Sponsors (19)
The bill funds and mandates completion and public release of a high‑resolution Great Lakes bathymetric map—boosting navigation safety, scientific understanding, and long‑term data reuse—while imposing multi‑million dollar costs on taxpayers and added administrative burdens for federal and state agencies.
Researchers, state and local governments, regional observing systems, and the public will get a complete high‑resolution bathymetric map of the Great Lakes by Dec 31, 2030, improving scientific understanding, habitat and resource management, and hazard planning.
Commercial and recreational mariners, transportation workers, and local governments will benefit from improved navigation safety because NOAA must publicly release completed map portions and integrate them into nautical charts.
The bill authorizes sustained federal funding ($50 million per year for FY2025–FY2029), giving states and regional observing systems reliable resources to complete mapping and coordinate regional activities.
Taxpayers will bear up to $250 million in authorized spending (FY2025–FY2029) plus multi‑year implementation costs, which could displace other federal or local priorities.
NOAA's requirement for rapid public release of completed map portions could conflict with existing data‑processing, security, or privacy rules, creating legal or compliance complications and potentially delaying some releases.
Mandated coordination, data‑integration, and implementation obligations will increase workload and costs for state agencies and regional observing systems during rollout, straining capacity.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes NOAA to map Great Lakes lakebeds at high resolution, archive and publish bathymetric data, integrate results into charts, and funds $50M/year for FY2025–FY2029.
Introduced April 8, 2025 by Lisa C. McClain · Last progress April 8, 2025
Directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to lead a coordinated effort to survey and produce a high‑resolution map of the lakebeds of the Great Lakes, with milestones for completion and public release. It requires cataloging and archiving bathymetric data and metadata, and incorporation of mapped data into products like nautical charts. Provides dedicated funding of $50,000,000 per year for fiscal years 2025–2029 (with those funds available through 2030) to carry out the mapping, and requires NOAA to coordinate with Great Lakes states, regional observing systems, and federal mapping councils. The measure also preserves existing procedures under current coastal and ocean mapping statutes.