President Trump signed the Mystic Alerts Act into law on Thursday, opening a path for wireless carriers to send emergency alerts by satellite when a disaster knocks out cell service. The White House said the measure, H.R. 7022, requires the Federal Communications Commission to establish whatever requirements carriers need to transmit alerts that way.
The bill grew out of the flash flooding that tore through the Texas Hill Country on July 4, 2025, killing 139 people, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, KXAN in Austin reported. When the Senate passed the measure, Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who led it in that chamber, said in a statement from his office that many of the more than 130 people killed "did not receive emergency alerts due to compromised cellular networks that were knocked out by the storm." His office cited multiple reports of undelivered alerts across the flood zone once cellular infrastructure was damaged.
"Access to timely weather alerts would have given more Texans the runway needed to find higher ground before it was too late," Cornyn said in remarks quoted by KXAN.
The enrolled text of the bill gives the FCC six months to propose rules and 18 months to adopt final ones, in consultation with the Homeland Security secretary and the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Those rules must account for what satellites can transmit and what phones can receive and display, and they must minimize the effect on other voice and data traffic, including 911 calls.
The obligations fall on carriers that already take part voluntarily in the national wireless alert system and that offer satellite voice and data service to their customers. Within 60 days after the rules take effect, each of those carriers must tell the commission whether it will send alerts by satellite. A carrier that signs on has to follow the FCC's technical standards and may not charge extra for the capability. One that declines must notify new and existing subscribers. Customers who have opted out of emergency alerts, or of certain types of them, will not receive them by satellite either.
Nothing in the law forces a carrier to participate, and the timeline is long. The final rule cannot take effect until 36 months after it is published in the Federal Register or 12 months after Homeland Security and FEMA implement the standards needed to route alerts from the authorities who issue them to the carriers, whichever comes later. Carriers that send satellite alerts and meet their obligations are shielded from liability to customers over alerts transmitted or not transmitted that way, and a decision to stay out cannot by itself create liability.
Rep. August Pfluger, a Republican from San Angelo, carried the bill in the House, which passed it unanimously on April 20. Cornyn and Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, led the Senate effort, and that chamber also approved it unanimously. Pfluger credited Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz with moving it through his committee.
"After the devastating July 4th floods, it was clear that families in rural communities can't be left in the dark when cell networks go down," Pfluger said, according to KXAN, calling the law "a major step forward" for emergency preparedness. Ossoff said when the Senate acted that the bill "will help upgrade America's emergency alert systems to keep Georgia families safe and informed."
The disaster has also changed the law in Texas, where concerns over how warnings reached people during the flood led to a new state requirement for outdoor warning sirens in flood-prone areas, including Kerr County.
Trump also signed H.R. 952, the Reversionary Interest Conveyance Act, which directs the Interior Department to convey the federal government's reversionary interest in certain land in Sacramento, California, according to the White House announcement.
The next move belongs to the FCC, which now has six months to publish its proposed rules.