Infrastructure Modernization & Disaster Response

Sep 25

INFRASTRUCTURE MODERNIZATION & DISASTER RESPONSE

Within one year, the responsible federal agency must publish a complete inventory of obsolete or unsupported air-traffic-control systems, critical cybersecurity weaknesses, controller staffing gaps, and facilities at elevated failure risk.
Each modernization project must have a public baseline for cost, schedule, operational capability, responsible official, testing plan, transition plan, and retirement date for the legacy system.
Safety-critical replacements must use staged testing and parallel operation rather than an untested nationwide conversion.
The Inspector General must report to Congress at least twice each year on missed milestones, cost growth, vendor performance, cybersecurity, staffing, and operational failures.
A project that materially exceeds its approved cost or schedule must receive an independent review before additional expansion funding is released.

Every federally supported disaster must identify one accountable coordinating official and publish which federal, state, and local entity owns each major response function.
Applications for immediate household assistance must be acknowledged within 48 hours. An initial eligibility decision should be issued within seven days when records are complete, and other individual-assistance decisions within 30 days, subject to documented disaster conditions.
A denial must state the missing fact or rule, evidence relied upon, correction process, and appeal deadline. Applicants must have online, telephone, and in-person methods to submit evidence and check status.
Emergency procurement must record the vendor, price, competition used or emergency justification, deliverables, conflicts, and responsible approving official. Fraud investigations must distinguish knowing deception from good-faith errors made during displacement.
An independent after-action report must be published within 180 days after the emergency phase, covering response times, unmet needs, deaths and injuries, communications, procurement, fraud, reconstruction delays, and corrective actions.

Owners of federally funded bridges, dams, drinking-water systems, ports, freight corridors, aviation facilities, and electric infrastructure must complete a standardized condition and risk assessment at least every four years. Assets designated as high risk require annual review.
Assessments must identify remaining service life, deferred maintenance, known safety defects, climate and disaster exposure, cybersecurity where applicable, estimated repair cost, and consequence of failure.
Federal capital funding should prioritize correction of documented high-consequence hazards and preservation of existing assets before lower-priority expansion projects.
A public dashboard must show project status, cost, schedule, condition rating, responsible owner, inspections, and unresolved high-risk findings, with security-sensitive details appropriately protected.
Material falsification of an inspection or condition report triggers funding suspension, independent review, recovery of misspent funds, and criminal referral where applicable.

Related policies: Federal Spending & National Debt; Energy; Government Operations, Competition & Public Assets; Public Health & Emergency Powers.

Status: Proposed / Draft — not yet formally adopted.

Originally published: August 15, 2026.

Last updated: September 25, 2026.

Version: Draft 0.1.

Mitchell Estrada