Sponsors (3)
The bill centralizes and expands forest inventory and carbon data to improve climate policy, planning, research, and transparency, while increasing federal costs and raising privacy, access equity, and local-flexibility concerns.
State and local governments and rural communities will get standardized, higher-quality forest and carbon data (including soil/below-ground carbon) to plan land management, climate mitigation, and more accurate carbon accounting.
Researchers, land managers, and private-sector users gain access to more detailed, nationally consistent inventory and remote-sensing data (timber outputs, owner surveys, expanded sensors), enabling better research, innovation, and resource decisions.
Taxpayers and the public benefit from increased transparency and regular reporting plus required strategic-plan updates that improve accountability about costs, priorities, and technology use at the federal inventory program.
Taxpayers may face higher federal costs or reallocation of agency funds because expanding data collection and creating new offices increases program expenses.
Private landowners, rural communities, and small businesses face heightened privacy risks from broader use of high-resolution remote sensing and integrated datasets that could expose sensitive plot locations or owner information.
Small researchers, community groups, and some private-sector users could be limited by fees for processing complex external data requests, reducing equitable access to the new data resources.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced February 11, 2025 by Kim Schrier · Last progress February 11, 2025
Updates the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program to collect and publish more consistent, accessible, and detailed forest data. It requires the Forest Service to explicitly include forest carbon in FIA descriptions, add new data methods (timber products output studies and a national woodland owner survey), expand remote sensing examples (microwave, LiDAR, hyperspectral, high-resolution, and machine learning), set national consistency and clear definitions for “forest,” improve public access and confidentiality protections, authorize fees for external data requests, require annual progress reports and biennial compilations, and impose specific deadlines for strategic plan updates.