National Weather Service Communications Improvement Act

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2296 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2296

  To upgrade the communications service used by the National Weather 
                    Service, and for other purposes.


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 24, 2025

 Mr. Feenstra (for himself, Mrs. Hinson, Mr. Sorensen, Mr. Graves, Mr. 
Haridopolos, Mr. Crenshaw, Ms. Craig, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Ms. McBride, Ms. 
Ross, Mrs. Radewagen, Mrs. Miller-Meeks, Mr. Moylan, Mr. Carbajal, Mrs. 
  McClain Delaney, and Mr. Moskowitz) introduced the following bill; 
 which was referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

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                                 A BILL


 
  To upgrade the communications service used by the National Weather 
                    Service, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``National Weather Service 
Communications Improvement Act''.

SEC. 2. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE COMMUNICATIONS.

    (a) System Upgrade.--The Director of the National Weather Service 
shall improve the instant messaging service used by personnel of the 
National Weather Service by implementing, not later than October 1, 
2027, a commercial off-the-shelf communications solution that replaces 
the instant messaging service commonly referred to as ``NWSChat''.
    (b) Requirements.--The communications solution implemented under 
subsection (a) shall--
            (1) be hosted on the public cloud; and
            (2) satisfy requirements set forth by the Director of the 
        National Weather Service to ensure such solution--
                    (A) best accommodates future growth;
                    (B) performs successfully with increased numbers of 
                users;
                    (C) is easy to use for the majority of users; and
                    (D) is similar to systems already in commercial 
                use.
    (c) Funding.--From amounts made available for Operations, Research, 
and Facilities, the Director of the National Weather Service shall 
allocate up to $3,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2026 through 2029 to 
carry out subsection (a).
    (d) Limitation on Funding.--Amounts made available to carry out 
subsection (a) shall be derived from amounts appropriated or otherwise 
made available to the National Weather Service.
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