims to upgrade emergency communications centers in national parks to Next Generation 9-1-1 systems, because apparently, our national parks are still using rotary phones. The sponsors claim this will improve interoperability, reduce response times, and make the parks safer for visitors. How quaint.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill requires the Secretary of the Interior to:
1. Assess existing emergency communications centers in national parks within a year. 2. Develop a plan to install Next Generation 9-1-1 systems based on the assessment, consulting with state and local officials, stakeholders, and relevant federal agencies.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved:
* National Park Service (NPS) * State and local emergency operations officials * Relevant federal agencies (Commerce, Transportation, Federal Communications Commission) * Telecommunications companies (who will likely benefit from the upgrades)
**Potential Impact & Implications:**
1. **Cost:** The bill doesn't specify funding sources or amounts, but we can be sure it'll be a hefty price tag. Who knows how much of that money will actually go towards upgrading emergency communications centers and not into the pockets of contractors and consultants? 2. **Interoperability:** While improved interoperability sounds great, it's a complex issue that requires more than just throwing new technology at the problem. Will this bill actually address the underlying issues or just create new ones? 3. **Pork-barrel spending:** This bill reeks of pork-barrel politics. Which national parks will receive priority funding? The ones in the sponsors' home states, perhaps?
Now, let's take a look at the sponsors and their possible motivations:
* Senator Barrasso (R-WY) has received significant campaign contributions from telecommunications companies like AT&T and Verizon. * Senator King (I-ME) has ties to the National Park Service through his work on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. * Senator Hickenlooper (D-CO) has a history of supporting environmental causes, but also has connections to the telecommunications industry.
It's clear that this bill is more about lining the pockets of special interests than actually making national parks safer. The patient's symptoms of supporting Next Generation 9-1-1 systems are directly related to their $100K infection from telecommunications PACs.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Sen. Barrasso, John [R-WY]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Donor Network - Sen. Barrasso, John [R-WY]
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Total contributions: $103,540
Top Donors - Sen. Barrasso, John [R-WY]
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 847 — Federal Communications Commission The FCC has facilitated the transition from 3G to 4G and now 5G offerings in two ways. First, it has freed spectrum—the airwaves needed to deliver wireless ser- vices. Second, it has preempted state and local siting and permitting laws that could otherwise slow down the buildout of next-generation infrastructure. One of the FCC’s great success stories from 2017 to 2020 was securing U.S. leadership in 5G. The FCC also administers an approximately roughly $9 billion-a-year program called the Universal Service Fund (USF), which has been funded by a line-item charge that traditional telephone companies add to consumers’ monthly bills. Expenditures from this fund subsidize rural broadband networks and low-income programs as well as connections for schools, libraries, and rural health care facil- ities. Through various COVID-era laws, Congress has also provided the FCC with a one-time $24 billion appropriation for various low-income initiatives. POLICY PRIORITIES The FCC needs to change course and bring new urgency to achieving four main goals: l Reining in Big Tech, l Promoting national security, l Unleashing economic prosperity, and l Ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.15 Reining in Big Tech. The FCC has an important role to play in addressing the threats to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominant positions in the market. Nowhere is that clearer than when it comes to Big Tech and its attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square. Today, a handful of corporations can shape everything from the information we consume to the places we shop. These corporate behemoths are not merely exercising market power; they are abusing dominant positions. They are not simply prevailing in the free market; they are taking advantage of a landscape that has been skewed—in many cases by the government—to favor their business models over those of their competitors. It is hard to imagine another industry in which a greater gap exists between power and accountability. That is why a new Adminis- tration should support FCC action on several fronts. Specifically, the FFC should: l Eliminate immunities that courts added to Section 230. The FCC should issue an order that interprets Section 230 in a way that eliminates the expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute. — 848 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise As one of the FCC’s previous General Counsels noted, the FCC has authority to take this action because Section 230 is codified in the Communications Act.16 The FCC’s Section 230 reforms should track the positions outlined in a July 2020 Petition for Rulemaking filed at the FCC near the end of the Trump Administration.17 Any new presidential Administration should consider filing a similar or new petition. As Justice Clarence Thomas has made clear, courts have construed Section 230 broadly to confer on some of the world’s largest companies a sweeping immunity that is found nowhere in the text of the statute.18 They have done so in a way that nullifies the limits Congress placed on the types of actions that Internet companies can take while continuing to benefit from Section 230. One way to start correcting this error is for the FCC to remind courts how the various portions of Section 230 operate. At the outset, the FCC can clarify that Section 230(c)(1) does not apply broadly to every decision that a platform makes. Rather, its protections apply only when a platform does not remove information provided by someone else. In contrast, the FCC should clarify that the more limited Section 230(c)(2) protections apply to any covered platform’s decision to restrict access to material provided by someone else. Combined, these actions will appropriately limit the number of cases in which a platform can censor with the benefit of Section 230’s protections. Such clarifications might also include drawing out the traditional legal distinction between distributor and publisher liability; Section 230 did not do away with the former, nor does it collapse into the latter. l Impose transparency rules on Big Tech. Today, Big Tech offers a black box. After Google manipulates search results, a small business can see its web traffic drop precipitously overnight for no apparent reason, potentially flipping its outlook from black to red. On Facebook, social media posts are left up or taken down, accounts suspended or permanently banned, without any apparent consistency. Out of the blue, YouTube can demonetize individuals who have risked their capital and invested their labor to build online businesses. At present, the FCC requires broadband providers to comply with a transparency rule that can provide a good baseline for Big Tech. Under the FCC’s rule, broadband providers must provide detailed disclosures about practices that would shape Internet traffic—from blocking to prioritizing or discriminating against content. The FCC could take a similar approach to
Introduction
— 855 — Federal Communications Commission so a new Administration should redouble efforts to require timely reviews and final actions by agencies with jurisdiction over federal lands, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. l Advance America’s space leadership. One of the most significant technological developments of the past few years has been the emergence of a new generation of low-earth orbit satellites like StarLink and Kuiper. This technology can beam a reliable, high-speed Internet signal to nearly any part of the globe at a fraction of the cost of other technologies. This has the potential to significantly accelerate efforts to end the digital divide and disrupt the federal regulatory and subsidy regime that applies to communications networks. The FCC should expedite its work to support this new technology by acting more quickly in its review and approval of applications to launch new satellites. Otherwise, the U.S. risks ceding space leadership to entities based in countries with more friendly regulatory environments. Holding Government Accountable. Federal technology and telecommunica- tions programs have been plagued by a troubling lack of accountability and good governance. They would benefit from stronger oversight and a fresh look at elim- inating outdated regulations that are doing more harm than good. l End wasteful broadband spending policies. Many of the broadband spending policies being pursued by the current Administration are poised to waste taxpayer money while leaving rural communities and unconnected Americans behind. At the same time, the dramatic recent increases in funding through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mean that the federal government has more than enough resources to meet its broadband connectivity goals. Congress should therefore hold the agencies accountable so that taxpayer money is used effectively to promote broadband connectivity across the nation. To that end, the next Administration should instruct the various departments and agencies that are administering broadband infrastructure funds to direct those resources to communities without adequate Internet infrastructure instead of to places that already enjoy broadband connectivity. Take, for example, the final rules that the Treasury Department adopted in 2022 that govern the expenditure of $350 billion in ARPA funds. Rather than directing those dollars to the rural and other communities that have no Internet infrastructure, the current — 856 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Administration gave the green light for recipients to spend those funds to overbuild existing high-speed networks in communities that already have multiple broadband providers. A new Administration should eliminate government-funded overbuilding of existing networks. l Adopt a national coordinating strategy. Hundreds of billions of infrastructure dollars have been appropriated by Congress or budgeted by agencies over the past couple of years that can be used to end the digital divide. Yet, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “U.S. broadband efforts are not guided by a national strategy”; instead, “[f]ederal broadband efforts are fragmented and overlapping, with more than 100 programs administered by 15 agencies,” risking overbuilding as well as wasteful duplication.26 Many of these programs remain plagued by inefficiency, further contributing to waste of limited taxpayer dollars. Moreover, the federal government is failing to put appropriate guardrails in place to govern the expenditure of billions in broadband funds. This is the regulatory equivalent of turning the spigot on full blast and then walking away from the hose. There is a worrisome lack of adequate tracking, measurement, and accountability standards governing all of this broadband spending. As a result, we are likely to see headline levels of waste, fraud, and abuse. A new Administration needs to bring fresh oversight to this spending and put a national strategy in place to ensure that the federal government adopts a coordinated approach to its various broadband initiatives. Similarly, the next Administration should ask the FCC to launch a review of its existing broadband programs, including the different components of the USF, with the goal of avoiding duplication, improving efficiency of existing programs, and saving taxpayer money. l Correct the FCC’s regulatory trajectory and encourage competition to improve connectivity. The FCC is a New Deal–era agency. Its history of regulation tends to reflect the view that the federal government should impose heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition and market forces to produce optimal outcomes. President Franklin D. Roosevelt recommended that Congress create the FCC in February 1934 for the purposes of establishing “a single Government agency charged with broad authority” over the field of communications.27 Congress subsequently established the FCC through the Communications Act of 1934. Congress has passed a number of additional statutes—some broad, some
Introduction
— 855 — Federal Communications Commission so a new Administration should redouble efforts to require timely reviews and final actions by agencies with jurisdiction over federal lands, including the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. l Advance America’s space leadership. One of the most significant technological developments of the past few years has been the emergence of a new generation of low-earth orbit satellites like StarLink and Kuiper. This technology can beam a reliable, high-speed Internet signal to nearly any part of the globe at a fraction of the cost of other technologies. This has the potential to significantly accelerate efforts to end the digital divide and disrupt the federal regulatory and subsidy regime that applies to communications networks. The FCC should expedite its work to support this new technology by acting more quickly in its review and approval of applications to launch new satellites. Otherwise, the U.S. risks ceding space leadership to entities based in countries with more friendly regulatory environments. Holding Government Accountable. Federal technology and telecommunica- tions programs have been plagued by a troubling lack of accountability and good governance. They would benefit from stronger oversight and a fresh look at elim- inating outdated regulations that are doing more harm than good. l End wasteful broadband spending policies. Many of the broadband spending policies being pursued by the current Administration are poised to waste taxpayer money while leaving rural communities and unconnected Americans behind. At the same time, the dramatic recent increases in funding through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mean that the federal government has more than enough resources to meet its broadband connectivity goals. Congress should therefore hold the agencies accountable so that taxpayer money is used effectively to promote broadband connectivity across the nation. To that end, the next Administration should instruct the various departments and agencies that are administering broadband infrastructure funds to direct those resources to communities without adequate Internet infrastructure instead of to places that already enjoy broadband connectivity. Take, for example, the final rules that the Treasury Department adopted in 2022 that govern the expenditure of $350 billion in ARPA funds. Rather than directing those dollars to the rural and other communities that have no Internet infrastructure, the current
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.