NSF must plan security upgrades for ocean research ships.
S. 318 — ANCHOR Act · Filed by Alex Padilla (D-CA) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jan 29, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The National Science Foundation Director must make a plan within one year. The plan will show how to upgrade security and communications on U.S. ocean research ships run by universities. The plan must list what is needed and what it costs. It must show when work can happen and where money comes from. The Director will ask government security agencies for help.
Who it affects
Universities that run ocean research ships will be affected. Scientists who work on these ships will gain better security and communications. The public gains from safer ocean research.
One thing to notice
The bill asks the NSF to work with government security agencies to make the plan. The plan may suggest ways to pay for upgrades using money from non-government sources.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Jan 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 29, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
- May 21, 2025 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of…”
- Oct 8, 2025 — Passed the Senate · Congress.gov: “Passed Senate with an amendment by Unanimous Consent. (consideration: CR S7007-7009; text: CR S7008-7009)”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Dec 2025 to Dec 2025.
Those reports show $450,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 24 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Alex Padilla, who sponsored the bill, received $175,500 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- University of California — $450,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- security — ways to protect computers and data from attacks and theft.
- communications — systems that send messages and data over long distances.
- National Science Foundation — a government agency that funds and supports scientific research.
- universities — schools where adults study and do research.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (5,250 characters) on Aug 20, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,342 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 Dec 2025. 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-18.
“NSF must plan security upgrades for ocean research ships.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s318/simple Report an error