LEGEND Act of 2019

I 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 5536 To require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to make certain operational models available to the public, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DECEMBER 23, 2019 Mrs. FLETCHER introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology A BILL To require the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis- tration to make certain operational models available to the public, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Learning Excellence 4 and Good Examples from New Developers Act of 2019’’ 5 or the ‘‘LEGEND Act of 2019’’. 6 SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. 7 In this Act: 8 VerDate Sep 11 2014 18:41 Dec 29, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H5536.IH H5536 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 2 •HR 5536 IH (1) ADMINISTRATION.—The term ‘‘Administra- 1 tion’’ means the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 2 Administration. 3 (2) ADMINISTRATOR.—The term ‘‘Adminis- 4 trator’’ means the Under Secretary of Commerce for 5 Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the 6 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 7 (3) MODEL.—The term ‘‘model’’ means any nu- 8 merical model of the Earth’s system or its compo- 9 nents produced by scientists employed by the Ad- 10 ministration. 11 (4) OPERATIONAL MODEL.—The term ‘‘oper- 12 ational model’’ means any model that has an output 13 used by the Administration for operational or public 14 service functions. 15 (5) OPEN SOURCE CODE.—The term ‘‘open 16 source code’’ means computer code or programming 17 language that is available for public use or modifica- 18 tion. 19 SEC. 3. PURPOSES. 20 The purposes of this Act are— 21 (1) to support innovation in modeling by allow- 22 ing interested stakeholders to have easy and com- 23 plete access to the models used by the Administra- 24 tion; and 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 18:41 Dec 29, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H5536.IH H5536 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 3 •HR 5536 IH (2) to use vetted innovations arising from ac- 1 cess provided under paragraph (1) to improve mod- 2 eling by the Administration. 3 SEC. 4. REQUIREMENT TO MAKE CERTAIN OPERATIONAL 4 MODELS AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. 5 (a) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator shall make 6 available to the public the following: 7 (1) Current and future operational models de- 8 veloped by the Administration, in the form of open 9 source code for a period consistent with applicable 10 records retention requirements. 11 (2) All Government-owned data, subject to re- 12 distribution rights, associated with such models and 13 used in operational forecasting by the Administra- 14 tion, including— 15 (A) relevant metadata; 16 (B) data used for current operational fore- 17 casts; and 18 (C) a description of intended model out- 19 puts. 20 (b) DISCRETION TO MAKE EXPERIMENTAL OR DE- 21 VELOPMENT MODELS AVAILABLE.—The Administrator 22 may make experimental or developmental models associ- 23 ated with development projects funded by the Administra- 24 tion available to the public as open source code. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 18:41 Dec 29, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H5536.IH H5536 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 4 •HR 5536 IH (c) PLATFORM.—In carrying out subsections (a) and 1 (b), the Administrator may use government servers, con- 2 tracts or agreements with a private vendor, or any other 3 platform consistent with the purpose of this Act. 4 (d) TECHNICAL CORRECTION.—Section 102(b) of the 5 Weather Research Forecasting and Innovation Act of 6 2017 (15 U.S.C. 8512(b)) is amended by redesignating 7 the second paragraph (4) (as added by section 4(a) of the 8 National Integrated Drought Information System Reau- 9 thorization Act of 2018 (Public Law 115–423)) as para- 10 graph (5). 11 (e) PHASED IMPLEMENTATION.— 12 (1) IMMEDIATE EFFECT FOR CERTAIN MOD- 13 ELS.—For operational models that, as of the date of 14 the enactment of this Act, meet the requirements de- 15 scribed in paragraph (5)(E)(ii) of section 102(b) of 16 the Weather Research Forecasting and Innovation 17 Act of 2017 (15 U.S.C. 8512(b)), as redesignated by 18 subsection (d), the Administrator shall implement 19 the requirements of subsection (a) as soon as prac- 20 ticable after such date of enactment. 21 (2) NEW MODELS.—For operational models 22 that meet the requirements described in paragraph 23 (1) and are created or substantially updated after 24 the date of the enactment of this Act, the Adminis- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 18:41 Dec 29, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H5536.IH H5536 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 5 •HR 5536 IH trator shall implement the requirements of sub- 1 section (a) not later than 1 year after such date of 2 enactment. 3 SEC. 5. REQUIREMENT TO REVIEW MODELS AND LEVER- 4 AGE INNOVATIONS. 5 The Administrator shall— 6 (1) consistent with the mission of the Earth 7 Prediction Innovation Center, periodically review in- 8 novations and improvements made by persons out- 9 side the Administration to the operational models 10 made available to the public under section 4 in order 11 to improve the accuracy and timeliness of forecasts 12 of the Administration; and 13 (2) if the Administrator identifies an innovation 14 for such a model the Administrator considers suit- 15 able, develop and implement a plan to use the inno- 16 vation to improve the model. 17 SEC. 6. REPORT ON IMPLEMENTATION. 18 (a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 1 year after the 19 date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall 20 submit to the appropriate congressional committees a re- 21 port on the implementation of this Act that includes a de- 22 scription of— 23 (1) how operational models have been made 24 publicly available as required by section 4(a); and 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 18:41 Dec 29, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H5536.IH H5536 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 6 •HR 5536 IH (2) the process of the Administration under sec- 1 tion 5— 2 (A) for engaging with interested stake- 3 holders to learn what innovations those stake- 4 holders have found; 5 (B) for reviewing those innovations; and 6 (C) for operationalizing innovations the 7 Administrator considers suitable. 8 (b) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES 9 DEFINED.—In this section, the term ‘‘appropriate con- 10 gressional committees’’ means— 11 (1) the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 12 Transportation and the Committee on Appropria- 13 tions of the Senate; and 14 (2) the Committee on Science, Space, and 15 Technology and the Committee on Appropriations of 16 the House of Representatives. 17 SEC. 7. PROTECTION OF NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS. 18 (a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provi- 19 sion of this Act, the Administrator may withhold models 20 or data used in operational weather forecasting if the Ad- 21 ministrator determines doing so to be necessary to protect 22 the national security interests of the United States. 23 (b) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this Act 24 shall be construed to supersede any other provision of law 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 18:41 Dec 29, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H5536.IH H5536 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 7 •HR 5536 IH governing the protection of the national security interests 1 of the United States. 2 SEC. 8. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS. 3 There are authorized to be appropriated to the Ad- 4 ministration for each of fiscal years 2021 through 2026 5 such sums as may be necessary to carry out this Act. 6 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 18:41 Dec 29, 2019 Jkt 099200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H5536.IH H5536 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS