[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 7362 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 7362
To establish cooperative agreements for wildland fire research, and for
other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 15, 2024
Ms. Bonamici (for herself, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. Duarte, Ms. Tokuda, Mr.
Valadao, and Mr. Curtis) introduced the following bill; which was
referred to the Committee on Agriculture
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A BILL
To establish cooperative agreements for wildland fire research, and for
other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Satellites Preventing Agricultural
Crises and Emergencies Act of 2024'' or the ``SPACE Act of 2024''.
SEC. 2. ESTABLISHING COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS FOR WILDLAND FIRE RESEARCH.
(a) Cooperative Agreements.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary of Agriculture shall enter
into cooperative agreements with land-grant colleges and
universities with a demonstrable capacity to collect data,
interpret, report on, and otherwise conduct research on
wildland fire sciences for the purpose of promoting and
researching the use of available satellite data in order to
predict, control, monitor, or otherwise mitigate wildland fire
risk, including relating to the following:
(A) Smoke detection, land temperature, fire
weather, fuel composition, soil moisture, and other
metrics.
(B) Advanced remote sensing technologies, including
light detection and ranging, forest carbon monitoring,
and use of geostationary and geosynchronous remote
sensing resources.
(C) Resource deployment, wildland fire management,
and area mapping.
(D) Wildland fire behavior and predictive modeling
from historic, real-time, and near real-time acquired
data.
(2) Requirements.--In entering cooperative agreements under
paragraph (1), the Secretary of Agriculture shall--
(A) make available to recipient institutions
satellite data acquired by the Agriculture Research
Service, the National Agriculture Imagery Program, the
National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and other
research agencies determined relevant by the Secretary,
including such data that--
(i) provide real or near-real time images
of earth's landmass;
(ii) can be gathered in multiple spectral
bands, including infrared; and
(iii) provide historical data sets to mode,
forecast, and track wildland fires; and
(B) require recipient institutions to share
scientific research and reports, including wildland
fire forecasts, models, smoke drift patterns, gaps and
deficits in available data, and any other materials
produced by resources provided by the Department of
Agriculture determined necessary by the Secretary.
(b) Report.--Not later than one year after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture shall submit to the
Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives and the
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate a
report regarding opportunities to expand wildland fire research
cooperative agreements, improve the distribution of remote sensing
resources, and expand cooperative agreements to include interagency
groups with access to remote sensing data relevant to wildland fire
research.
SEC. 3. REPORT ON SATELLITE-DRIVEN WILDLAND FIRE RESEARCH.
Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this
Act, the Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with the heads of
other Federal departments or agencies the Secretary determines
appropriate, shall submit to Congress a report that contains
information relating to the following:
(1) The needed resources and possible timeline for
implementation for integrating satellite and remote sensing
technologies, including commercial data acquisitions, as well
as airspace management technology and drones, to collect,
interpret, and distribute data on wildland fire, for the
following purposes:
(A) Forecasting fire growth and fire behavior
modeling.
(B) Developing fire containment strategies.
(C) Improving operational resource deployment.
(D) Producing daily fire progression maps.
(2) The need and opportunities to deploy aerial resources,
including drones, to provide field observations in regions
experiencing multiple wildland fires.
(3) The capacity for remote sensing instruments, including
infrared technology, to detect fine vegetation stress and fuel
moisture with increased frequency.
(4) An estimate of the cost to carry out paragraphs (1)
through (3), including to collect, acquire, and provide to the
Agricultural Research Services, the National Agriculture
Imagery Program, the National Institute of Food and
Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Interagency
Fire Center, and federally funded research entities, including
land-grant colleges and universities, the information relating
thereto.
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