NOAA to map Great Lakes lakebeds, publish data free to public
H.R. 2731 — Great Lakes Mapping Act of 2025 · Filed by Lisa McClain (R-MI) · 18 cosponsors · Introduced Apr 8, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill directs NOAA to conduct high-resolution mapping and surveying of the lakebeds of the Great Lakes by December 31, 2030, working with state governors and regional partners. The resulting maps and bathymetric data will be made publicly available during and after the project, incorporated into nautical charts and habitat-characterization products, and the bill authorizes $50 million per year from 2025–2029 to fund the effort.
Why we flagged it
The bill is a straightforward public-data-collection mandate with no private carve-outs, tax provisions, or regulatory relief. It funds NOAA to produce and share scientific information about a public resource.
What the text implies
- Public availability of high-resolution lakebed data may enable better detection of environmental contamination, shipwrecks, or submerged infrastructure, potentially triggering remediation obligations or liability claims against responsible parties.
- Bathymetric data could inform future shipping-route optimization, dredging projects, or offshore wind/renewable energy siting in the Great Lakes, with both economic and environmental consequences.
- Metadata and data-sharing protocols established here may set precedent for similar mapping efforts in other U.S. coastal and inland waters, expanding NOAA's data-infrastructure role.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens gain access to critical public data about a shared natural resource, improving navigation safety, environmental monitoring, and scientific understanding of the Great Lakes ecosystem. The bill imposes no restrictions on citizen rights or remedies and funds a collaborative public-interest project with transparent data-sharing requirements.
Named in the bill
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Great Lakes states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Minnesota), National Ocean Mapping, Exploration, and Characterization Council, Lakebed 2030 Regional Initiative, Great Lakes Observing System, Digital Coast Act, Ocean and Coastal Mapping Integration Act
Where it stands
18 cosponsors: 11 Democrats, 7 Republicans.
- Apr 8, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Apr 8, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $403,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 74 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Lisa McClain, the sponsor, reported $1,569,787 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Ocean Conservancy — $403,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 16, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,208 characters) on Nov 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,927 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 16, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-02.
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