Sponsors (2)
The bill improves public and agency access to standardized, interoperable marine geospatial data—boosting safety, planning, and tribal protections—while creating risks from expanded regulatory discretion, data-privacy exposures, and added costs and administrative burdens for governments and private partners.
Recreational boaters and fishers will get clearer, standardized geospatial maps showing fishing restrictions and EEZ access, making trip planning easier and reducing accidental violations.
Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations retain treaty rights and government-to-government consultation and have explicit statutory recognition or protections (including exclusion of usual and accustomed Tribal fishing areas), preserving tribal sovereignty and management roles.
State, local, and tribal managers gain better ability to share, integrate, and use marine access and restriction data, improving enforcement, resource management, and interagency coordination.
Commercial and recreational fishers face increased regulatory uncertainty because the Secretary may add undefined "other restrictions on fishing," potentially expanding enforcement or limits without detailed statutory bounds.
Tribal communities and other stakeholders risk disclosure of sensitive cultural, archaeological, or private location data if standardized geospatial releases lack strong safeguards, threatening privacy and sovereignty.
Developing, implementing, maintaining, and hosting interoperable geospatial standards and real-time data will impose tangible costs on federal, state, and local agencies (and ultimately taxpayers).
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Publishes and maintains public, machine-readable geospatial (GIS) data about fishing restrictions, recreational vessel access and use, and navigation in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and requires the Secretary of Commerce to develop standards and shareability practices for those datasets. The law requires consultation with States, Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations and makes provisions to protect sensitive archaeological and proprietary fishing information while excluding Tribal usual and accustomed fishing areas from its data authorities.
Requires the Secretary of Commerce to set standards and publish public GIS data on EEZ fishing restrictions, recreational vessel access/use, and navigation with protections for Tribal areas and sensitive data.
Official title: Provide for standardization, publication, and accessibility of data relating to public outdoor recreational use of Federal waterways, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 26, 2025 by Rafael Edward Cruz · Last progress September 11, 2025