'Big, beautiful bill' funding failure puts US at risk from bad actors, expert warns

As lawmakers push forward with the sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the executive director and CEO of the oldest and largest organization of public safety communications professionals warns that its failure to include funding for Next Generation 911 (NG911) is a serious national security oversight with consequences for public safety.

"This bill does many good things," Mel Maier, executive director and CEO of APCO International, told Fox News Digital. "However, it leaves something out that’s very important, and that’s funding for Next Generation 911 and failing to modernize that first call for help."

NG911, Maier explained, is not just a modernization project but a public safety and national security necessity as the public remains on high alert following the U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

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Iranian worshippers shout anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli slogans as one of them holds a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during an anti-Israeli rally to condemn Israeli attacks on Iran, after Tehran's Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, on June 20, 2025.  (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

He emphasized that NG911 is also a matter of national security, especially considering escalating global instability and the increasing threat of foreign cyberattacks.

"Next Generation 911, at its heart, is really about national security," Maier said. "Whether it's cybersecurity from national threat actors, or from internal actors, we need to get that information to the field-based responders out there as quickly as possible."

Pointing to the recent concerns about sleeper cells in the U.S., Maier said that the vulnerabilities that the current system has could easily be jeopardized. 

"We know that cyberterrorists and threats are being directed against 911 today, and it’s affecting us today," he said. "Ransomware attacks have taken down 911 centers, police departments, fire departments, EMS agencies across the U.S. We need to stop that."

Despite these warnings, NG911 funding was not included in the current "big, beautiful bill."

"We do believe that working with Congress in a bicameral and bipartisan way is the only effective way to make this happen," he said. "We’ve had assurances from Congress on both sides of the aisle that this is a national priority."

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APCO supports legislation introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar that contains language crafted in collaboration with public safety experts, but Maier pointed out that the bill still lacks what matters most: a funding source. 

"That bill in Sen. [Amy] Klobuchar’s office right now has foundational and fundamental language that we support," he said. "Public safety has supported it. We’ve helped craft that language. However, it does not identify a funding source. That’s missing. Without it, it will not move forward."

American flags hang from the front porch of a row of North Carolina homes. (iStock)

Funding remains a weak spot in the organization’s effort to modernize 911. A federal cost analysis from 2018 estimated that a full nationwide rollout of NG911 would require $15 billion. Without this investment, Maier warned, the U.S. risks a fragmented emergency response system and what he calls "a nation of haves and have-nots."

"Some states have invested in Next Generation 911 infrastructure and technologies. Others have done nothing," Maier said. "That leaves us with haves and have-nots across the nation. We want to have cities, communities, townships, villages, rural areas, tribal areas, territories all getting the same services. It should be across the nation, the same for everyone."

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The current system still runs on infrastructure built in the 1960s and '70s, which was never designed to support video, multimedia messaging, or geolocation data.

"Next Generation 911 allows that information to reach the 911 center, and then it can be pushed out to those field-based responders," Maier said. "That information itself can be critical in getting the best information to the right person quickly enough that they can make a difference and save lives. Next Generation 911, if implemented nationwide today, will save lives today."

By a 21-point margin, voters questioned in the most recent Fox News national poll opposed the federal budget legislation (38% favored vs. 59% opposed), which passed by the House of Representatives by just one vote last month. (Fox News )

President Donald Trump is pressuring his party to pass the sweeping tax cuts and spending package in time for him to sign it by the Fourth of July. The spending package includes sweeping legislation and implements many of the president's campaign promises.

Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a U.S. Writer at Fox News Digital. 

Since joining in 2021, she’s covered high-stakes criminal justice—from the Menendez brothers’ resentencing, where Judge Jesic slashed their life-without-parole terms to 50-years-to-life (making them parole-eligible), to the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump's life and shifting immigration enforcement, including her reporting on South Florida’s illegal-immigration crisis, covering unprecedented migrant crossings from the Bahamas and ensuing enforcement operations.

Beyond those beats, she reports on crime, politics, business, lifestyle, world news, and more—delivering both breaking updates and in-depth analysis across Fox News Digital. You can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.