Improved emergency communication in federal buildings focus of new bipartisan legislation

A bipartisan trio on the Senate committee that oversees governmental operations recently introduced a new bill to require the development of emergency communication guidance for federal building tenants. 

The Federal Building Threat Notification Act (S. 2542) would task the Federal Protective Service, which guards government facilities, with creating and enacting such guidance within one year. It would require the plans to specifically address how tenants would be informed of violent threats, such as shootings, acts of terrorism and suspicious items, in and around their building. 

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the bill’s sponsor and the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced the measure partly because of an incident in his home state, where a man fired gunshots outside of a federal building.

“I was deeply troubled this January when I learned that folks working inside Detroit’s McNamara Federal Building weren’t informed of a shooting right outside their office until hours after it happened,” he said in an Aug. 19 press release. “My new bill would help keep employees and visitors of federal buildings informed, so they know exactly what to do in an emergency.” 

The legislation is cosponsored by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, both of whom are on the governmental affairs panel. 

Guidance developed under the bill would be implemented in each facility by an official designated by that building’s security committee, which includes representatives from all of its federal tenants, the entity responsible for physical security and the owning or leasing department or agency. 

FPS also would be required to report to and brief Congress on best practices and protocols enacted under the bill. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently repairing its headquarters after an individual who police said was “discontent” with the COVID-19 vaccine shot hundreds of rounds at the building, killing a responding police officer, before committing suicide. 

In 2024, former President Joe Biden signed into law a bill to require federal building managers to adopt security recommendations from FPS or explain to the Homeland Security secretary why they are not doing so. The Government Accountability Office reported that the agency issued more than 25,000 recommendations between fiscal 2017 and 2021, but agencies did not respond to 57% of the suggestions and rejected 12% of them. 

Federal property management is on GAO’s high-risk list of programs that are vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse partly because of security shortfalls.