The record

LegislationLegislation· Sep 2025
S 1038 Passed Senate — in House

Sponsored by Thomas Tillis (R)

TRACE Act

Adds a federal land tracker to the national missing persons database.

Tradeoff

Requires the Justice Department to note whether missing persons were last seen on federal land or in US territorial waters. No offsetting cost cited.

What's in it

See official bill text

Costs less than $500,000 over the 2025-2030 period.

The $500,000 is the federal cost to implement a data field in an existing DOJ database and produce annual reports — the policy itself requires no new federal spending program but mandates DOJ administrative action.

S. 1038, TRACE Act · Sep 2025

Passed the Senate by on September 2, 2025 — sitting in the House.

  1. Senate

    Introduced

    (Mar 13, 2025)

  2. Senate

    Committee on the Judiciary(Mar 13, 2025)

  3. Senate

    The Committee on the Judiciary voted to send it to the floor

    Reported(Jul 24, 2025)

  4. Senate

    Passage of the bill

    Passed by (Sep 2, 2025)

    No individual votes were recorded.

  5. House

    Received from the Senate

    Received(Sep 4, 2025)