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. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Save America’s Science 
Act’’. 
SEC. 2. MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION OF DATA AS-
SETS BY FEDERAL AGENCIES. 
Chapter 31 of title 44, United States Code, is amend-
ed by adding at the end the following new section: 
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‘‘§ 3108. Management and preservation of data assets 
by Federal agencies 
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—The head of each Federal agency 
shall maintain each data asset of the agency, including 
any data asset collected for the agency under a contract, 
in accordance with the program established under section 
3102. 
‘‘(b) SAFEGUARDS.—The head of each Federal agen-
cy shall establish safeguards against the removal or loss 
of data assets and make any requirements and penalties 
related to such removal or loss known to officials and em-
ployees of the agency. 
‘‘(c) UNLAWFUL REMOVAL
OR DESTRUCTION
OF 
DATA ASSETS.— 
‘‘(1) FEDERAL
AGENCY
NOTIFICATION.—The 
head of each Federal agency shall notify the Archi-
vist and Congress of any actual, impending, or 
threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, 
corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of 
data assets in the custody of the agency, and, with 
the assistance of the Archivist, shall initiate action 
through the Attorney General for the recovery of 
data assets the head of the Federal agency knows or 
has reason to believe have been unlawfully removed 
from that agency, or from another Federal agency 
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whose data assets have been transferred to the legal 
custody of that Federal agency. 
‘‘(2) ARCHIVIST NOTIFICATION.—In any case in 
which the head of a Federal agency does not initiate 
an action for such recovery or other redress within 
a reasonable period of time after being notified of 
any such unlawful action described in paragraph (1), 
or is participating in, or believed to be participating 
in any such unlawful action, the Archivist shall re-
quest the Attorney General to initiate such an ac-
tion, and shall notify Congress when such a request 
has been made. 
‘‘(d) PUBLIC AVAILABILITY OF DATA ASSETS.— 
‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Each data asset that has 
been made available to the public by the head of a 
Federal agency shall remain available to the public. 
‘‘(2) MACHINE-READABLE DATA ASSETS.—Each 
data asset that has been made available to the public 
in a machine-readable format by the head of a Fed-
eral agency shall remain available to the public in a 
machine-readable format. 
‘‘(e) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this sec-
tion may be construed to exclude any type of record from 
the requirements of this chapter. 
‘‘(f) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 
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