This bill reauthorizes the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977 and amends the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) to reflect modern resilience priorities. It expands program activities to include Tribal governments, adds design and retrofit to construction priorities, requires development and maintenance of standards and hazard maps (including tsunami susceptibility), and directs agencies to pursue post-earthquake performance and functional recovery objectives for buildings and lifeline infrastructure.
The measure also adjusts interagency roles: it directs the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to coordinate with NOAA, FEMA, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on data sharing and rapid, multilingual alerting; authorizes aftershock forecasting and expansion of early warning coverage; and establishes a dedicated funding path—$83,403,000 annually for FY2026–2030 with a minimum $30 million per year to complete the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS). For infrastructure owners, emergency managers, and public-safety agencies, the bill shifts NEHRP toward recovery-focused standards and tighter operational coordination across federal and Tribal partners.
At a Glance
What It Does
Amends NEHRP statutory duties to add Tribal participation, require designing and retrofitting activity, create performance-based standards (including reoccupancy and downtime objectives), expand tsunami susceptibility mapping, and direct USGS to improve and extend earthquake early warning and aftershock forecasts in coordination with NOAA, FEMA, and the FCC.
Who It Affects
State, local, and Tribal governments; USGS, NOAA, FEMA, and the FCC; operators of lifeline infrastructure (utilities, transportation, hospitals); emergency management agencies; and the science community responsible for seismic monitoring and standards development.
Why It Matters
The bill pivots NEHRP from hazard characterization toward operational resilience — prioritizing how quickly communities and critical services recover after a quake — while funding completion of the ANSS and formalizing FCC coordination for faster, multilingual public alerts.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill updates the core program activities of NEHRP to reflect two connected goals: broaden participation and move from hazard description to measurable recovery outcomes. It inserts Tribal governments explicitly across program activities and advisory roles, expands the program’s remit from building and constructing to designing, evaluating, and retrofitting, and charges NEHRP to develop performance-based standards and consensus codes that include post-earthquake objectives such as reoccupancy and limits on downtime for community-prioritized buildings and lifeline services.
On early warning and communications, the legislation adds specific coordination duties. The USGS must work with NOAA and FEMA on data sharing for oceanic quakes and tsunamis, and with the FCC on rapid broadcast of earthquake alerts.
The bill requires alerts be delivered as rapidly and reliably as practicable and—importantly—in the predominant languages of affected regions. It also directs USGS to expand early warning coverage into additional high-risk areas, coordinate those expansions with State and Tribal governments, and, when appropriate, issue aftershock forecasts following significant events.Administrative and technical updates are scattered through the amendments: the interagency coordinating committee gains an explicit role in coordinating with the FCC; the scientific advisory committee’s chair is added to certain consultations; hazard mapping duties are broadened to include tsunami susceptibility coordinated with the National Tsunami Hazards Mitigation Program; and cross-references for reporting are updated.
Finally, the bill specifies funding: it authorizes $83,403,000 per year for fiscal years 2026–2030 and earmarks not less than $30,000,000 each year for completing the Advanced National Seismic System. That funding commitment is the clearest material lever for accelerating monitoring and early warning upgrades but does not create mandatory retrofit grants for state or local governments.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill amends section 5(a)(2)(B) of the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act to add 'Tribal' participation and to require NEHRP activities to include designing, evaluating, and retrofitting (not just constructing) buildings and lifeline systems.
It requires development of standards and voluntary consensus codes that include post-earthquake performance objectives—explicitly targeting reoccupancy and downtime metrics for community-prioritized buildings and services.
The USGS must coordinate with the FCC to ensure earthquake alerts and early warnings are broadcast rapidly, reliably, and in the predominant languages of affected regions, and must expand the early warning system into additional high-risk areas.
USGS is directed to coordinate with NOAA and FEMA on data sharing and resource allocation for oceanic earthquakes and tsunamis, and to issue aftershock forecasts for significant domestic earthquakes when appropriate.
The bill authorizes $83,403,000 annually for FY2026–FY2030, and requires that at least $30,000,000 of each year’s appropriation go toward completing the Advanced National Seismic System established under section 13.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Expanded program activities: Tribal inclusion, retrofit, and performance standards
This amendment expands the statutory list of NEHRP activities to include Tribal governments alongside State and local partners, and changes the verbs describing program work to add designing, evaluating, and retrofitting. Practically, that authorizes NEHRP-funded work (grants, technical assistance, standards development) aimed at pre-event design and post-event recovery performance rather than only new construction. The provision also requires NEHRP to develop standards and consensus codes with explicit post-earthquake performance objectives (reoccupancy, downtime), which shifts the program toward outcome-based resilience measures that jurisdictions and owners can use when prioritizing retrofit and planning.
Standards, functional recovery, and hazard mapping (including tsunami susceptibility)
The bill instructs NEHRP to create standards, guidelines, and voluntary consensus codes that cover buildings, structures, and lifeline infrastructure and to address functional recovery topics. It also expands the mapping mandate to require publishing and maintaining maps that show earthquake-related natural hazards and explicitly includes tsunami susceptibility in coordination with the National Tsunami Hazards Mitigation Program. That means hazard products must be kept current and broadened to reflect secondary hazards—useful to planners but requiring ongoing data integration and maintenance resources.
Interagency and advisory changes: FCC coordination and Tribal representation
The interagency coordinating committee’s duties are amended to include coordination with the FCC for timely broadcasting of early warnings. The advisory committee language is updated to explicitly include the Chair of the Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee and to add Tribal governments to the list of advised constituencies. These changes tighten the governance chain for warnings and broaden stakeholder input, which should speed policy alignment but also increases the number of actors whose priorities must be reconciled.
USGS responsibilities: multilingual alerts, expanded warning, and aftershock forecasts
USGS duties are expanded throughout: it must coordinate with NOAA and FEMA on oceanic earthquake/tsunami data sharing and resources; consult with the FCC Chair to ensure rapid alert broadcasts and provide alerts in predominant regional languages; expand the early warning system into more high-risk areas and coordinate those expansions with State and Tribal governments; and, where appropriate, issue aftershock forecasts after significant earthquakes. The practical effect is a stronger operational role for USGS beyond monitoring—into public communications and forecast products—raising implementation and coordination needs across agencies.
Five-year funding authorization with a minimum ANSS allocation
The bill authorizes $83,403,000 per fiscal year for FY2026–FY2030 and requires that at least $30,000,000 each year be used toward completing the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) under section 13. This creates a recurring funding floor specifically tied to ANSS completion, directing congressional and agency focus to seismic network upgrades and expansion. The allocation is explicit but modest relative to the total national seismic and retrofit needs; agencies will need to decide how to prioritize ANSS work versus other NEHRP activities.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Infrastructure across all five countries.
Explore Infrastructure in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- State, local, and Tribal emergency managers — they gain access to updated hazard maps, performance-oriented standards, and formalized coordination on early warning expansion and aftershock forecasts, improving planning and response options.
- USGS and the seismic science community — the bill expands statutory duties and provides a multi-year funding authorization with a dedicated minimum for ANSS, enabling network upgrades, expanded coverage, and new operational forecasting responsibilities.
- Operators of lifeline infrastructure (utilities, transit, hospitals) — the introduction of post-earthquake performance objectives and guidance gives owners a framework to prioritize investments that reduce downtime and speed recovery.
- Non-English speaking and linguistically diverse communities — the requirement for alerts in predominant regional languages increases the likelihood that warnings reach populations that historically receive less timely information.
- Standards developers and the construction/retrofit industry — the push for voluntary consensus codes and design/evaluation activities creates demand for new guidance, certifications, and retrofit services.
Who Bears the Cost
- Federal agencies (USGS, NOAA, FEMA, FCC) — expanded coordination, data-sharing, alerting, and early warning rollout will consume agency staff time and implementation funds beyond baseline missions.
- FCC and communications providers — implementing rapid, multilingual alerting at scale may require upgrades to systems, protocols, and outreach efforts to ensure messages are delivered reliably.
- Infrastructure owners and building owners — adopting new performance-based standards or carrying out retrofits will impose capital and operational costs, especially for prioritized public-serving facilities.
- Tribal and small local governments — while explicitly included as partners, they may face administrative and matching burdens to participate in system expansions or to implement guidance if no dedicated grant streams are provided.
- Program administrators and grant managers — the expanded scope (mapping, maintenance, standards, multilingual outreach) increases program complexity and reporting/oversight tasks.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between strengthening federal leadership in detection, forecasting, and warning (and funding ANSS) versus the need for substantial local and owner-level investment to realize resilience goals: the bill tightens monitoring and communication duties but relies on voluntary standards and local action to achieve the performance outcomes it prioritizes, leaving a gap between diagnosis and funded remediation.
The bill reorients NEHRP toward operational resilience and communications, but it leaves several implementation questions open. The authorization sets an annual dollar figure and a $30 million-per-year floor for ANSS completion, yet it does not create specific grant programs or funding lines for states, Tribal nations, or localities to carry out required retrofits or to adopt performance-based standards.
That creates a familiar federal-state tension: agencies are charged with producing standards and forecasts, but the entities responsible for acting on them may lack the capital to do so.
The multilingual and FCC-coordinated alerting requirements improve equity but raise technical and legal issues. The FCC’s existing alerting infrastructure (e.g., Wireless Emergency Alerts) has limitations on message length, language support, and geotargeting; operationalizing rapid, reliable multilingual alerts across diverse devices and carriers will require technical work, testing, and possibly new policy authority.
Similarly, USGS issuance of aftershock forecasts creates expectations about accuracy and timeliness; forecasting inherently carries uncertainty, and there is no statutory guidance here about liability, standards of disclosure, or minimum evidentiary thresholds for issuing probabilistic forecasts. Finally, expanding hazard maps to include tsunami susceptibility and other secondary hazards is sensible but data-intensive; ensuring consistency and keeping maps current will depend on ongoing funding and interagency data-sharing agreements that the bill authorizes but does not prescribe in detail.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.