[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4167 Introduced in House (IH)]

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114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 4167

To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require multi-line telephone 
systems to have a default configuration that permits users to directly 
 initiate a call to 9-1-1 without dialing any additional digit, code, 
              prefix, or post-fix, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            December 3, 2015

Mr. Gohmert (for himself, Mr. Farenthold, Mr. Duncan of Tennessee, Mr. 
  Thompson of California, and Mr. Culberson) introduced the following 
    bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to require multi-line telephone 
systems to have a default configuration that permits users to directly 
 initiate a call to 9-1-1 without dialing any additional digit, code, 
              prefix, or post-fix, 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 ``Kari's Law Act of 2015''.

SEC. 2. DEFAULT CONFIGURATION OF MULTI-LINE TELEPHONE SYSTEMS FOR 
              DIRECT DIALING OF 9-1-1.

    (a) In General.--Title VII of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 
U.S.C. 601 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:

``SEC. 721. DEFAULT CONFIGURATION OF MULTI-LINE TELEPHONE SYSTEMS FOR 
              DIRECT DIALING OF 9-1-1.

    ``(a) In General.--A person engaged in the business of 
manufacturing, importing, selling, leasing, or installing multi-line 
telephone systems may not manufacture or import for use in the United 
States, sell or lease or offer to sell or lease in the United States, 
or install in the United States a multi-line telephone system, unless 
the default configuration of such system is such that a user may 
directly initiate a call to 9-1-1 from any station equipped with 
dialing facilities, without dialing any additional digit, code, prefix, 
or post-fix, including any trunk-access code such as the digit `9', 
regardless of whether the user is required to dial such a digit, code, 
prefix, or post-fix for other calls.
    ``(b) On-Site Notification.--A person engaged in the business of 
installing multi-line telephone systems, in installing such a system, 
shall configure the system to provide a notification to a central 
location at the facility where the system is installed when a person at 
the facility initiates a call to 9-1-1 using the system, if the system 
is able to be configured to provide the notification without an 
improvement to the hardware of the system.
    ``(c) Enforcement.--This section shall be enforced under title V, 
except that section 501 applies only to the extent that such section 
provides for the punishment of a fine.
    ``(d) Multi-Line Telephone System Defined.--The term `multi-line 
telephone system' has the meaning given such term in section 6502 of 
the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (47 U.S.C. 
1471).''.
    (b) Effective Date.--The amendment made by subsection (a) shall 
apply with respect to a multi-line telephone system that is 
manufactured, imported, offered for first sale or lease, first sold or 
leased, or installed after the date that is 2 years after the date of 
the enactment of this Act.
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