A bill to amend the Digital Coast Act to improve the acquisition, integration, and accessibility of data of the Digital Coast program and to extend the program.
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill amends the Digital Coast Act to make NOAA's Digital Coast program data more available and more useful for coastal planning. It requires Digital Coast data to be fully and freely available after being readily accessible, adds underground infrastructure and subsurface utility data to the program's covered data categories, and extends program authorization from 2025 to 2030.
The bill is aimed at giving coastal communities, planners, infrastructure owners, emergency managers, researchers, and public works agencies better geospatial information for resilience, land use, hazard mitigation, and infrastructure coordination.
Who Benefits and How
Coastal communities, state coastal-zone managers, local planners, emergency managers, researchers, public works agencies, and subsurface utility data users benefit from broader access to Digital Coast data. Underground utility operators and infrastructure planners benefit because subsurface infrastructure can be included alongside shoreline, land-use, and hazard data.
Who Bears the Burden and How
NOAA and the Office for Coastal Management must acquire, integrate, maintain, and distribute more data through the Digital Coast program while keeping it fully and freely available. Data contributors, utilities, and public agencies may need to coordinate with NOAA when underground infrastructure or subsurface utility information is added.
Key Provisions
- Amends the Digital Coast Act to require covered data to be fully and freely available.
- Adds underground infrastructure and subsurface utility information to the program's data categories.
- Expands the practical usefulness of Digital Coast for coastal resilience and infrastructure planning.
- Requires NOAA to continue integrating and making Digital Coast data accessible.
- Extends the Digital Coast program authorization from 2025 to 2030.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Improves NOAA's Digital Coast program by requiring data to be fully and freely available, adding underground infrastructure and subsurface utility data, and extending the program through 2030.
Key Policy Areas
Environment, Technology, Infrastructure
Primary Purpose
Improves NOAA's Digital Coast program by requiring data to be fully and freely available, adding underground infrastructure and subsurface utility data, and extending the program through 2030.
Policy Domains
Whole bill
Identified Gains
- Coastal communities
- State coastal-zone managers
- Local planners
- Emergency managers
- Researchers
- Public works agencies
- Subsurface utility data users
Identified Costs
- NOAA
- Office for Coastal Management
- Data contributors
- Underground utility operators
- Public agencies contributing infrastructure data
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
Passed SenateHeld at the desk.
Received in the House.
Message on Senate action sent to the House.
Passed/agreed to in Senate: Passed Senate with an amendment by …
Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent. (consideration: CR …
Reported by Mr. Cruz, with an amendment
Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders. Calendar No. …
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Reported by Senator Cruz …
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Ordered to be reported …
Introduced in Senate
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
NOAA Digital Coast program, NOAA Office for Coastal Management
Coastal communities, State coastal-zone managers
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology