S825-119

What This Bill Does

The Fighting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Act would require the Attorney General, acting through the Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), to submit a report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees within 150 days of enactment. The report addresses at least one proposed DOJ program for job-related post-traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder, if the Attorney General finds a proposal appropriate and feasible. It considers treatment and prevention through evidence-based trauma-informed care, peer support, counseling and family supports. This is a program-design and reporting bill: it does not itself establish a funded treatment benefit.

Who Benefits and How

Public safety officers, expressly including Tribal officers, and public safety telecommunicators are the intended recipients of any later program. Their families could benefit through family supports, and their representative organizations must be included in the consultation process. Telecommunicators are defined by emergency-communication, information-taking and response-coordination functions at 911 answering points and emergency operations centers. The proposed delivery design must take account of in-person and telehealth capabilities across State, Tribal, territorial and local levels. Patients do not receive an immediate entitlement to appointments or reimbursement under this text.

Who Bears the Burden and How

The Attorney General and COPS Office must develop the report, consult employing agencies and relevant organizations, draft authorizing legislation and necessary confidentiality-related grant conditions, and estimate annual appropriations. These planning duties create federal administrative work, but no specified new appropriation or grant award. Treatment providers are not selected and police or fire departments are not required to purchase services. The confidentiality paragraph expressly refers to public safety officers; the broader program paragraph also names telecommunicators. The analysis therefore does not imply that a new enforceable confidentiality right already covers every participant.

Key Provisions

• Requires a report within 150 days to both Judiciary Committees on a proposed DOJ treatment or prevention program, subject to the Attorney General's appropriateness and feasibility determination.
• Directs the report to address trauma-informed care, peer support, counseling, family supports and in-person and telehealth delivery.
• Requires draft grant conditions for officer confidentiality, proposed authorizing legislation and annual funding estimates rather than enacting those future grants or appropriations.
• Requires consultation with employing agencies at each specified government level and organizations representing officers, telecommunicators and their families.