S.Amdt. 5994

SA 5994, submitted by Mr. Hickenlooper and Mr. Bennet, aims to add a new section to bill S. 4784 regarding the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The purpose of this amendment is to require the Secretary of Defense, working with the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to provide a report to congressional defense committees. This report must assess how the national security would be impacted if the NCAR's infrastructure and capabilities were restructured, dismantled, or divested.

The amendment seeks to add the following requirements to the bill:

• A report due within 180 days of the Act's enactment.
• An inventory of Department of Defense programs and workflows that rely on NCAR data, software, and infrastructure.
• An assessment of how losing assets like the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center and atmospheric research aircraft would affect global operations and flight safety.
• An analysis of how disruptions to NCAR would affect the integration of satellite observations into military weather models.
• An evaluation of how degradation of space weather forecasting and solar physics capabilities would impact orbital tracking, global positioning systems, and military satellite communications.
• Recommendations for safeguards or mitigation strategies to ensure national security readiness and continuity of environmental intelligence.