S.Amdt. 3604

SA 3604, submitted by Mr. Hickenlooper, aims to add a new section to bill S. 2296. This addition focuses on creating official programs to use commercial weather data within the Department of the Air Force and the Department of the Navy.

The purpose of this amendment is to require the Secretary of the Air Force and the Secretary of the Navy to establish programs of record by September 30, 2027. These programs are designed to:

• Acquire and use commercial weather data for operational forecasting and to improve mission planning and execution in contested and data-sparse environments.
• Integrate this data into the decision-support and meteorological frameworks of both departments.
• Ensure resilience against adversarial advancements in space-based monitoring of the environment.

To hold these officials accountable, the amendment requires the Secretaries to submit a transition plan, an acquisition strategy, and budget justification materials to the congressional defense committees by March 1, 2026.

Finally, the amendment allows the use of fiscal year 2026 funds to develop these plans and strategies, perform technical assessments of commercial data, and support requirements definition and pilot integration.