Digital Coast Act of 2014 - Requires the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to establish a constituent-driven Digital Coast program. (This program currently exists under NOAA to provide data, tools, and training that communities use to manage their coastal resources.) Directs the program to: (1) provide an online resource that integrates geospatial data, decision-support tools, training, and best practices to address coastal management issues and needs and to enhance resilient communities, ecosystem values, and coastal economic growth and development; and (2) provide for the documentation, dissemination, and archiving of the data.
Requires NOAA to focus on filling data needs and gaps for critical coastal management issues, support continued improvement in existing efforts to coordinate the acquisition and integration of key data sets needed for coastal management and other purposes, and enter into financial agreements to carry out the program.
[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2890 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
113th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 2890
To authorize the Secretary of Commerce, through the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, to establish a constituent-driven
program that develops an information platform capable of efficiently
integrating coastal data with decision-support tools, training, and
best practices, and coordinates the 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.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 18, 2014
Ms. Baldwin (for herself, Ms. Mikulski, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. King, Mr.
Whitehouse, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. Begich, Ms. Hirono, and Mr. Reed)
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To authorize the Secretary of Commerce, through the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, to establish a constituent-driven
program that develops an information platform capable of efficiently
integrating coastal data with decision-support tools, training, and
best practices, and coordinates the 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 of 2014''.
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 important role in 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 climate
change impacts;
(E) permitting and zoning decisionmaking;
(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''--
(A) means a State of the United States in, or
bordering on, the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic Ocean,
the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, Long Island
Sound, or one or more of the Great Lakes; and
(B) includes Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin
Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana
Islands, the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands,
American Samoa, and any portion of a State that is
located within the designated coastal zone of the
Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf
of Mexico, or the Great Lakes.
(3) Digital coast.--The term ``Digital Coast'' means a
constituent-driven effort led by the Secretary to provide an
enabling platform that integrates geospatial data, decision-
support tools, training, and best practices to address coastal
management issues and needs. The Digital Coast strives 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.
(4) 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.
(5) 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.
(6) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary
of Commerce, acting through the Administrator of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
SEC. 4. BUILDING THE DIGITAL COAST.
(a) In General.--The Secretary shall establish Digital Coast as a
program that 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 Internet 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.
(b) Coordination.--The Secretary shall coordinate the activities
carried out pursuant to this Act to maximize data collection, sharing
and integration, and to minimize duplication by--
(1) consulting with coastal managers and decisionmakers
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 nongovernmental entities;
(2) consulting with other Federal agencies 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; and
(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 14, 1994 (59 Fed. Reg.
17671), as amended by Executive Order 13286 of March 5, 2003
(68 Fed. Reg. 10619).
(c) Filling Needs and Gaps.--In carrying out this section, the
Secretary shall--
(1) recognize that remote sensing and other geospatial data
acquisition for navigational and positioning purposes is
carried out through other authorities and programs;
(2) focus on filling data needs and gaps for critical
coastal management issues;
(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;
(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;
(5) enter into financial agreements to carry out this Act,
including--
(A) program support to non-Federal entities that
participate in implementing this Act;
(B) financial agreements, including grants,
cooperative agreements, interagency agreements, and
contracts, or any other agreement on a reimbursable or
non-reimbursable basis, with other Federal, tribal,
State, and local governmental and nongovernmental
entities; and
(C) registration fees in support of training,
workshops, and conferences that advance the purposes of
this Act; and
(6) enter into such contracts with private sector entities
for such products and services as the Secretary determines may
be necessary to collect remote sensing and other geospatial
data, which contracts 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.
SEC. 5. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
There is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary such sums
as may be necessary to carry out this section in each of fiscal years
2015 through 2020.
<all>
Introduced in Senate
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
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