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 constituentdriven 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 standardsbased 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; 
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(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; 
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(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; 
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(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 
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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.