S.Amdt. 6565

SA 6565. Mr. CRUZ submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill S. 4784, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2027 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:

At the end of subtitle B of title III, add the following:

SEC. 320C. SHARING OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ENVIRONMENTAL
OBSERVATIONAL DATA.

(a) Requirement.--Not later than 18 months after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, and
the Secretary of Commerce in coordination with the Secretary
of the Navy, the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Under
Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, shall
establish a process under which the Secretary of Defense, on
a continual or recurring basis, shall review and share
environmental observational data collected by the Department
of Defense with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration for the purposes of improving weather, ocean,
space weather forecasting, or any other mission area of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as
determined by the Secretary of Defense.
(b) Data Eligible for Sharing.--The process established
under subsection (a) shall identify real-time, near real-
time, and longer-time series environmental observational data
that--
(1) the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce
agree is likely to improve weather, ocean, or space weather
forecasts;
(2) is able to be released in an unclassified or
declassified form;
(3) may be shared within the United States Government,
notwithstanding restrictions on further redistribution
outside the United States Government; and

[[Page S3751]]

(4) can be shared in standard machine-readable formats and
includes metadata.
(c) Sharing Constraints.--In establishing the process under
subsection (a), the Secretary of Defense shall establish
procedures to unilaterally take a covered action if the
Secretary determines that--
(1) such action will protect a sensitive source or method
or preserve the security of military operations; or
(2) a civilian agency information technology system is not
cybersecure or fails to meet Department of Defense discovery
metadata specification and verification protocols.
(d) Consultation Requirement.--Not later than 48 hours
after taking a covered action under subsection (c), the
Secretary of Defense shall consult with the Secretary of
Commerce regarding the covered action to include identifying
the rationale and any requirements for lifting the covered
action.
(e) Report to Congress.--Not later than two years after the
date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense
and the Secretary of Commerce shall jointly submit to
Congress a report describing--
(1) categories of environmental observational data
identified for potential sharing under subsection (a);
(2) barriers to declassification or release of such data;
(3) cybersecurity procedures and any challenge to data
sharing, including ensuring degraded data is not shared;
(4) reciprocal sharing of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's data with the Department of
Defense;
(5) the process established to provide recurring
coordination between the Department of Defense and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration regarding
planned technical, hardware, architectural, or data
management changes that could materially affect the secure,
reliable, or continuous exchange of environmental
observational data; and
(6) recommendations to improve interagency data sharing and
any other relevant recommendations.
(f) Covered Action Defined.--In this section, the term
``covered action'' means--
(1) withholding declassification or release of data;
(2) placing limitations or restrictions on further
distribution of data received by the Secretary of Commerce;
and
(3) severing connectivity of data sharing implementation.
______