This report provides a summary of some of the issues regarding the creation of a national land parcel database, or cadastre. The report identifies some of the perceived needs for a national cadastre, legislative and administrative options that could lead to a national land parcel database, and some of the challenges and concerns. It also summarizes and briefly discusses recommendations in a 2007 National Research Council (NRC) report, which concluded that "a national approach is necessary to provide a rational and accountable system of property records." The NRC report described why a national approach is needed, identified challenges to creating a national cadastre, and offered specific recommendations for achieving its vision: a distributed system of land parcel data housed with the appropriate data stewards but accessible through a web-based interface. The federal government has direct and indirect responsibilities for coordinating and managing land parcel data on federal land. An example of a direct responsibility is that of the Department of the Interior's (DOI's) Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which is steward of federal land parcel data. An example of an indirect role is that of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), which serves to coordinate federal geospatial activities. Both are discussed further below. Legislative proposals spanning several congresses have attempted to address some of the issues involved in creating a national cadastre. Most recently, the Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform Act of 2011 ( H.R. 1620 ), introduced on April 15, 2011, would require the Secretary of the Interior to develop a multipurpose cadastre of federal "real property." H.R. 1620 was referred to the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the House Committee on Natural Resources, but there has been no action on the bill. Similar bills were introduced in the 111 th , 110 th , and 109 th Congresses but were not enacted. The 112 th Congress faces the same issues regarding management and coordination of federal land parcel data as previous congresses. One legislative option is to enact H.R. 1620 . Another option would be to investigate more deeply the findings from the 2007 NRC report and examine whether its recommendations should be implemented legislatively or administratively, or whether they should be implemented at all. In addition, the 112 th Congress may want to consider the potential costs of implementing the recommendations from the NRC report. For more information on geospatial information generally, see CRS Report R40625, Geospatial Information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Current Issues and Future Challenges . Geospatial information, including land parcel data, is increasingly produced by private sector and other non-federal government sources. Consequently, the federal government's role has shifted from producing geospatial data to coordinating efforts, facilitating partnerships, and managing the vast amounts of geospatial information. According to the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC), the shift in geospatial data production from the federal government to the private sector and state and local governments has created an "... urgent need to reexamine the relationships between data providers and users to establish a fair and equitable geospatial data marketplace that serves the full range of applications." As an example, NGAC noted that the Census Bureau had to develop a duplicate version of street centerlines in preparation for the 2010 Census because it could not take advantage of the existing commercial data. This duplication in effort was a result, in part, of prohibitions on disclosing or publishing private information that identifies an individual or business, per Title 13 of the U.S. Code . Further, "critical information about the use, value and ownership of property is needed by FEMA, the Forest Service, and HUD, for emergency preparedness or response in times of hurricanes or wildfires—or even to monitor the current foreclosure problems." The federal government's efforts to coordinate its geospatial activities, through the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and the development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), include a strong emphasis on land parcel data. For example, the cadastral data theme is one of the seven fundamental data themes of the NSDI framework. Within the FGDC, BLM is assigned the role of lead agency coordinating land parcel data for federal lands. According to BLM, it is responsible for performing cadastral surveys on all federal and Indian lands: "Cadastral surveys are the foundation for all land title records in the United States and provide federal and tribal land managers with information necessary for the management of their lands." Despite the BLM role as steward of federal land parcel data and coordinator for cadastral data under FGDC, NRC found that a coordinated approach to federally managed parcel data did not exist. The National Integrated Land System (NILS) —a joint project between BLM and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS, in the Department of Agriculture)—is the closest thing to a coordinated program "... but it remains much more of a set of technologies than a source of parcel data." Coordinating all land parcel data, the bulk of which is produced for local and regional needs, remains even more of a challenge. The National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) was formed in early 2008 to provide advice and recommendations to the FGDC on management of federal geospatial programs. NGAC observed that the federal government's need for land parcel data is missing an arrangement for acquiring the detailed property-related data necessary to make decisions during times of emergency. In addition to emergency response related to natural disasters, other perceived or identified needs for a national land parcel database at the federal level include responding to the home mortgage foreclosure crisis, dealing with wildland fires, and managing extractive energy resources on federal lands. Other aspects of managing the federal lands could be included as well, such as compensating local governments for tax revenue losses due to the presence of federally owned land; or monitoring the effects of climate change and the efficacy of measures taken to mitigate or adapt to such effects. Disasters are often cited as a compelling reason to establish a national land parcel database: "Land-parcel data, one of the framework themes, are essential in managing disasters and in assessing damage, along with building footprints and the locations of infrastructure (power, telecommunications, water, sewage, and steam-heating networks)." The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the destruction caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, underscored for many the need for rapid access to land ownership data to help guide emergency response, especially when a disaster crosses multiple jurisdictions or extends beyond the boundaries of a community and the immediate knowledge of local responders. The land parcel data useful to emergency responders may exist, but may also be difficult to access: Data on the ownership of land parcels, or cadastral data, provide a particular and in some ways extreme example of the problems that currently pervade the use of geospatial data in emergency management. Vast amounts of such data exist, but they are distributed among tens of thousands of local governments, many of which have not invested in digital systems and instead maintain their land-parcel data in paper form. As with many other data types, it is not so much the existence of data that is the problem, as it is the issues associated with rapid access. Several NRC reports noted that a national partnership for assembling land parcel data would provide major benefits for managing federal assistance to local programs, many of which are associated with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). According to the NRC, parcel-level data would help HUD meet its strategic goals, such as increasing home ownership opportunities, promoting affordable housing, and ensuring equal opportunities in housing. NRC further contended that "the existence of national land parcel data would provide HUD with data it needs for effective management of grants and would have avoided the critical time wasted gathering parcel data piecemeal in the wake of these recent hurricanes." In addition to natural disasters, land parcel data are being used for responding to the housing market collapse that began in 2008. The FGDC Cadastral Subcommittee noted that parcel data provide added value to the mortgage and property information collected by the federal government under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). HMDA was enacted in 1975 to assist government regulators and the private sector with the monitoring of anti-discriminatory practices. According to the FGDC Cadastral Subcommittee While HMDA data provide a snapshot in time of a mortgage transaction, local government parcel data provide current information at the individual parcel level that allows other information such as utility shutoffs, code violations and undelivered mail to be tied to a common unit, the parcel. Parcel data make it possible to relate disparate data together to get a complete picture of individual mortgage and housing conditions. Parcel data also provide the connection to local governments, which can provide community context and engage those most affected by mortgage crisis events. The Cadastral Subcommittee likened the distressed housing market to a contagious disease, tending to affect some communities while leaving others intact. By adding parcel data to existing information available under the authority of HMDA, data analyses could identify "hot spots" in a pending foreclosure crisis, and possibly even provide sufficient information for a national early warning system for financially distressed housing and mortgage markets. On July 21, 2010, Congress added such a provision in P.L. 111-203 for including parcel data with other information available under HMDA. The provision amended HMDA to include "the parcel number that corresponds to the real property pledged or proposed to be pledged as collateral." In one case, GIS and land parcel data were used to identify and analyze the extent of home foreclosures, and to use the results of that analysis to apply for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to convert foreclosed properties into low-income housing.