[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.