[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 7361 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 7361

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


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 1, 2022

 Mr. Feenstra (for himself, Mrs. Axne, Mrs. Miller-Meeks, Mrs. Hinson, 
 and Mr. Gimenez) 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) In General.--Title IV of the Weather Research and Forecasting 
Innovation Act of 2017 (15 U.S.C. 8541 et seq.) is amended by adding at 
the end the following new section:

``SEC. 415. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE COMMUNICATIONS.

    ``(a) System Upgrade.--The Director of the National Weather Service 
shall improve the instant messaging service used by National Weather 
Service personnel by implementing a commercial off-the-shelf 
communications solution hosted on the public cloud to serve as a 
replacement for the communications system in use as of the date of the 
enactment of this section (commonly referred to as `NWSChat'). Such 
communications solution shall satisfy requirements set forth by the 
Director to best accommodate future growth and perform successfully 
with increased numbers of users.
    ``(b) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated to carry out this section $3,000,000 for each of fiscal 
years 2023 through 2026, to remain available until expended.''.
    (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of contents in section 1(b) of 
the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 is amended 
by inserting after the item relating to section 414 the following new 
item:

``Sec. 415. National Weather Service communications.''.
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