Back in May of this year, US Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced the Geospatial Data Act (GDA). S. 1253 is being promoted as a bipartisan bill to “improve coordination, reduce duplication, and increase data transparency in the acquisition of geospatial data.” This bill is a reintroduction of S. 740: Geospatial Data Act of 2015 which was introduced during the 114th Congress. That bill was never enacted.

The American Association of Geographers has come out strongly in opposition of the bill, calling it a “breathtakingly-selfish attempt to hijack the mapping and GIS fields”, that, if signed into law, “would result in a significant loss of jobs throughout the U.S., and would cripple the dynamic and innovative American GIS, IT, and mapping companies and communities that have developed GIS and internet mapping, and now power its continued innovation and growth in jobs and new technologies.”

The AAG has a good breakdown of what the implications of the bill’s passage would be to the GIS industry in this piece: New Plot to Hijack GIS and Mapping. The most impactful aspect of the bill is the requirement that GIS and mapping services fall under the 1972 Brooks Act requiring those service be limited to “licensed architectural and engineering services firms”. This echoes the unsuccessful lawsuit back in 2007 by Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS) to enact a similar requirement for geospatial services.

A scan tweets by GIS Professionals on Twitter is mostly negative. A few of the tweets:

The geospatial data act (GDA) is not about making public GIS more 'efficient,' it's about eliminating federal/public GIS data services pic.twitter.com/OtzJYBJIkf — Donald Planey (@donald_planey) June 24, 2017 Advertisement



Geospatial Data Act (S.1253) is short sighted & would cripple academic research. #gistribe @KamalaHarris https://t.co/hGoDkzbKux — Dr. Michele M Tobias (@MicheleTobias) June 25, 2017

.@RonWyden Geospatial Data Act would hurt innovative #GIS firms. Special interest push 2 artificially block competition. It's unamerican. — Ari Isaak (@SDGIS) June 24, 2017

.@chrislhayes New senate bill (The Geospatial Data Act S1253) seeks to hijack mapping data, threatens research, IT (& just creepy) #SaveGIS — Wendy Jepson 🌎 🌈 💙🦋 (@ProfessorJepson) June 24, 2017

Passage of this bill is unsure. According to GovTrack, the bill has a 1% chance of being enacted according to an analysis of the bill’s text by Skopos Labs.

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