Legislation Supported by the FOP in the 116th Congress

U.S. House of Representatives

• H.R. 99 (Buchanan, R-FL), the “Thin Blue Line Act,” which would increase the penalty for offenders who kill or attempt to kill law enforcement or other public safety officers;
• TOP PRIORITY – H.R. 141 (Davis, R-IL), the “Social Security Fairness Act,” which would repeal both the “Windfall Elimination Provision” and the “Government Pension Offset” in current Social Security law;
• H.R. 207 (Ruppersberger, D-MD), the “Stop the Violence Act,” which would establish a pilot program within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide grants to 10 trauma centers which have existing violence prevention or intervention programs designed to reduce re-admittance and reincarceration rates;
• H.R. 295 (Fitzpatrick, R-PA), the “End Banking for Human Traffickers Act,” which would add the Secretary of the Treasury as a member of the President’s Interagency Task Force;
• H.R. 449 (Demings, D-FL), the “Pathways to Improving Homeland Security at the Local Level Act,” which would direct the Assistant Secretary for State and Local Law Enforcement to produce an accessible annual catalog on the available DHS trainings, publications, programs, and services for their State, local and tribal partners;
• H.R. 489 (Fitzpatrick, R-PA), the “Strengthening Homeland Security, Intelligence and Essential Law Enforcement Departments (SHIELD) Act,” which would make sure that Federal law enforcement officers required to report for duty even in the event that the Departments or agencies they serve have not been appropriated funds by Congress;
• PASSED – PL 116-72/H.R. 724 (Deutsch, D-FL), the “Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act,” which would provide criminal penalty for those who engage in “animal crushing” as well as for those who create or distribute such films;
• PASSED – PL 116-94/H.R. 748 (Courtney, D-CT), the “Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act,” which would repeal a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that imposes a 40% “Cadillac tax” on health care plans most likely to be used by law enforcement and other public safety officers;
• PASSED – PL 116-104/H.R. 777 (Maloney, D-NY), the “Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act,” which would reauthorize the Debbie Smith Act;
• H.R. 838 (Babin, R-TX), the “Threat Assessment, Prevention and Safety (TAPS) Act,” which would provide resources to create a national strategy to identify, investigate, and mitigate possibly violent behavior through multi-disciplinary behavioral threat assessment and management;
• TOP PRIORITY – H.R. 1154 (Kildee, D-MI), the “the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act,” which would recognize the right of law enforcement and other public safety officers to bargain collectively with their employers;
• H.R. 1156 (Bacon, R-NE), the “LEOSA Reform Act,” which would amend the Law Enforcement Officers’ Safety Act (LEOSA), which exempts qualified active and retired law enforcement officers from local and State prohibitions on the carriage of concealed firearms, to ensure that these officers are able to carry in the same venues as civilian concealed carry permit holders in areas like schools and national parks, as well as use public transportation and extends the exemption to magazine capacity and would allow active and retired law enforcement officers to access services at U.S. post offices, Social Security Administration offices or Veterans’ Affairs facilities;
• TOP PRIORITY – H.R. 1195 (King, R-NY), the “Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act,” which would expand the definition of “law enforcement officer” for salary and retirement benefits to include all Federal law enforcement officers;
• H.R. 1210 (Ruiz, D-CA), the “Heroes Lesley Zerebney and Gilbert Vega First Responders Survivors Support Act,” which would increase the amount of the death benefit provide by the Public Safety Officers’ benefits (PSOB) program as well as other benefits administered by the PSOB;
• H.R. 1256 (Connolly, D-VA), the “Fair Return for Employees on Their Initial Retirement Earned (RETIRE) Act,” which would allow Federal law enforcement officers, who were severely injured in the line of duty, to maintain their 6(c) early retirement if they take a civil service position after their injury;
• H.R. 1325 (Rutherford, R-FL), the “Protect and Serve Act,” which would make it a Federal crime to target a law enforcement officer with an assault that results in seriously bodily harm or death;
• PASSED – PL 116-34/H.R. 1327 (Maloney, D-NY), the “Never Forget the Heroes: Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act,” which would reauthorize the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) through Fiscal Year 2090, the same reauthorization Congress provided for the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP);
• H.R. 1380 (Quigley, D-IL), the “Big Cats Public Safety Act,” which would strengthen existing restrictions on the possession and exhibition of big cats, including restricting direct contact between the public and these animals;
• H.R. 1387 (Kustoff, R-TN), the “Criminal Organizations’ Narcotics, Finance, Resources, Operations and Network Targeting (CONFRONT) Act,” which would codify an existing Executive Order and direct the Federal government to develop a national strategy to combat transnational criminal organizations;
• H.R. 1528 (Joyce, R-OH), the “Comprehensive Opioid Program Extension (COPE) Act,” which would reauthorize the comprehensive opioid abuse program to provide more resources for communities;
• H.R. 1671 (Quigley, D-IL), the “NICS Denial Notification Act,” which would require the U.S. Department of Justice to notify State and local law enforcement agencies if a prohibited person attempts to purchase a firearm in their jurisdiction;
• H.R. 1767 (Matsui, D-CA), the “Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Expansion Act,” which would renew and expand the critical, community-based treatment program, the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC), which would otherwise expire on 22 May 2020;
• H.R. 1818 (Estes, R-KS), the “Kelsey Smith Act,” which would require telephone companies and wireless carriers to disclose cell-site location data without a warrant in certain exigent circumstances;
• PASSED – PL 116-94/H.R. 1865 (Pascrell, D-NJ), the “National Law Enforcement Museum Commemorative Coin Act,” which would direct the U.S. Mint to produce commemorative coins and divert some of the proceeds from their sale to support the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund;
• H.R. 1866 (Pascrell, D-NJ), the “Probation Officer Protection Act,” which would amend section 3606 of Title 18, United States Code, to grant probation officers authority to arrest hostile third parties who obstruct or impede a probation officer in the performance of official duties;
• H.R. 1999 (Jeffries, D-NY), the “Fair Licensing Access for Government (FLAG) Act,” which would allow government entities to patent, protect and copyright flags, badges and patches for commercial use;
• H.R. 2070 (Lamb, D-PA), the “Providing Officers with Electronic Resources (POWER) Act,” which would establish a grant program to be administered by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in order to provide State and local law enforcement agencies with portable chemical screening devices to detect dangerous synthetic opioids and other drugs;
• H.R. 2179 (Lamb, D-PA), the “Federal Firearms Licensee Protection Act,” which would make the theft of firearms from a Federal Firearms Licensee a Federal crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison;
• H.R. 2329 (Ryan, D-OH), the “Law Enforcement Immersive Training Act,” which would provide grants to State and local law enforcement agencies to access immersive, real-life, scenario-based training;
• PASSED – PL 116-32/H.R. 2368 (Reschenthaler, R-PA), the “Supporting and Treating Officers in Crisis (STOIC) Act,” which would revive and expand programs designed to help officers and their families with stress reduction, suicide prevention and the promotion of mental health and wellness;
• PASSED – PL 116-18/H.R. 2379 (Pascrell, D-NJ), the “Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Reauthorization Act,” which permanently reauthorizes the Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP) program;
• H.R. 2513 (Maloney, D-NY), the “Corporate Transparency Act,” which would require the Federal government to collect beneficial ownership information for corporations and limited liability companies unless the State already collects this information;
• H.R. 2560 (Norman, R-SC), the “Putting First Responders First Act,” which would codify existing Internal Revenue Code regulations making service-connected disability compensation exempt from Federal income taxes;
• H.R. 2698 (Horn, D-OK), the “Law Enforcement Training for Mental Health Crisis Response Act,” which would address an urgent need to provide our nation’s law enforcement officers with training to recognize and appropriately respond to behavioral crises caused, not by criminal activity, but by mental illness and substance abuse;
• H.R. 2812 (Pascrell, D-NJ), the “Protecting America’s First Responders Act,” which would update the PSOB disability determinations and the definitions making it more consistent with existing Federal law and greatly improve the ability of our injured and disabled officers to have their claims processed more fairly and more quickly;
• H.R. 2849 (Norton, D-DC-At Large), the “Department of the Treasury Officer Protection Act,” which would permit law enforcement officers of the Department of the Treasury to carry service weapons to their place of residence while off duty, and for other purposes;
• H.R. 2935 (Sensenbrenner, R-WI), the “Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogues (SOFA) Act,” which would amend current law to prevent criminal drug traffickers and manufacturers from evading Federal penalties by using analogue drugs which are just as lethal as fentanyl;
• H.R. 3735 (Quigley, D-IL), the “Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act,” which would establish a program to collect data on law enforcement and former law enforcement suicides at the local, State, and Federal level;
• H.R. 3990 (Guest, R-MS), the “Operation Stonegarden Reauthorization Act,” which would reauthorize grants to State, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to improve border security;
• H.R. 4018 (Deutch, D-FL), which would provide a technical fix to the Elderly Home Detention Pilot program established by the First Step Act;
• H.R. 4527 (Malinowski, D-NJ), the “Expanding Health Care Options for Early Retirees Act,” which would allow law enforcement and other public safety officers the option to buy into Medicare at the age of 50;
• H.R. 4540 (Neal, D-MA), the “Public Servants Protection and Fairness Act,” which would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and replace it with a more equitable and individualized calculation of Social Security benefits while ensuring that no workers will be negatively impacted by the new formula;
• H.R. 4789 (Demings, D-FL), which would allow for some of that cost to be recovered, by allowing Federal law enforcement officers to purchase retired service weapons;
• H.R. 4810 (Davis, R-IL), the “Opioid Prescription Verification Act,” which would require retail sellers to verify the identity of the prospective purchaser and enter certain information into the State’s prescription drug monitoring system;
• H.R. 4897 (Lipinski, D-IL), the “Public Safety Retirees Healthcare Protection Act,” which would increase the pretax benefit from $3,000 to $6,000 for public safety employees to pay for premiums on health care and long-term care insurance;
• H.R. 4963 (Katko, R-NY), the “Stop Importation and Manufacturing of Synthetic Analogues (SIMSA) Act,” which would update the Controlled Substances Act by adding a Schedule A to allow for the inclusion of analogue and synthetic drugs similar in effect, but chemically different, to existing scheduled substances on a temporary basis;
• H.R. 5342 (Pascrell, D-NJ), the “Supporting America’s First Responders Act,” which would establish a new “above-the-line” deduction for law enforcement and other public safety officers and which was incorporated into H.R. 5377, the “Restoring Tax Fairness for State and Localities Act”;
• H.R. 5376 (Gonzalez, R-OH), the “Eliminated Network Distribution (END) of Child Exploitation Act,” which would improve the effectiveness of the CyberTipline, which is administered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children;
• H.R. 5855 (Ruppersberger, D-MD), the “Bipartisan Solution to Cyclical Violence Act,” which would direct the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a grant program for specified trauma centers and nonprofits to establish or expand intervention or prevention programs related to intentional violent trauma, excluding intimate partner violence;
• H.R. 6008 (Pascrell, D-NJ), the “Traumatic Brain Injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Law Enforcement Training Act,” which would direct the Attorney General to develop crisis intervention training tools for use by law enforcement and other public safety officers when interacting with community members who have traumatic brain injury (TBI), another form of acquired brain injury, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD);
• H.R. 6436 (Chabot, R-OH), which would repeal the direct payment requirement in the Healthcare Enhancement for Local Public Safety (HELPS) Retirees Act;
• H.R. 6509 (Nadler, D-NY), the “Public Safety Officer Pandemic Response Act,” which would expand and codify the presumption that a death benefit claim for a COVID-19 related death, made through Public Safety Officers’ Benefits (PSOB) program, will be found by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to have contracted the disease in the line of duty in most cases. This legislation would also ensure that public safety officers who contract COVID-19 in the line of duty are eligible for benefits should they become disabled from the novel coronavirus;
• H.R. 6694 (Trone, D-MD), the “Confidentiality Opportunities for Peer Support (COPS) Act,” which would reduce the barriers for law enforcement officers when trying to access mental health resources;
• H.R. 7568 (Trone, D-MD), the “Public Safety Officer Support Act,” which would expand the eligibility of certain officers or their surviving family for death and disability benefits as provided for by the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits (PSOB) program;
• H.J. Res. 65 (Womack, R-AR), which would amend the Constitution to give Congress the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States;
• Legislation to provide Federal law enforcement officers with a rebuttable presumption that a causal connection exists between their occupation and heart, lung, and hypertension disorders; and
• Legislation which would protect the personal information of law enforcement officers and their families from public access

United States Senate

• S. 265 (Rubio, R-FL), the “Threat Assessment, Prevention and Safety (TAPS) Act,” which would provide resources to create a national strategy to identify, investigate, and mitigate possibly violent behavior through multi-disciplinary behavioral threat assessment and management;
• S. 273 (Roberts, R-KS), the “Kelsey Smith Act,” which would require telephone companies and wireless carriers to disclose cell-site location data without a warrant in certain exigent circumstances;
• S. 400 (Toomey, R-PA), the “Blocking Deadly Fentanyl Imports Act,” which would modernize the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) by adding countries that are significant sources of illicit fentanyl and similar synthetic opioids to the annual “Majors List”;
• S. 465 (Duckworth, D-IL), the “First Responders Survivors Support Act,” which would increase the amount of the death benefit provided by the Public Safety Officers’ Benefit (PSOB) program as well as other benefits administered by the PSOB;
• TOP PRIORITY – S. 473 (Booker, D-NJ), the “Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act,” which would expand the definition of “law enforcement officer” for salary and retirement benefits to include all Federal law enforcement officers;
• PASSED – PL 116-72/S. 479 (Toomey, R-PA), the “Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act,” which would provide criminal penalty for those who engage in “animal crushing,” as well as for those who create or distribute such films;
• S. 495 (Grassley, R-IA), the “EAGLES Act,” which would reauthorize the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security;
• TOP PRIORITY – S. 521 (Brown, D-OH), the “Social Security Fairness Act,” which would repeal both the “Windfall Elimination Provision” and the “Government Pension Offset” in current Social Security law;
• S. 531 (Tester, D-MT), the “Fair Return for Employees on Their Initial Retirement Earned (RETIRE) Act,” which would allow Federal law enforcement officers, who were severely injured in the line of duty, to maintain their 6(c) early retirement if they take a civil service position after their injury;
• PASSED – PL 116-34/S. 546 (Gillibrand, D-NY), the “Never Forget the Heroes: Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund Act,” which would reauthorize the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) through Fiscal Year 2090, the same reauthorization Congress provided for the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP);
• PASSED – PL 116-94/S. 684 (Heinrich, D-NM), the “Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act,” which would repeal a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that imposes a 40% “Cadillac tax” on health care plans most likely to be used by law enforcement and other public safety officers;
• S. 710 (Toomey, R-PA), the “Social Security Fairness for Firefighters and Police Officers Act,” which would repeal both the “Windfall Elimination Provision” and the “Government Pension Offset” for those serving as law enforcement officers or firefighters;
• PASSED – PL 116-104/S. 820 (Cornyn, R-TX), the “Debbie Smith Act,” which would reauthorize the Debbie Smith Act;
• S. 824 (Stabenow, D-MI), the “Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Expansion Act,” which would renew and expand the critical, community-based treatment program, the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC), which would otherwise expire on 22 May 2020;
• S. 875 (Toomey, R-PA), the “NICS Denial Notification Act,” which would require the U.S. Department of Justice to notify State and local law enforcement agencies if a prohibited person attempts to purchase a firearm in their jurisdiction;
• S. 954 (Brown, D-OH), the “Providing Officers with Electronic Resources (POWER) Act,” which would establish a grant program to be administered by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in order to provide State and local law enforcement agencies with portable chemical screening devices to detect dangerous synthetic opioids and other drugs;
• S. 963 (Klobuchar, D-MN), the “Fair Licensing Access for Government (FLAG) Act,” which would allow government entities to patent, protect and copyright flags, badges and patches for commercial use;
• PASSED – PL 116-32/S. 998 (Hawley, R-MO), the “Supporting and Treating Officers in Crisis (STOIC) Act,” which would revive and expand programs designed to help officers and their families with stress reduction, suicide prevention and the promotion of mental health and wellness;
• S. 1208 (Grassley, R-IA), the “Protecting America’s First Responders Act,” which would update the PSOB disability determinations and the definitions making it more consistent with existing Federal law and greatly improve the ability of our injured and disabled officers to have their claims processed more fairly and more quickly;
• PASSED – PL 116-18/S. 1231 (Leahy, D-VT), the “Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Reauthorization Act,” which permanently reauthorizes the Bulletproof Vest Partnership (BVP) program;
• S. 1278 (Daines, R-MT), the “Putting First Responders First Act,” which would codify existing Internal Revenue Code regulations making service-connected disability compensation exempt from Federal income taxes;
• TOP PRIORITY – S. 1394 (Baldwin, D-WI), the “the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act,” which would recognize the right of law enforcement and other public safety officers to bargain collectively with their employers;
• S. 1464 (Inhofe, R-OK), the “Law Enforcement Training for Mental Health Crisis Response Act,” which would address an urgent need to provide our nation’s law enforcement officers with training to recognize and appropriately respond to behavioral crises caused, not by criminal activity, but by mental illness and substance abuse;
• S. 1508 (Toomey, R-PA), the “Thin Blue Line Act,” which would increase the penalty for offenders who kill or attempt to kill law enforcement or other public safety officers;
• S. 1622 (Johnson, R-WI), the “Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogues (SOFA) Act,” which would amend current law to prevent criminal drug traffickers and manufacturers from evading Federal penalties by using analogue drugs which are just as lethal as fentanyl;
• S. 1883 (Grassley, R-IA), the “Combatting Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act,” which would update and strengthen existing Federal laws on money laundering;
• S. 1978 (Wyden, R-OR), the “Corporate Transparency Act,” which would require the Federal government to collect beneficial ownership information for corporations and limited liability companies unless the State already collects this information;
• S. 2197 (Brown, D-OH), the “Protecting Rights of Those Exploited by Coercive Trafficking (PROTECT) Act,” which would amend existing human trafficking law to specify the use of drugs or illegal substances to cause a person to engage in a commercial sex act or forced labor constitutes a form of coercion;
• S. 2264 (Toomey, R-PA), “Eric’s Law,” which would amend current law to allow Federal prosecutors to impanel a second jury for the sentencing phase of capital cases;
• S. 2323 (Markey, D-MA), the “Screening All Fentanyl-Enhanced (SAFE) Mail Act,” which would use technology developed by the Opioid Detection Challenge in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to be deployed within 5 years to scan 100% of all international mail and express cargo for fentanyl and other synthetic opioids;
• S. 2376 (Leahy, D-VT), the “Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act,” which would criminalize the practice of “straw purchasers”—individuals who are not prohibited from buying firearms only to transfer those weapons to persons who are unable to lawfully obtain guns;
• S. 2552 (Brown, D-OH), the “Expanding Health Care Options for Early Retirees Act,” which would allow law enforcement and other public safety officers the option to buy into Medicare at the age of 50;
• S. 2563 (Warner, D-VA), the “Improving Laundering Laws and Increasing Comprehensive Information Tracking of Criminal Activity in Shell Holdings (ILLICIT CASH) Act,” which would provide law enforcement with tools to better combat money laundering, including the collection of beneficial ownership information;
• S. 2701 (Portman, R-OH), the “Federal Initiative to Guarantee Health by Targeting (FIGHT) Fentanyl Act,” which would permanently schedule fentanyl-related substances as Schedule 1 substances;
• S. 2746 (Cortez Masto, D-NV), the “Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection Act,” which would establish a program to collect data on law enforcement and former law enforcement suicides at the local, State, and Federal level;
• S. 2750 (McSally, R-AZ), the “Operation Stonegarden Reauthorization Act,” which would reauthorize grants to State, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to improve border security;
• S. 3007 (Blackburn, R-TN), the “Eliminated Network Distribution (END) of Child Exploitation Act,” which would improve the effectiveness of the CyberTipline, which is administered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children;
• PASSED – PL 116-xx/S. 3201 (Graham, R-SC), the “Temporary Reauthorization and Study of the Emergency Scheduling of Fentanyl Analogues Act,” which temporarily extends the authority of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to schedule certain fentanyl analogues as Schedule I substances;
• S. 3398 (Graham, R-SC), the “Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act,” which would establish a National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention in an effort to combat the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet;
• S. 3434 (Cortez Masto, D-NV), the “Confidentiality Opportunities for Peer Support (COPS) Act,” which would reduce the barriers for law enforcement officers when trying to access mental health resources;
• S. 3607 (Grassley, R-IA), the “Safeguarding America’s First Responders Act,” which would establish a presumption that a law enforcement or other public safety officers who dies from COVID-19 or complications related to COVID-19 did so because they sustained a personal injury in the line of duty, provided that the officer engaged in line of duty actions between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021;
• S. 3732 (Cornyn, R-TX), the “Jamie Zapata and Victor Avila Federal Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act,” which would clarify that Federal law clearly and unambiguously protects Federal law enforcement officers operating outside our borders;
• S. 3987 (Peters, D-MI), the “Strong Communities Act,” which would help build on the community-policing model by established a grant program for local law enforcement agencies to assist in recruiting officers in their own community;
• S. 4186 (Coons, D-DE), the “Driving for Opportunity Act,” which would create a grant program for States to reinstate drivers’ licenses that were suspended for unpaid fines and fees;
• S. J. Res. 49 (Daines, R-MT), which would amend the Constitution to give Congress the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States;
• S. Res. 232 (Menendez, D-NJ), a resolution which calls for the immediate extradition or expulsion to the United States of convicted murderers Joanne Chesimard, Charles Hill, William Morales and more than 70 other fugitives from justice who are receiving safe haven in the Republic of Cuba;
• Legislation to provide Federal law enforcement officers with a rebuttable presumption that a causal connection exists between their occupation and heart, lung, and hypertension disorders; and
• Legislation which would protect the personal information of law enforcement officers and their families from public access.