[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1069 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]
S.1069
One Hundred Sixteenth Congress
of the
United States of America
AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Friday,
the third day of January, two thousand and twenty
An Act
To require the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Administrator
of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to establish a
constituent-driven program to provide a digital information platform
capable of efficiently integrating coastal data with decision-support
tools, training, and best practices and to support collection of
priority coastal geospatial data to inform and improve local, State,
regional, and Federal capacities to manage the coastal region, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Digital Coast Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The Digital Coast is a model approach for effective Federal
partnerships with State and local government, nongovernmental
organizations, and the private sector.
(2) Access to current, accurate, uniform, and standards-based
geospatial information, tools, and training to characterize the
United States coastal region is critical for public safety and for
the environment, infrastructure, and economy of the United States.
(3) More than half of all people of the United States
(153,000,000) currently live on or near a coast and an additional
12,000,000 are expected in the next decade.
(4) Coastal counties in the United States average 300 persons
per square mile, compared with the national average of 98.
(5) On a typical day, more than 1,540 permits for construction
of single-family homes are issued in coastal counties, combined
with other commercial, retail, and institutional construction to
support this population.
(6) Over half of the economic productivity of the United States
is located within coastal regions.
(7) Highly accurate, high-resolution remote sensing and other
geospatial data play an increasingly important role in decision
making and management of the coastal zone and economy, including
for--
(A) flood and coastal storm surge prediction;
(B) hazard risk and vulnerability assessment;
(C) emergency response and recovery planning;
(D) community resilience to longer range coastal change;
(E) local planning and permitting;
(F) habitat and ecosystem health assessments; and
(G) landscape change detection.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Coastal region.--The term ``coastal region'' means the area
of United States waters extending inland from the shoreline to
include coastal watersheds and seaward to the territorial sea.
(2) Coastal state.--The term ``coastal State'' has the meaning
given the term ``coastal state'' in section 304 of the Coastal Zone
Management Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1453).
(3) Federal geographic data committee.--The term ``Federal
Geographic Data Committee'' means the interagency committee that
promotes the coordinated development, use, sharing, and
dissemination of geospatial data on a national basis.
(4) Remote sensing and other geospatial.--The term ``remote
sensing and other geospatial'' means collecting, storing,
retrieving, or disseminating graphical or digital data depicting
natural or manmade physical features, phenomena, or boundaries of
the Earth and any information related thereto, including surveys,
maps, charts, satellite and airborne remote sensing data, images,
LiDAR, and services performed by professionals such as surveyors,
photogrammetrists, hydrographers, geodesists, cartographers, and
other such services.
(5) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of
Commerce, acting through the Administrator of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DIGITAL COAST.
(a) Establishment.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary shall establish a program for
the provision of an enabling platform that integrates geospatial
data, decision-support tools, training, and best practices to
address coastal management issues and needs. Under the program, the
Secretary shall strive to enhance resilient communities, ecosystem
values, and coastal economic growth and development by helping
communities address their issues, needs, and challenges through
cost-effective and participatory solutions.
(2) Designation.--The program established under paragraph (1)
shall be known as the ``Digital Coast'' (in this section referred
to as the ``program'').
(b) Program Requirements.--In carrying out the program, the
Secretary shall ensure that the program provides data integration, tool
development, training, documentation, dissemination, and archive by--
(1) making data and resulting integrated products developed
under this section readily accessible via the Digital Coast
internet website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the GeoPlatform.gov and data.gov internet websites,
and such other information distribution technologies as the
Secretary considers appropriate;
(2) developing decision-support tools that use and display
resulting integrated data and provide training on use of such
tools;
(3) documenting such data to Federal Geographic Data Committee
standards; and
(4) archiving all raw data acquired under this Act at the
appropriate National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data
center or such other Federal data center as the Secretary considers
appropriate.
(c) Coordination.--The Secretary shall coordinate the activities
carried out under the program to optimize data collection, sharing, and
integration, and to minimize duplication by--
(1) consulting with coastal managers and decision makers
concerning coastal issues, and sharing information and best
practices, as the Secretary considers appropriate, with--
(A) coastal States;
(B) local governments; and
(C) representatives of academia, the private sector, and
nongovernmental organizations;
(2) consulting with other Federal agencies, including
interagency committees, on relevant Federal activities, including
activities carried out under the Ocean and Coastal Mapping
Integration Act (33 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), the Coastal Zone
Management Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1451 et seq.), the Integrated
Coastal and Ocean Observation System Act of 2009 (33 U.S.C. 3601 et
seq.), and the Hydrographic Services Improvement Act of 1998 (33
U.S.C. 892 et seq.);
(3) participating, pursuant to section 216 of the E-Government
Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-347; 44 U.S.C. 3501 note), in the
establishment of such standards and common protocols as the
Secretary considers necessary to assure the interoperability of
remote sensing and other geospatial data with all users of such
information within--
(A) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration;
(B) other Federal agencies;
(C) State and local government; and
(D) the private sector;
(4) coordinating with, seeking assistance and cooperation of,
and providing liaison to the Federal Geographic Data Committee
pursuant to Office of Management and Budget Circular A-16 and
Executive Order 12906 of April 11, 1994 (59 Fed. Reg. 17671), as
amended by Executive Order 13286 of February 28, 2003 (68 Fed. Reg.
10619); and
(5) developing and maintaining a best practices document that
sets out the best practices used by the Secretary in carrying out
the program and providing such document to the United States
Geological Survey, the Corps of Engineers, and other relevant
Federal agencies.
(d) Filling Needs and Gaps.--In carrying out the program, the
Secretary shall--
(1) maximize the use of remote sensing and other geospatial
data collection activities conducted for other purposes and under
other authorities;
(2) focus on filling data needs and gaps for coastal management
issues, including with respect to areas that, as of the date of the
enactment of this Act, were underserved by coastal data and the
areas of the Arctic that are under the jurisdiction of the United
States;
(3) pursuant to the Ocean and Coastal Mapping Integration Act
(33 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), support continue improvement in existing
efforts to coordinate the acquisition and integration of key data
sets needed for coastal management and other purposes, including--
(A) coastal elevation data;
(B) land use and land cover data;
(C) socioeconomic and human use data;
(D) critical infrastructure data;
(E) structures data;
(F) living resources and habitat data;
(G) cadastral data; and
(H) aerial imagery; and
(4) integrate the priority supporting data set forth under
paragraph (3) with other available data for the benefit of the
broadest measure of coastal resource management constituents and
applications.
(e) Financial Agreements and Contracts.--
(1) In general.--In carrying out the program, the Secretary--
(A) may enter into financial agreements to carry out the
program, including--
(i) support to non-Federal entities that participate in
implementing the program; and
(ii) grants, cooperative agreements, interagency
agreements, contracts, or any other agreement on a
reimbursable or non-reimbursable basis, with other Federal,
tribal, State, and local governmental and nongovernmental
entities; and
(B) may, to the maximum extent practicable, enter into such
contracts with private sector entities for such products and
services as the Secretary determines may be necessary to
collect, process, and provide remote sensing and other
geospatial data and products for purposes of the program.
(2) Fees.--
(A) Assessment and collection.--The Secretary may, to the
extent provided in advance in appropriations Acts, assess and
collect fees for the conduct of any training, workshop, or
conference that advances the purposes of the program.
(B) Amounts.--The amount of a fee under this paragraph may
not exceed the sum of costs incurred, or expected to be
incurred, by the Secretary as a direct result of the conduct of
the training, workshop, or conference, including for
subsistence expenses incidental to the training, workshop, or
conference, as applicable.
(C) Use of fees.--Amounts collected by the Secretary in the
form of fees under this paragraph shall be available to the
extent and in such amounts as are provided in advance in
appropriations Acts for--
(i) the costs incurred for conducting an activity
described in subparagraph (A); or
(ii) the expenses described in subparagraph (B).
(3) Survey and mapping.--Contracts entered into under paragraph
(1)(B) shall be considered ``surveying and mapping'' services as
such term is used in and as such contracts are awarded by the
Secretary in accordance with the selection procedures in chapter 11
of title 40, United States Code.
(f) Ocean Economy.--The Secretary may establish publically
available tools that track ocean and Great Lakes economy data for each
coastal State.
(g) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be
appropriated to the Secretary $4,000,000 for each fiscal year 2021
through 2025 to carry out the program.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and
President of the Senate.