I 

115TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 1232 

To amend title 44, United States Code, to require each Federal agency 

to maintain and preserve data assets of the agency, and for other purposes. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FEBRUARY 27, 2017 

Ms. MCCOLLUM introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

A BILL 

To amend title 44, United States Code, to require each 

Federal agency to maintain and preserve data assets 

of the agency, and for other purposes. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Save America’s Science 

5 Act’’. 

6 SEC. 2. MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION OF DATA AS7 SETS BY FEDERAL AGENCIES. 

8 Chapter 31 of title 44, United States Code, is amend9 ed by adding at the end the following new section: 


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1 ‘‘§ 3108. Management and preservation of data assets 

2 by Federal agencies 

3 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—The head of each Federal agency 

4 shall maintain each data asset of the agency, including 

5 any data asset collected for the agency under a contract, 

6 in accordance with the program established under section 

7 3102. 

8 ‘‘(b) SAFEGUARDS.—The head of each Federal agen9 cy shall establish safeguards against the removal or loss 

10 of data assets and make any requirements and penalties 

11 related to such removal or loss known to officials and em12 ployees of the agency. 

13 ‘‘(c) UNLAWFUL REMOVAL OR DESTRUCTION OF

14 DATA ASSETS.— 

15 ‘‘(1) FEDERAL AGENCY NOTIFICATION.—The 

16 head of each Federal agency shall notify the Archi17 vist and Congress of any actual, impending, or 

18 threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, 

19 corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of 

20 data assets in the custody of the agency, and, with 

21 the assistance of the Archivist, shall initiate action 

22 through the Attorney General for the recovery of 

23 data assets the head of the Federal agency knows or 

24 has reason to believe have been unlawfully removed 

25 from that agency, or from another Federal agency 


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1 whose data assets have been transferred to the legal 

2 custody of that Federal agency. 

3 ‘‘(2) ARCHIVIST NOTIFICATION.—In any case in 

4 which the head of a Federal agency does not initiate 

5 an action for such recovery or other redress within 

6 a reasonable period of time after being notified of 

7 any such unlawful action described in paragraph (1), 

8 or is participating in, or believed to be participating 

9 in any such unlawful action, the Archivist shall re10 quest the Attorney General to initiate such an ac11 tion, and shall notify Congress when such a request 

12 has been made. 

13 ‘‘(d) PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF DATA ASSETS.— 

14 ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Each data asset that has 

15 been made available to the public by the head of a 

16 Federal agency shall remain available to the public. 

17 ‘‘(2) MACHINE-READABLE DATA ASSETS.—Each 

18 data asset that has been made available to the public 

19 in a machine-readable format by the head of a Fed20 eral agency shall remain available to the public in a 

21 machine-readable format. 

22 ‘‘(e) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this sec23 tion may be construed to exclude any type of record from 

24 the requirements of this chapter. 

25 ‘‘(f) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 


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1 ‘‘(1) DATA.—The term ‘data’ means recorded 

2 information, regardless of form or the media on 

3 which the data is recorded. 

4 ‘‘(2) DATA ASSET.—The term ‘data asset’ 

5 means a collection of data elements or data sets that 

6 may be grouped together. 

7 ‘‘(3) MACHINE-READABLE FORMAT.—The term 

8 ‘machine-readable format’ means a format in which 

9 information or data can be easily processed by a 

10 computer without human intervention while ensuring 

11 no semantic meaning is lost.’’. 

Æ 


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