Mr. FEENEY. Madam Chairman, I will not necessarily oppose this amendment. I will point out that I think the amendment provides some confusing requirements on NASA.
On the one hand, for example, it says, ``The administrator shall work to ensure that NASA's policies on the sharing of climate-related data respond to the recommendations of the Government Accountability Office report on climate change research and data-sharing policies.''
But then the amendment goes on to direct the administrator to also align the agency's policies to recommendations contained in a National Academy report on Earth Science Applications and ``other relevant National Academy reports.''
It doesn't seem to provide any discretion at NASA to determine amongst a whole bevy or multitude of academy reports from all over the place as to which ones are meritorious or more meritorious than others. There seems to be some confusion here in terms of what NASA ought to determine.
Most importantly, I think we want NASA to make determinations based on good science. That's what they've been charged with. NASA has long been a leader in promoting both domestically and internationally the full and open access to science data to all.
I would also point out that NASA data and information are accessible to the public, on the Web through the NASA Web site.
And finally, we've already discussed the fact that NASA has a set of policies about data and information sharing that I think are comprehensive and are working today quite well.
With that, I would indicate again that I have no objection to the language; although I do think it creates some ambiguity and confusion.
