1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Permanency for Children Act of 2017 . 2. Findings The Congress finds the following: (1) A permanent, stable home is critical for the physical and cognitive development of children, and quickly identifying biological fathers after birth is crucial to providing stable, supportive environments for children of unwed mothers and for permanency for adoptive parents. (2) Responsible father registries, sometimes known as putative father registries, help to speed up the stable placement of children by providing a mechanism to determine whether a biological father has a protectable interest in participating in the placement decisions for a child. (3) Thirty-four States have created responsible father registries. (4) Improving the legal mechanisms for finding biological fathers is a necessary step in the progression toward improving permanency for children. (5) In 1975, Congress authorized the creation of the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), which is an assembly of systems designed to assist States in locating noncustodial parents, putative fathers, and custodial parties, for the establishment of paternity and child support obligations. (6) Currently, the FPLS can only be searched by social security number or date of birth, which limits the effectiveness of this tool. (7) Improving the search functions of the FPLS will allow for more effective use of the database while maintaining important privacy protections to provide expedited permanency for children. (8) National cross-referencing of responsible father registries in the FPLS would protect registered fathers against court actions in unknown States where the child or mother may have traveled or where the adoptive parents reside. 3. Responsible father registry (a) Requirement To modify Federal Parent Locator Service Section 453 of the Social Security Act ( 42 U.S.C. 653 ) is amended by adding at the end the following: (q) Responsible father registry (1) In general Subject to the preceding provisions of this section, the