S.Amdt. 4208

SA 4208. Mr. PADILLA submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
to amendment SA 3867 submitted by Mr. Reed and intended to be proposed
to the bill H.R. 4350, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2022
for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

Add at the appropriate place in title XV, insert the
following:

SEC. 15__. REPORT ON SENSING CAPABILITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT
OF DEFENSE TO ASSIST FIGHTING WILDFIRES.

(a) Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall, in
consultation with the Director of National Intelligence and
such other head of an agency or department as the Secretary
determines appropriate, submit to the appropriate
congressional committees a report on the capabilities of the
Department of Defense to assist fighting wildfires through
the use and analysis of satellite and other aerial survey
technology.
(b) Matters Included.--The report under subsection (a)
shall include the following:
(1) An examination of the current and future sensing
requirements for the wildfire fighting and analysis
community.
(2) Identification of assets of the Department of Defense
and intelligence community that can provide data that is
relevant to the requirements under paragraph (1), including
an examination of such assets that--
(A) are currently available;
(B) are in development; and
(C) have been formally proposed by a department or agency
of the Federal Government, but which have not yet been
approved by Congress.
(3) With respect to the assets identified under paragraph
(2)(A), an examination of how close the data such assets
provide comes to meeting the wildfire management and
suppression community needs.

[[Page S7662]]

(4) An identification of the total and breakdown of costs
reimbursed to the Department of Defense during the five-year
period preceding the date of the report for reimbursable
requests for assistance from lead departments or agencies of
the Federal Government responding to natural disasters,
including an assessment of the feasibility of not charging or
requiring reimbursement for satellite time used in emergency
response for wildfires.
(5) A discussion of the feasibility of establishing
capabilities at civilian agencies such as the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration to replicate or
supplement the FireGuard program.
(6) A discussion of issues involved in producing
unclassified products using unclassified and classified
assets, and policy options for Congress regarding that
translation, including by explicitly addressing
classification choices that could ease the application of
data from such assets to wildfire detection and tracking.
(7) Identification of options to address gaps between
requirements and capabilities to be met by additional
solutions, whether from the Department of Defense, the
intelligence community, or from the civil or commercial
domain.
(8) A retrospective analysis to determine whether the
existing data could have been used to defend against past
fires.
(9) Options for the Department of Defense to assist the
Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior,
the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, the National Science Foundation, and State and
local governments in identifying and responding to wildfires.
(c) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) The term ``appropriate congressional committees'' means
the following:
(A) The Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the Committee on
Energy and Natural Resources, and the Select Committee on
Intelligence of the Senate.
(B) The Committee on Armed Services, the Committee on
Agriculture, the Committee on Natural Resources, the
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of
Representatives.
(2) The term ``intelligence community'' has the meaning
given that term in section 3 of the National Security Act of
1947 (50 U.S.C. 3003).
______