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Commercial Engagement Through Ocean Technology Act of 2018

H.R. 5196 · 115th Congress · Mar 7, 2018 · Lineage

A BILL

To require the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere to carry out a program on coordinating the assessment and acquisition by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of unmanned maritime systems, to make available to the public data collected by the Administration using such systems, and for other purposes.

Section 1 Short title; table of contents

(a)
Short title— This Act may be cited as the “Commercial Engagement Through Ocean Technology Act of 2018” or the “CENOTE Act of 2018”.
(b)
Table of contents— The table of contents for this Act is as follows:

Sec. 2 Definitions

In this Act:
(1)
Administration— The term Administration means the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
(2)
Administrator— The term Administrator means the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
(3)
Cooperative activities of the Administration— The term cooperative activities of the Administration means cooperative activities between the Administration and an external entity, such as the Cooperative Institutes, Sea Grant Colleges, National Estuarine Research Reserves, the National Oceanographic Partnership Program established under chapter 665 of title 10, United States Code, and regional associations of the Integrated Ocean Observing System.
(4)
Curate the data and data curation— The terms curate the data and data curation shall encompass the processes of conducting quality assurance and quality control measures for data, capturing associated appropriate metadata, electronic storage and back up of the data, and ensuring accessibility of the data.
(5)
Data specifications— The term data specifications shall refer to the type, resolution, periodicity, and quality of data required by a program of the Administration.
(6)
Program— The term Program means the program established under section 101(a).
(7)
Test or training range—
(A)
In general— The term test or training range means an area designated for operating unmanned maritime systems and other types of systems for the purpose of—
(i)
evaluating the performance of such systems; or
(ii)
training personnel on operating procedures for such systems.
(B)
Inclusions— The term test or training range may include specialized fixed or portable instrumentation for the operation of unmanned maritime systems and other types of systems.
(8)
Unmanned maritime systems—
(A)
In general— The term unmanned maritime systems means remotely operated or autonomous vehicles produced by the commercial sector—
(i)
designed to travel in the air, on or under the ocean surface, on land, or any combination, and that function without an on-board human presence; and
(ii)
that may include associated components such as control and communications, data transmission, and processing systems.
(B)
Examples— The term unmanned maritime systems includes the following:
(i)
Unmanned undersea vehicles.
(ii)
Unmanned surface vehicles.
(iii)
Unmanned aerial vehicles.
(iv)
Autonomous underwater vehicles.
(v)
Autonomous surface vehicles.
(vi)
Autonomous aerial vehicles.