SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Passport System Reform and Backlog Prevention Act’’. 
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 
this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title and table of contents. 
Sec. 2. Findings. 
Sec. 3. Sense of Congress. 
Sec. 4. Standards for passport issuance process. 
Sec. 5. Enhanced information technology solutions to improve the passport 
issuance process. 
Sec. 6. Research on commercially available information technology solutions. 
Sec. 7. GAO Report. 
Sec. 8. Rule of construction. 
Sec. 9. Definitions. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the 
United States experienced a major backlog of pass-
port applications and passport processing wait times 
of up to 13 weeks, exclusive of shipping times. 
(2) Over the past several years, the Department 
has experienced repeated delays in its attempts to 
modernize the passport issuance process. 
(3) The adoption of additional commercially 
available information technology solutions at several 
stages of the passport issuance process could greatly 
enhance and accelerate such process. 
(4) The United States passport is a widely rec-
ognized and trusted identity and travel document
that is of tremendous importance to its bearer 
around the globe. 
SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 
It is the sense of Congress that— 
(1) as a routine matter, an adult who has sub-
mitted a routine new or renewal passport application 
should be reliably able to expect that such applica-
tion will be adjudicated by the Department, at a rea-
sonable cost, in a time frame which is conducive to 
international travel; 
(2) the Department should seek to further mod-
ernize and streamline the passport issuance process 
to enable a decrease in processing times below pre- 
pandemic levels of six-to-eight weeks, specifically for 
routine adult passport renewals with respect to 
which the Department should seek to decrease aver-
age processing times to less than 30 days; and 
(3) the Department should take all reasonable 
steps, including the use of available technology and 
best practices, to protect the integrity of the pass-
port issuance process, the privacy of passport hold-
ers, and the efficiency of processing passport 
issuance requests.
SEC. 4. STANDARDS FOR PASSPORT ISSUANCE PROCESS. 
In administering and modernizing the passport 
issuance process, the Assistant Secretary shall evaluate 
the performance of such process against the following cri-
teria: 
(1) To maintain a service standard of proc-
essing a routine new or renewal adult passport appli-
cation from document submission until mailing of 
final documents in an expeditious and reliable time-
frame. 
(2) To maintain affordable passport fees and 
surcharges. 
(3) To ensure world-class technical, security, 
and cybersecurity standards for United States pass-
ports and the passport issuance process. 
(4) To minimize downtime for the Travel Docu-
ment Issuance System. 
(5) To minimize the suspense rate resulting 
from typographical, clerical, or picture-based errors, 
including by enabling such suspensions to be re-
solved electronically. 
(6) To provide a streamlined customer experi-
ence for passport applicants. 
(7) To provide reasonably convenient passport 
services to United States citizens and nationals liv-
ing a significant distance from a passport agency,
particularly residents in a significant population cen-
ter more than a 5-hour drive from a passport agen-
cy. 
SEC. 5. ENHANCED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SOLU-
TIONS 
TO 
IMPROVE 
THE 
PASSPORT 
ISSUANCE PROCESS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Assistant Secretary, in con-
sultation with the Chief Information Officer, shall imple-
ment the information technology solutions described in 
subsection (b) in accordance with the timelines described 
in such subsection. 
(b) ENHANCED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SOLU-
TIONS AND TIMELINES DESCRIBED.—The enhanced infor-
mation technology solutions and timelines described in this 
subsection are the following: 
(1) Not later than 2 years after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Assistant Secretary, in 
consultation with the Chief Information Officer, 
shall, including if necessary through the awarding of 
a contract or expanding an existing, establish a tool 
to enable congressional offices to monitor the status 
of individual passport applications being handled as 
casework by such offices. 
(2)(A) Not later than 2 years after the date of 
the enactment of this Act, the Assistant Secretary,
in consultation with the Chief Information Officer, 
shall take all reasonable steps, including if necessary 
the awarding of a contract for the establishment and 
ongoing maintenance of a service to provide to pass-
port applicants automated, voluntary proactive com-
munications, by email or text message, for each 
progress point in the passport issuance process, and 
for the notification of application errors, and deliv-
ery of mail tracking numbers, and reminders of re-
newal eligibility. 
(B) Applicants shall be provided the choice of 
whether to use the services described in subpara-
graph (A) and data gained as a result of participa-
tion in such services shall not be transferred to any 
third party outside the Department or its contract 
awardees. 
(C) The services described in subparagraph (A) 
shall provide separate options for email and text 
message notification, as well as separate options for 
processing-related notifications and renewal eligi-
bility notifications. 
(3)(A) Consistent with the Bureau’s moderniza-
tion plans and timelines, and subject to the avail-
ability of funds, the Assistant Secretary, in consulta-
tion with the Chief Information Officer, shall seek to
enter into a contract or contracts as appropriate, for 
the establishment and maintenance of a mobile ap-
plication to allow for the centralization of applicant 
communication with the Department, including doc-
ument submission, application status tracking, vir-
tual appointments, access to the notification of ap-
plication errors, and allowing for passport holders to 
receive messages from the Department and commu-
nicate emergencies to the Department. 
(B) The Assistant Secretary shall provide each 
passport applicant with the option of whether to use 
the mobile application described in subparagraph 
(A) or another service of the Department. 
(C) As a condition for awarding any contracts 
described in subparagraph (A), the awardee shall 
demonstrate that it can begin tests on the solution 
within one year of the award of the contract and 
complete implementation, including bug fixes, cyber-
security audits, and customer service testing, not 
later than two years from the award of the contract. 
(4)(A) Consistent with existing law, the Assist-
ant Secretary, in consultation with the Chief Infor-
mation Officer, shall expand the online passport re-
newal system, including to accommodate electronic 
acceptance of routine first-time adult applications as