Establishment of the Digital Coast

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. The program established under paragraph (1) shall be known as the “Digital Coast” (in this section referred to as the “program”). In carrying out the program, the Secretary shall ensure that the program provides data integration, tool development, training, documentation, dissemination, and archive by— The Secretary shall coordinate the activities carried out under the program to optimize data collection, sharing, and integration, and to minimize duplication by— consulting with coastal managers and decision makers concerning coastal issues, and sharing information and best practices, as the Secretary considers appropriate, with— 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— In carrying out the program, the Secretary shall— 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— In carrying out the program, the Secretary— may enter into financial agreements to carry out the program, including— 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. 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. 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— 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 awarded by the Secretary in accordance with the selection procedures in chapter 11 of title 40. The Secretary may establish publically available tools that track ocean and Great Lakes economy data for each coastal State. There is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary $4,000,000 for each fiscal year 2021 through 2025 to carry out the program.