Safer Response Act of 2025
The Safer Response Act of 2025 would reauthorize and broaden the Public Health Service Act’s First Responder Training Program. The bill keeps the core idea of funding grants to train first responders (such as police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel) to respond to health emergencies, particularly overdoses. However, it expands the scope beyond opioids to include other drugs and updates the language to allow training materials and products that are “approved, cleared, or otherwise legally marketed.” It also increases the authorized funding for the program, moving from the prior level to $57 million per year for fiscal years 2026 through 2030, up from the prior $36 million (which applied to 2019–2023). The changes also adjust capitalization for “Tribes and Tribal.”
Key Points
- 1Reauthorizes grants for first responder training under the Public Health Service Act (Section 546) and extends the program’s authorization.
- 2Broadens scope from opioid-focused training to include opioid, heroin, and other drugs, and replaces references to “approved or cleared” with “approved, cleared, or otherwise legally marketed.”
- 3Removes opioid-only language in several subsections and replaces references with more general terms like “overdose” and “other drug.”
- 4Updates funding authorization to $57,000,000 per year for fiscal years 2026 through 2030 (up from $36,000,000 for 2019–2023).
- 5Makes a minor drafting change to capitalization for “Tribes and Tribal” compared to “tribes and tribal.”