§894a Actions to address sexual assault at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Summary

The Secretary of Commerce must, through the Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, create a full policy on preventing and responding to sexual assaults that involve NOAA employees, members of the NOAA commissioned officer corps, or people who work with or for NOAA. The policy had to be finished not later than 1 year after December 23, 2016. It must cover prevention, training, a list of support resources (including after‑hours contacts and ways to get help or report incidents when working at sea, in remote camps, or in the field), how to make that information easy to find, confidential question-and-answer options, ways to report incidents either privately or openly, investigation steps for command and law enforcement, protections and penalties against retaliation, oversight of discipline by the Under Secretary, victim advocacy, and links to other federal, state, local, and national resources. The Secretary must set up victim advocates who are current NOAA employees, trained on the policy, and who serve voluntarily in addition to their regular jobs. Their main jobs are to support victims, explain rights and resources, accompany victims through investigations and medical or mental health care, and help with safety planning. There must be at least 1 victim advocate in each NOAA region and in each marine and aviation center. NOAA must provide a phone number to reach an advocate that is monitored at all times, use existing hotlines when possible, and may partner with other groups to add more advocates. The policy must be made available to all NOAA employees (including field staff) and to the public, and the Secretary may consult outside experts and organizations when making it.