Sponsors (2)
The bill improves public safety, planning, and intergovernmental coordination by standardizing and digitizing waterway access data, but it imposes upfront and ongoing costs, risks to sensitive data and local nuance, and could enable or preserve restrictions that affect local access and environmental flexibility.
People who boat, fish, hunt, and recreate (especially in rural communities) get clearer, searchable maps and up‑to‑date information about federal waterways and restrictions, improving trip planning, safety, and reducing accidental violations.
State, Tribal, and federal agencies gain clearer definitions and legal certainty about which waters and agencies are covered, easing coordination on closures and reducing litigation or disputes over responsibilities.
Standardized, digitized geospatial data reduces duplicate effort across agencies, improves planning and permitting, and can lower long‑term data management costs for governments and partners.
Federal agencies and taxpayers will face substantial short‑term IT and administrative costs to digitize, standardize, and maintain real‑time mapping, plus ongoing maintenance and reporting expenses.
Formalizing covered agencies and new standards could enable broader federal closures or restrictions that reduce fishing and recreational access for local users and limit State flexibility in resource management.
Relying on third‑party or private partners to develop or host data risks exposing sensitive geospatial information or permitting commercial uses without strong safeguards, which is especially concerning for Tribal lands and culturally sensitive sites.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Requires federal agencies to standardize, digitize, and publish geospatial data on federal waterways, access features, and fishing restrictions with set deadlines and update rules.
Introduced July 31, 2025 by John A. Barrasso · Last progress July 31, 2025
Requires federal land and water agencies to create common geospatial standards, digitize, and publish maps and data showing federal waterways, public access/navigation features, and fishing restrictions. It sets deadlines for standards (30 months), full data publication (5 years), update frequencies (semiannual for waterways/access, real-time for fishing restrictions), and annual progress reports through 2034.