1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Passport Act of 2023 . 2. Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that— (1) the Department of State's handling of passport processing during and since the COVID–19 pandemic— (A) fell short of performance benchmarks; (B) did not meet the needs of their constituents; and (C) led to a loss of confidence in the Department of State; (2) the Department of State’s failure to perform its duty to produce passports in a timely manner led to unacceptable personal hardship and complications to the travel plans for millions of Americans; and (3) the COVID–19 pandemic exposed shortcomings in the information technology infrastructure of the Department of State’s passport processing functions, which must be corrected. 3. Ensuring timely adjudication of passport applications (a) Passport processing deadlines The Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs (referred to in this section as the Assistant Secretary ), in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services, shall ensure that all routine applications for a passport or for the renewal of a passport are processed, on average, within 12 weeks of the receipt of such application. (b) Average passport processing time Not less frequently than weekly, the Assistant Secretary shall make publicly available on a website of the Department of State information related to the average expected processing time for applications for a passport and for the renewal of a passport. (c) Notification of failure To meet deadline If the average processing times referred to in subsection (b) fail to meet the 12-week requirement for 4 consecutive weeks— (1) the Assistant Secretary, not later than 7 days after such failure, shall notify the appropriate congressional committees of the circumstances related to such failure