The Time Preservation Act

THE TIME PRESERVATION ACT

Preserve Civilization Before It Disappears

A comprehensive federal legislative package to create humanity’s long-term memory through immersive documentation, rights-respecting stewardship, and durable public access.

The premise

A civilization is more than its monuments. It is voices, neighborhoods, rituals, landscapes, courtrooms, stages, workplaces, scientific triumphs, family routines, and the texture of ordinary days. When those disappear, a recording can show what they looked like. An immersive archive can preserve enough evidence for future people to understand how they felt, sounded, moved, and fit together—without pretending that a reconstruction is the original.

Office of Legislative Counsel — Policy Maker Project

The Time Preservation Act creates a permanent national system for preserving civilization in forms that future generations can inspect, study, and experience. It establishes a National Digital Civilization Archive and a geographically redundant National Memory Cloud; creates open, technology-neutral standards for volumetric video, spatial audio, laser scanning, photogrammetry, environmental sensing, emulation, and AI-assisted restoration; and funds local, Tribal, territorial, and community institutions to document places and traditions before they vanish.

The Act is intentionally not a federal ownership claim over the nation’s culture. Participation by private persons, communities, theaters, publishers, religious bodies, and cultural institutions is voluntary unless the material is already a federal record or is produced under a federal award with clear advance conditions. A contributor may donate ownership, grant a preservation-only license, authorize public access immediately or after an embargo, or impose lawful privacy and culturally sensitive access restrictions. Indigenous knowledge receives separate, sovereignty-centered protections, including community-controlled access and a prohibition on AI training without express authorization.

The Archivist of the United States serves as lead official through a new Office of Immersive Heritage. NIST develops technical and authenticity standards. The Smithsonian Institution builds the public-facing Digital Smithsonian. The Library of Congress administers voluntary performance and creative-work deposits. The National Park Service expands HABS/HAER/HALS-style documentation. FEMA and the Smithsonian co-chair an operational Cultural Heritage Emergency Corps. NEH and IMLS distribute local grants through existing humanities, library, museum, and archival networks.

The bill also creates a bright line between evidence and interpretation. Every public experience must distinguish captured source material from restoration, inferred reconstruction, and creative interpretation. AI may repair noise, interpolate missing frames, translate speech, or help generate hypotheses, but the original source package must remain immutable; all transformations must be logged; uncertainty must be visible; and no synthetic voice or likeness may be presented as an authentic recording.

What the Act Preserves

Design Commitments

Authenticity over spectacle: preservation masters remain immutable; restorations and reconstructions are separate derivatives.

Pluralism over official mythology: selection cannot depend on partisan approval, patriotic conformity, or the suppression of contested history.

Communities as partners: documentation is done with people, not merely about them.

Preservation without dispossession: depositing a digital surrogate does not transfer ownership of the physical object or underlying culture.

Open standards and exit rights: no vendor may trap the nation’s memory in a proprietary platform.

Access with lawful restraint: broad public access is the default, but privacy, safety, copyright, cultural sensitivity, and national security remain real limits.

Durability by design: multiple geographic copies, offline recovery copies, fixity checks, format migration, emulation, and funded lifecycle replacement are mandatory.

Environmental discipline: storage and rendering must be measured for energy, water, and carbon intensity, with archival tiers preventing wasteful always-on computation.

Title I — General Provisions

Title II — Governance and National Strategy

Title III — National Digital Civilization Archive

Title IV — National Memory Cloud

Title V — Immersive Preservation and Authenticity Standards

Title VI — Places, Events, Civic Life, Performance, and Everyday America

Title VII — National Oral History and Living Memory Initiative

Title VIII — Languages, Dialects, and Cultural Sovereignty

Title IX — Climate-Threatened Heritage and Natural Memory

Title X — Cultural Heritage Emergency Corps

Title XI — Local History, Tribal, Territorial, and Community Grants

Title XII — Digital Smithsonian and Federal Stewardship Expansion

Title XIII — Copyright, Consent, Privacy, and Cultural Rights

Title XIV — AI Restoration and Synthetic Reconstruction

Title XV — Public Access, Education, and Research

Title XVI — Cybersecurity, Continuity, and Infrastructure

Title XVII — Workforce, Research, and American Innovation

Title XVIII — Oversight, Accountability, and Remedies

Title XIX — Appropriations and Fiscal Controls

Title XX — Implementation, Rulemaking, and Miscellaneous Provisions

Supplement A — Section-by-Section Commentary

Supplement B — Constitutional and Legal-Risk Analysis

Supplement C — Illustrative Fiscal Note

Supplement D — Implementation Roadmap and Operating Model

Supplement E — Stakeholder and Incentive Analysis

Supplement F — Plain-Language Summary and FAQ

Supplement G — Research Basis and Authorities

Supplement H — Quality-Check

Jurisdiction. This is drafted as legislation of the United States Congress. Programs involving nonfederal governments and private institutions generally operate through voluntary grants, cooperative agreements, deposits, licenses, and contracts.

Lead agency. NARA is the system steward because long-term authenticity, provenance, records governance, and preservation are archival functions. The Act deliberately distributes subject-matter work among existing expert institutions.

Time horizon. The system is designed for permanent stewardship. Program authorizations receive a 10-year initial window, a comprehensive fifth-year review, and rolling standards updates; preserved assets do not sunset.

Access baseline. Lawfully open material is free for personal, educational, and research access. High-compute delivery, commercial reuse, and licensed performances may carry cost-recovery or rights-holder charges.

Fiscal convention. Cost ranges are illustrative, in constant 2026 dollars, and are not a Congressional Budget Office score. Appropriations remain subject to annual Acts except for amounts validly accepted as gifts or reimbursements.

Rights baseline. No provision is intended to diminish copyright, trademark, contractual, privacy, publicity, religious-exercise, Tribal, repatriation, classified-information, or property rights except through the narrow, express preservation provisions enacted in the bill.

Relationship to the project’s other reform laws. The Act includes nonduplication, shared-service, and savings clauses so transparency, environmental, civil-rights, procurement, and government-accountability systems established elsewhere can govern without being recreated here.

To preserve the tangible, intangible, natural, civic, scientific, industrial, artistic, and everyday record of the United States through durable digital stewardship and rights-respecting immersive documentation, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

Purpose, scope, definitions, and rules of construction

SEC. 101. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

(a) This Act may be cited as the “Time Preservation Act”.

(b) The table of contents for this Act is the table of contents appearing in the legislative package accompanying this text.

SEC. 102. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS.

(a) Congress finds the following:

(1) Civilization is carried not only in official records and landmark structures, but also in languages, performance, craft, neighborhood life, ecological relationships, work, ceremony, memory, and ordinary experience.

(2) Fire, flood, sea-level rise, erosion, extreme heat, conflict, neglect, redevelopment, demographic change, technological obsolescence, institutional closure, and the death of witnesses can destroy cultural evidence faster than conventional preservation systems can respond.

(3) Two-dimensional recordings remain indispensable, but cannot fully preserve spatial relationships, acoustic fields, movement, material behavior, environmental context, or the embodied knowledge needed to understand a place, performance, machine, or practice.

(4) Laser scanning, photogrammetry, volumetric video, spatial audio, remote sensing, multispectral imaging, environmental measurement, and emulation can create durable evidence packages when capture conditions, uncertainty, provenance, and later transformations are documented.

(5) Artificial intelligence can assist restoration, transcription, translation, search, and reconstruction, but can also fabricate false history. The public interest requires immutable sources, transformation logs, visible uncertainty, human review, and clear labeling.

(6) Federal cultural institutions already possess complementary authorities and expertise, but the United States lacks a unified program for immersive preservation, emergency prioritization, long-term storage, local capacity, and interoperable public access.

(7) The historical record is distorted when preservation favors wealthy institutions, famous persons, monumental architecture, or dominant narratives while excluding rural, immigrant, Indigenous, disabled, working-class, LGBTQ+, religious-minority, territorial, and other community experience.

(8) Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations possess sovereign, cultural, religious, intellectual, and privacy interests in their languages, ceremonies, sacred knowledge, cultural patrimony, and community records; preservation must not become a new form of extraction.

(9) Creators, performers, unions, producers, publishers, and cultural institutions possess legitimate economic and moral interests. Secure preservation and later public access are distinct legal acts and require distinct authority.

(10) A trustworthy national memory system must survive vendor failure, cyberattack, format obsolescence, institutional disruption, and regional disaster through redundancy, open standards, fixity verification, emulation, migration, and funded lifecycle management.

(11) Free and accessible encounters with reliable historical evidence strengthen education, scientific inquiry, democratic competence, empathy, cultural tourism, creative innovation, and the ability of communities to understand change over time.

(12) Congress has authority to establish and support national archives, museums, libraries, parks, intellectual-property systems, interstate research and communications infrastructure, federal records, and spending programs that advance the general welfare.

SEC. 103. PURPOSES.

(a) The purposes of this Act are—

(1) to identify and preserve cultural, civic, scientific, industrial, environmental, and everyday evidence at risk of loss.

(2) to create durable, authentic, interoperable, and accessible preservation packages capable of supporting future immersive experiences.

(3) to establish a National Digital Civilization Archive and National Memory Cloud without displacing the lawful custody or authority of contributing communities and institutions.

(4) to expand national capacity for oral history, language preservation, spatial documentation, emergency salvage, digital conservation, and public interpretation.

(5) to ensure that AI-assisted restoration and reconstruction never masquerade as unaltered historical evidence.

(6) to enable local institutions and the public to document histories overlooked by national collections.

(7) to protect copyright, privacy, publicity, religious freedom, Tribal sovereignty, cultural protocols, safety, and national security.

(8) to build a skilled preservation workforce and support American research, standards, tools, and small businesses.

(9) to provide future generations with evidence sufficient to study not merely what the United States celebrated, but how people actually lived.

SEC. 104. DEFINITIONS.

(a) In this Act:

(1) The term “Archivist” means the Archivist of the United States.

(2) The term “Archive” means the National Digital Civilization Archive established under section 301.

(3) The term “authenticity record” means the signed provenance, custody, technical, rights, and transformation metadata associated with an asset.

(4) The term “capture package” means the preservation master, contemporaneous metadata, calibration files, rights information, context documentation, checksums, and quality-control record.

(5) The term “community steward” means a Tribe, Native Hawaiian organization, State or local government, cultural or religious organization, archive, library, museum, educational institution, union, guild, neighborhood organization, or other entity with a substantial relationship to the subject.

(6) The term “culturally sensitive information” means information for which public disclosure would conflict with a lawful cultural, religious, burial, ceremonial, safety, privacy, or community protocol.

(7) The term “digital surrogate” means a digital representation of a physical place, object, event, organism, practice, or record.

(8) The term “eligible memory institution” means a nonprofit or governmental library, archive, museum, historic site, cultural center, public media archive, educational institution, or Tribal repository that meets standards under this Act.

(9) The term “endangered heritage” means material, knowledge, practice, place, ecosystem, or record facing a documented and material risk of irreversible loss, degradation, dispersal, or inaccessibility.

(10) The term “immersive experience” means an interactive or multisensory presentation derived from preservation assets, including virtual, augmented, mixed-reality, spatial-audio, haptic, projection, or emulated presentation.

(11) The term “intangible cultural heritage” means practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills, oral traditions, languages, performance, social practices, rituals, festive events, ecological knowledge, and traditional craftsmanship recognized by a community as part of its heritage.

(12) The term “Memory Cloud” means the National Memory Cloud established under section 401.

(13) The term “Office” means the Office of Immersive Heritage established under section 201.

(14) The term “open standard” means a standard published without discriminatory access restrictions, implementable on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, and supported by sufficient documentation for independent validation.

(15) The term “preservation master” means the highest-fidelity, least-altered version accepted for permanent stewardship.

(16) The term “reconstruction” means a representation that fills material gaps through inference, simulation, synthesis, reenactment, or generation rather than direct capture.

(17) The term “restoration” means a documented process intended to recover perceptible information from a damaged or degraded source without materially inventing historical content.

(18) The term “restricted asset” means an asset subject to an embargo or access restriction under law, agreement, court order, security classification, cultural protocol, or this Act.

(19) The term “source evidence” means directly captured or lawfully obtained records, measurements, testimony, media, or objects used to create a preservation asset.

(20) The term “Tribe” means an Indian Tribe as defined in section 4 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act and includes an Alaska Native village or regional or village corporation where applicable.

(21) The term “volumetric record” means a time-varying three-dimensional representation with sufficient spatial and temporal data to permit viewpoint-dependent rendering.

SEC. 105. GOVERNING PRESERVATION PRINCIPLES.

(a) The original or highest-quality source shall be retained whenever lawful and technically feasible.

(b) No restoration or reconstruction may overwrite or be substituted for the preservation master.

(c) Selection and description shall acknowledge uncertainty, contested interpretation, omission, and source limitations.

(d) Preservation shall not be conditioned on ideological conformity, political loyalty, or the suppression of lawful viewpoints.

(e) Access shall be maximized consistent with rights, dignity, cultural sovereignty, security, and the continuing viability of living traditions.

(f) Federal systems shall use technology-neutral requirements and avoid dependence on a single vendor, device, platform, or proprietary format.

SEC. 106. CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY AND RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.

(a) This Act is enacted pursuant to the powers of Congress to provide for the general welfare; regulate interstate and foreign commerce; secure exclusive rights to authors and inventors; govern property and records of the United States; constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; and make laws necessary and proper to execute federal powers.

(b) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to commandeer a State, political subdivision, Tribe, private entity, creator, or individual to participate in a nonfederal preservation activity.

(c) A condition on a grant shall be stated unambiguously in the notice of funding opportunity and shall relate to the federally supported project.

(d) Nothing in this Act authorizes compelled speech, viewpoint discrimination, prior restraint, unreasonable search or seizure, acquisition of private property without just compensation, or disclosure prohibited by law.

A permanent, distributed stewardship system led by the Archivist

SEC. 201. OFFICE OF IMMERSIVE HERITAGE.

(a) There is established within the National Archives and Records Administration an Office of Immersive Heritage.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) appoint a Director with demonstrated expertise in archives, digital preservation, cultural heritage, technology governance, and community partnership, selected through a merit-based process

(2) maintain program management, rights and permissions, grants oversight, digital preservation, cybersecurity, standards coordination, accessibility, Tribal relations, and emergency operations functions

(3) coordinate rather than duplicate existing NARA records-management and preservation units

(4) publish an organizational chart, delegated authorities, staffing plan, service catalogue, and annual operating priorities

(5) maintain regional liaison capacity covering every State, Tribe, territory, and the District of Columbia

(c) Not later than 120 days after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Librarian of Congress, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Commerce, Director of NIST, Chair of NEH, Director of IMLS, Administrator of FEMA, and representatives of Tribes and community institutions.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report staffing, vacancies, administrative cost, project throughput, and service levels.

SEC. 202. INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON NATIONAL MEMORY.

(a) There is established an Interagency Council on National Memory chaired by the Archivist and vice-chaired by the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

(b) The Council shall—

(1) align federal capture, digitization, description, storage, access, research, and emergency-response activities

(2) adopt a shared federal preservation taxonomy and prevent duplicative procurement

(3) coordinate capture of major public federal events and endangered federal properties

(4) identify legal, technical, workforce, and budget gaps and submit proposed corrective action

(5) maintain a public inventory of participating programs, excluding protected information

(6) establish working groups for natural memory, performing arts, civic proceedings, languages, immersive technology, and emergency heritage

(c) Not later than 90 days after enactment, the Council shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Council shall consult with federal cultural institutions, the judiciary, Congress, State and Tribal historic preservation offices, and public members of the Standards Board.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report meetings, decisions, shared procurements, duplication avoided, and unresolved disputes.

SEC. 203. NATIONAL MEMORY STANDARDS BOARD.

(a) An independent National Memory Standards Board is established within NARA for administrative purposes.

(b) The Board shall—

(1) include 21 voting members appointed for staggered 4-year terms, with expertise spanning archival science, museums, libraries, Indigenous data governance, civil rights history, privacy, copyright, cybersecurity, accessibility, climate science, performing arts, oral history, 3D capture, AI assurance, education, and local history

(2) prohibit more than 11 members from being registered with the same political party and require geographic, institutional, and experiential diversity

(3) recommend binding technical baselines and nonbinding curatorial guidance

(4) conduct open meetings, publish votes and conflicts, and accept minority reports

(5) create technical advisory panels without allowing vendors to control standards

(6) review the national strategy and certify whether selection practices are pluralistic and evidence-based

(c) Not later than 240 days after enactment, the Board shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Board shall consult with NIST, NARA, Library of Congress, Smithsonian, rights holders, labor organizations, and affected communities.

(e) A member shall recuse from a matter presenting a financial conflict, and may be removed for neglect of duty, malfeasance, or violation of the Board’s ethics code after notice and an opportunity to respond.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report membership, attendance, recusals, recommendations, dissents, and agency dispositions.

SEC. 204. COMMUNITY MEMORY ADVISORY ASSEMBLY.

(a) The Archivist shall convene a Community Memory Advisory Assembly to ensure that national preservation priorities reflect lived experience outside major institutions.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) select at least 60 compensated members through transparent nominations, with rotating representation from every region and territory

(2) reserve seats for Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, immigrant communities, rural communities, disability communities, labor, LGBTQ+ communities, faith communities, formerly incarcerated persons, youth, elders, and small cultural organizations

(3) hold at least 6 public listening sessions each year, including remote and multilingual sessions

(4) publish an annual “Missing Memory” report identifying underdocumented people, places, practices, events, and ecosystems

(5) permit members to place formal recommendations on the Interagency Council agenda

(c) Not later than 270 days after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(e) Participation does not transfer any intellectual-property, privacy, cultural, or property right and does not authorize capture of restricted knowledge.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report representation, attendance, recommendations, agency responses, and changes in collection coverage.

SEC. 205. NATIONAL TIME PRESERVATION STRATEGY.

(a) The Archivist shall submit to Congress and publish a 10-year National Time Preservation Strategy, updated every 4 years.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) map urgent threats, collection gaps, technical dependencies, geographic disparities, workforce needs, and lifecycle costs

(2) set measurable targets for capture, description, rights clearance, preservation, access, format migration, emergency response, and energy efficiency

(3) include separate strategies for federal records, community heritage, languages, performance, historic places, ecosystems, everyday life, and born-digital culture

(4) identify priority research questions and equipment requirements

(5) include a risk register, continuity plan, and corrective-action process

(6) state how the strategy avoids duplication with existing federal, State, Tribal, local, and private programs

(c) Not later than 1 year after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with Congress, federal agencies, the Standards Board, Advisory Assembly, Tribes, State and local governments, creators, labor, technology providers, researchers, educators, and the public.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report progress toward each published target and explanations for material variance.

SEC. 206. ETHICS, INDEPENDENCE, AND ANTI-CAPTURE PROTECTIONS.

(a) Selection, description, restriction, restoration, and access decisions shall be documented and based on published criteria.

(b) No officer may direct inclusion, exclusion, alteration, or description of a specific asset for partisan electoral advantage, personal retaliation, donor preference, or concealment of lawful evidence.

(c) Private donations may support an identified project but may not purchase curatorial control, suppress adverse context, require ideological screening, or alter authenticity findings.

(d) A contractor or standards participant shall disclose material financial interests, training-data interests, patents, licenses, and vendor relationships relevant to the work.

(e) The Inspector General of NARA may investigate prohibited interference. Confirmed interference, the corrective action, and any referral shall be reported to Congress, subject to lawful redaction.

A federated archive for high-fidelity evidence of American civilization

SEC. 301. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NATIONAL DIGITAL CIVILIZATION ARCHIVE.

(a) The Archivist shall establish and maintain the National Digital Civilization Archive as a federated archival system, not as a claim of ownership over all participating collections.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) accept preservation masters, capture packages, metadata, emulators, software dependencies, rights records, and lawful access derivatives

(2) permit contributing repositories to retain custody while registering and replicating assets under enforceable stewardship agreements

(3) assign persistent identifiers and maintain relationships among originals, surrogates, restorations, reconstructions, versions, and interpretations

(4) support preservation-only, controlled-access, embargoed, and open-access deposits

(5) make lawful open materials discoverable through a unified public catalogue

(6) preserve withdrawal, restriction, repatriation, and correction history without exposing protected content

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, NPS, State archives, Tribal repositories, academic archives, public broadcasters, creators, and community stewards.

(e) The Archive may not represent that it owns a physical object, community tradition, or underlying work solely because it holds a digital surrogate.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets ingested, institutions federated, rights status, geographic and demographic coverage, and access usage.

SEC. 302. TRANSPARENT SELECTION AND PRIORITY TIERS.

(a) The Archivist shall adopt an evidence-based framework for selecting and prioritizing material for preservation.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) score documented urgency, uniqueness, significance, representational gap, community value, research value, feasibility, rights risk, security risk, and cost

(2) create Priority 1 emergency, Priority 2 endangered, Priority 3 systematic, and Priority 4 opportunistic capture tiers

(3) provide an expedited nomination process for imminent demolition, ecological loss, witness mortality, institutional closure, or disaster

(4) allow any person to nominate material and require a reasoned disposition within 180 days for complete nominations

(5) permit anonymous public nomination while requiring conflict disclosure from decisionmakers

(6) audit the framework for bias toward famous, urban, wealthy, or easily digitized subjects

(c) Not later than 270 days after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Standards Board and Community Memory Advisory Assembly.

(e) Selection is not a declaration that the Federal Government endorses the ideas, conduct, institution, or interpretation associated with the selected subject.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report nominations, disposition time, tier distribution, declined projects, and coverage-gap indicators.

SEC. 303. ACCESS AND STEWARDSHIP CLASSES.

(a) Every asset accepted under this Act shall be assigned a documented access and stewardship class.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) provide classes for open public access, reading-room or controlled research access, time-limited embargo, culturally governed access, privacy-restricted access, classified or security-restricted access, and preservation-only dark storage

(2) record the legal and factual basis, decisionmaker, review date, and appeal route for each restriction

(3) apply the narrowest restriction capable of protecting the relevant interest

(4) automatically review time-limited restrictions at least every 5 years unless another law requires a different schedule

(5) permit different classes for preservation masters, lower-resolution derivatives, metadata, and interpretive experiences

(6) publish nonrevealing catalogue stubs when even descriptive metadata would not create the protected harm

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with rights holders, donors, subjects, affected communities, Tribes, security officials, and archivists as applicable.

(e) No restriction may be imposed to conceal illegality, embarrassment, administrative error, or a viewpoint protected by the First Amendment.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets by class, review backlog, restrictions modified, appeals, and average embargo length.

SEC. 304. REQUIRED SOURCE AND CONTEXT PACKAGES.

(a) A preservation asset shall not be certified as a national immersive record unless accompanied by a sufficient source and context package.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) require capture date and location; operator and equipment identity; calibration; environmental conditions; methods; software and versions; compression and transformations; checksums; chain of custody; quality-control results; known omissions; rights status; and access terms

(2) require contextual material sufficient to explain who selected the subject, what was excluded, and why

(3) permit emergency provisional ingest when delay would risk loss, followed by completion of missing documentation within 1 year

(4) retain raw data when lawful and proportionate, even when normalized or access derivatives are created

(5) use cryptographic signing and timestamping appropriate to risk

(6) make authenticity metadata public to the maximum extent consistent with cybersecurity, privacy, cultural, and security protections

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, NARA preservation specialists, forensic experts, historians, and community stewards.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report package completeness, provisional backlog, fixity failures, and quality-control exceptions.

SEC. 305. FUTURE FEDERAL EVENT CAPTURE.

(a) The head of each covered federal agency shall identify public events of enduring civic, scientific, cultural, or historical significance suitable for high-fidelity capture.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) establish a prospective annual event plan including major commemorations, public ceremonies, scientific milestones, mission launches, treaty events, and changes in federal institutions

(2) deploy or contract for spatially sufficient capture when security, operations, rights, and cost permit

(3) preserve official schedules, scripts, diagrams, press materials, and technical context with the capture

(4) ensure that security-sensitive layouts, procedures, or personnel are segregated and reviewed before access

(5) coordinate one lead capture team when multiple agencies participate

(6) make selection criteria public while preserving operational flexibility for emergencies and unanticipated events

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with covered agencies, the United States Secret Service, Capitol Police, judiciary security officials, rights holders, and event participants.

(e) Nothing in this section expands public access to classified information, law-enforcement-sensitive information, or records exempt from disclosure under existing law.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report events considered, captured, declined, costs, restrictions, and access release dates.

SEC. 306. CIVIC PROCEEDINGS AND INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY.

(a) The Archivist shall establish a program to preserve the spatial, procedural, acoustic, and material context of American civic institutions.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) document public legislative chambers, courtrooms, election administration environments, town halls, hearing rooms, and civic meeting spaces with consent of the controlling authority

(2) capture nonconfidential demonstrations of processes such as ballot handling, legislative procedure, courtroom roles, public-comment systems, and emergency governance

(3) preserve architectural and technological change over time through repeat capture

(4) accept official audiovisual records and related contextual material from Congress, courts, States, Tribes, and local governments

(5) support reenactment only where original capture is unavailable and label it as reconstruction

(6) exclude active security vulnerabilities and personally identifying information not necessary to the historical record

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with Congress, the Judicial Conference, election officials, State and local governments, Tribes, historians, civil-liberties organizations, and security experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report institutions documented, repeat captures, jurisdictions participating, and restricted security data.

SEC. 307. PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION AND CITIZEN ARCHIVIST PROGRAM.

(a) The Archivist shall create simple, accessible methods for individuals and organizations to contribute files, memories, measurements, scans, annotations, corrections, and contextual knowledge.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) publish mobile and desktop capture guidance suitable for nonprofessionals

(2) offer standardized contributor agreements with selectable ownership, license, embargo, privacy, attribution, and withdrawal terms

(3) provide malware scanning, rights review, authenticity assessment, moderation, and provenance labeling

(4) permit community verification and annotation without allowing annotations to overwrite source records

(5) return exportable copies and metadata to contributors

(6) prioritize accessibility, multilingual support, low-bandwidth submission, and alternatives for people unable to use digital systems

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with public libraries, schools, disability organizations, community archives, privacy experts, and consumer-protection officials.

(e) The interface shall warn contributors not to submit material they lack authority to share, private information about others, contraband, or content that would create a specific safety risk.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report contributors, submissions, acceptance rate, communities represented, corrections, withdrawals, and moderation actions.

SEC. 308. DEACCESSION, RETURN, WITHDRAWAL, AND CORRECTION.

(a) The Archivist shall preserve an asset permanently unless retention is unlawful, technically dangerous, duplicative without archival value, accepted through material misrepresentation, subject to a valid return or repatriation obligation, or inconsistent with a contributor agreement.

(b) Before deaccession, the Archivist shall document the reason, consult any depositor or community steward, evaluate transfer to another lawful repository, and preserve a nonconfidential audit record.

(c) A contributor may seek withdrawal or increased restriction as provided by the contribution agreement, privacy provisions, cultural protocol, or law. The Archive shall not promise deletion from immutable backup generations when technically impossible, but shall make withdrawn content inaccessible in ordinary systems and age it out under the published retention schedule.

(d) A person may submit a correction, counterstatement, or contested-description request. Source evidence shall not be silently rewritten; verified corrections shall be linked and versioned.

Durable, redundant, interoperable, and recoverable stewardship infrastructure

SEC. 401. ESTABLISHMENT AND ARCHITECTURE.

(a) The Archivist, in coordination with the Administrator of General Services and Director of NIST, shall establish the National Memory Cloud as a hybrid, federated preservation infrastructure.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) maintain at least 3 independently administered geographic copies of preservation metadata and at least 2 complete preservation copies for assets designated permanent, subject to risk-based exceptions for extraordinarily large scientific data

(2) maintain at least 1 logically or physically isolated recovery copy for high-value collections

(3) separate high-access delivery systems from preservation systems and restricted enclaves

(4) support federal, Tribal, State, local, academic, nonprofit, and commercial storage nodes that meet certification requirements

(5) use persistent identifiers, standardized packaging, fixity, audit logs, and automated integrity monitoring

(6) publish service-level objectives for ingest, durability, recovery, migration, and access

(c) Not later than 2 years after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, CISA, GSA, federal cultural institutions, public cloud and storage providers, research networks, States, Tribes, and repository experts.

(e) No single contractor may possess the only usable copy, encryption key, index, rights record, or technical knowledge necessary to retrieve a class of permanent assets.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report storage by tier, durability incidents, recovery tests, costs per unit, energy intensity, and vendor concentration.

SEC. 402. PRESERVATION TIERS AND LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT.

(a) The Archivist shall establish risk-based storage and service tiers.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) define active, warm, cold, deep-archive, restricted-enclave, and emergency-recovery tiers

(2) assign assets based on significance, use, size, sensitivity, reproducibility, format risk, and recovery objective

(3) perform scheduled fixity checks using documented cryptographic hashes and investigate every material mismatch

(4) maintain lifecycle funding estimates at ingest, including expected migration and egress costs

(5) prevent deletion or silent downgrade caused solely by expiration of a project grant

(6) permit lawful deduplication only when provenance and independent recovery are not impaired

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, budget officials, archivists, cybersecurity experts, and contributing repositories.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets and costs by tier, fixity coverage, integrity events, recovery time, and unfunded lifecycle liabilities.

SEC. 403. OPEN FORMATS, METADATA, AND INTEROPERABILITY.

(a) NIST and the Archivist shall jointly issue technology-neutral minimum standards for preservation packages and interfaces.

(b) The Director of NIST shall—

(1) reference open or fully documented formats where suitable and permit proprietary source formats when the original would otherwise be lost

(2) require preservation of original bitstreams together with normalized or migrated versions when feasible

(3) define core descriptive, administrative, technical, rights, structural, preservation, cultural-protocol, accessibility, and provenance metadata

(4) provide crosswalks rather than forcing communities to abandon established schemas

(5) support bulk export, research interfaces, emulation manifests, and machine-actionable rights indicators

(6) review formats and schemas at least annually for obsolescence, adoption, security, and accessibility risk

(c) Not later than 1 year after enactment, the Director of NIST shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of NIST shall consult with the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, NARA, NPS, standards bodies, open-source communities, vendors, and memory institutions.

(e) A standard may not require transfer of ownership, waiver of moral or cultural interests, public release, or adoption of a proprietary product.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report conformance, format risk, migrations, interoperability tests, and exceptions.

SEC. 404. FIXITY, CHAIN OF CUSTODY, AND AUTHENTICITY.

(a) The Archivist shall operate an authenticity service for assets held or registered under this Act.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) record cryptographic hashes at acquisition, after authorized transformation, during scheduled verification, and before dissemination

(2) maintain append-only event histories identifying persons, systems, and automated processes that accessed or transformed preservation masters

(3) use trusted timestamps and digital signatures proportionate to evidentiary risk

(4) retain calibration targets, sensor logs, control files, and validation reports necessary to evaluate high-fidelity captures

(5) provide a public authenticity summary and machine-verifiable manifest for open assets

(6) establish incident procedures for corrupted, conflicting, spoofed, or fraudulently attributed material

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, forensic laboratories, courts, historians, journalists, and cybersecurity researchers.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report verification frequency, failed checks, authenticity disputes, incident resolution, and public validation use.

SEC. 405. FORMAT MIGRATION AND EMULATION.

(a) The Archivist shall maintain both migration and emulation capabilities so that preserved material remains intelligible when original hardware and software disappear.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) maintain a monitored registry of formats, codecs, engines, devices, dependencies, and obsolescence risk

(2) preserve original software, configuration, documentation, and lawful keys when necessary to render an asset

(3) create migration plans that identify significant properties, expected losses, validation tests, and rollback copies

(4) maintain secure emulation environments for interactive, web, software, game, simulation, and immersive works

(5) capture user experience, input devices, network dependencies, and behavior in addition to executable code

(6) conduct periodic renderability tests using independent implementations where practicable

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Library of Congress, software preservation organizations, rights holders, accessibility experts, researchers, and vendors.

(e) Security controls may isolate executable content, and public access may be limited where emulation would expose malware, credentials, personal data, or unlawful circumvention.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report formats monitored, assets at risk, migrations completed, validation failures, and emulation availability.

SEC. 406. CONTINUITY AND CATASTROPHIC RECOVERY.

(a) The Archivist shall maintain a continuity and catastrophic recovery program for the Archive and Memory Cloud.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) define recovery-time and recovery-point objectives by collection class

(2) conduct at least 2 component recovery exercises and 1 multi-region exercise each year

(3) maintain succession, emergency credential, key escrow, vendor failure, and loss-of-facility procedures

(4) retain offline documentation sufficient for future custodians to locate, authenticate, decrypt when authorized, and render assets

(5) coordinate continuity with CISA, FEMA, GSA, participating repositories, and essential contractors

(6) report material weaknesses and corrective-action deadlines to the Inspector General and appropriate congressional committees

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with CISA, FEMA, GSA, NIST, participating institutions, and independent resilience experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report exercise results, unmet recovery objectives, corrective actions, and single points of failure.

SEC. 407. ENERGY, WATER, AND ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE.

(a) The Archivist shall minimize the lifecycle environmental burden of preservation without compromising durability, security, or lawful access.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) measure storage, compute, network, cooling, water, and embodied-hardware impacts using NIST and Department of Energy guidance

(2) prefer archival tiers, efficient codecs, deduplication, renewable or low-carbon power, heat reuse, water-responsible cooling, and longer equipment life where cost-effective

(3) require major contractors to report location-specific energy and water performance and material environmental risks

(4) avoid needless regeneration of compute-intensive immersive derivatives by caching and tiering

(5) include environmental performance and climate resilience in source selection and procurement

(6) publish annual intensity metrics normalized by preserved volume and access delivered

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Department of Energy, EPA, NIST, GSA, environmental-justice communities, utilities, data-center operators, and preservation experts.

(e) Environmental optimization may not justify destruction of unique source data or movement of culturally restricted data without authorization.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report energy, water, emissions, equipment life, renewable share, and performance against targets.

SEC. 408. VENDOR PORTABILITY AND EXIT.

(a) Every material storage, platform, indexing, rendering, or rights-management contract under this Act shall include enforceable exit and continuity terms.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) require bulk export in documented formats with complete metadata, logs, relationships, and access controls

(2) cap or pre-negotiate reasonable egress, migration, and transition-assistance charges

(3) require escrow or continuity access to critical source code, configuration, documentation, and keys when substitute operation would otherwise be impracticable

(4) prohibit destruction until transfer is verified and written authorization is issued

(5) permit transition testing before contract expiration and retain sufficient overlap for rollback

(6) provide step-in, assignment, and emergency access rights upon bankruptcy, abandonment, material breach, or national emergency

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with GSA, NIST, CISA, the Department of Justice, competition officials, State and local partners, and vendors.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report vendor concentration, portability tests, exit costs, transition incidents, and unresolved dependencies.

Minimum evidence, quality, accessibility, and labeling rules

SEC. 501. NATIONAL IMMERSIVE PRESERVATION FRAMEWORK.

(a) NIST shall publish and maintain a National Immersive Preservation Framework applicable to federally funded capture under this Act.

(b) The Director of NIST shall—

(1) define outcome-based levels for documentary reference, professional preservation, scientific measurement, and forensic-grade capture

(2) address geometry, texture, color, reflectance, audio, motion, timing, coordinate systems, scale, environmental context, calibration, uncertainty, compression, and validation

(3) provide profiles for places, objects, people, performances, machines, ecosystems, and born-digital environments

(4) distinguish preservation requirements from consumer delivery formats

(5) permit justified exceptions for emergency, fragile, dangerous, sacred, or inaccessible subjects

(6) provide free testing tools, reference files, and conformance documentation to reduce burdens on small institutions

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of NIST shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of NIST shall consult with federal cultural institutions, standards organizations, universities, industry, labor, accessibility experts, and community stewards.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report profiles issued, adoption, conformance, exceptions, and interoperability.

SEC. 502. THREE-DIMENSIONAL DOCUMENTATION OF PLACES AND OBJECTS.

(a) The Secretary of the Interior, acting through NPS Heritage Documentation Programs, shall expand national capacity for 3D documentation.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior shall—

(1) integrate measured drawings, large-format photography, historical reports, laser scanning, photogrammetry, geospatial control, material sampling, and spatial audio as appropriate

(2) establish accuracy classes and minimum control-point, calibration, and uncertainty documentation

(3) permit repeated scans to document change, deformation, erosion, restoration, or demolition

(4) prioritize sites threatened by climate, disaster, development, conflict, neglect, or loss of skilled knowledge

(5) deposit enduring documentation with the Library of Congress and register it with the Archive

(6) provide field manuals and low-cost workflows for local organizations

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with the Library of Congress, State and Tribal historic preservation officers, architects, engineers, surveyors, conservators, archaeologists, disability experts, property owners, and community stewards.

(e) Capture of nonpublic property requires consent or independent lawful authority; sensitive archaeological, burial, security, and residential details shall be restricted.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report sites and objects documented, accuracy class, repeat scans, threat tier, and public access.

SEC. 503. VOLUMETRIC AND PERFORMANCE CAPTURE.

(a) The Librarian of Congress and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution shall establish preservation specifications for human movement, performance, ceremony, and demonstration.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) support synchronized multicamera or volumetric capture, spatial audio, lighting and stage plots, blocking, choreography or movement notation, costume and object scans, technical cues, and interviews

(2) record calibration, lens and sensor data, clock synchronization, compression, frame interpolation, occlusion, and missing coverage

(3) preserve rehearsal, backstage, maintenance, and craft knowledge when authorized

(4) provide capture profiles for large institutions and portable profiles for community use

(5) support union, performer, producer, venue, and rights-holder agreements with future access options

(6) prohibit creation of reusable biometric performance models beyond the authorized preservation purpose

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with performers, directors, designers, stage workers, unions, guilds, producers, venues, cultural practitioners, privacy experts, and disability organizations.

(e) No capture may be used to replace a performer, train a generative performance system, or create a new performance without separate express authorization.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report productions and practices preserved, agreements, embargoes, access, and workforce participation.

SEC. 504. SPATIAL AUDIO, SOUNDSCAPE, AND SENSORY CONTEXT.

(a) The Archivist shall establish standards for preserving acoustic and other measurable sensory context.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) specify microphone arrays, positioning, calibration, ambient conditions, impulse response, noise floors, time synchronization, and hearing-safety metadata

(2) preserve natural, industrial, civic, domestic, linguistic, and performance soundscapes

(3) permit measured light, air, temperature, humidity, vibration, material, scent-chemistry, and haptic data when scientifically valid and ethically collected

(4) distinguish directly measured data from subjective description or later synthesis

(5) protect private conversations and prevent remote capture beyond the authorized subject

(6) provide accessible binaural and captioned derivatives while retaining higher-order spatial masters

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, acousticians, ecologists, artists, disability experts, privacy experts, workers, and affected communities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report soundscapes and sensory datasets, calibration compliance, privacy incidents, and accessible derivatives.

SEC. 505. ACCESSIBILITY BY DESIGN.

(a) Every federally funded public immersive experience shall be designed to be accessible to people with disabilities to the maximum extent feasible.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) provide captions, transcripts, audio description, keyboard and switch navigation, screen-reader compatible interfaces, contrast and text scaling, reduced-motion modes, seated and standing calibration, and alternatives to gesture, gaze, speech, hearing, or stereoscopic vision

(2) provide a meaningful nonimmersive alternative when a device or sensory modality creates a barrier

(3) include disability history and disabled creators in selection and interpretation

(4) test with paid users with varied disabilities before public release

(5) publish accessibility conformance reports and known limitations

(6) apply section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and other applicable disability law without narrowing those duties

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Access Board, Department of Justice, disability-led organizations, educators, and technology developers.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report conformance, user testing, complaints, remediation time, and alternative-format use.

SEC. 506. CERTIFICATION AND CONFORMANCE.

(a) NIST shall establish a voluntary certification program and mandatory conformance testing for federal awards above $500,000.

(b) The Director of NIST shall—

(1) accredit independent testing laboratories and permit self-attestation for low-risk microgrants

(2) test capture packages, metadata, provenance, accessibility, portability, and security rather than endorsing a specific brand

(3) publish validation tools and anonymized failure patterns

(4) provide cure periods proportionate to risk and urgency

(5) allow emergency preservation before certification when delay risks irreversible loss

(6) suspend or revoke certification for material misrepresentation after notice and opportunity for review

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of NIST shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of NIST shall consult with accreditation bodies, small businesses, memory institutions, accessibility experts, and public-interest technologists.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report certifications, failures, cure time, revocations, and small-entity costs.

SEC. 507. TRUTHFUL PRESENTATION AND UNCERTAINTY LABELS.

(a) A public experience shall identify, in a persistent and reasonably noticeable manner, whether each material element is direct capture, contemporaneous record, restoration, reconstruction, reenactment, simulation, artistic interpretation, or unknown.

(b) A reconstruction shall disclose the sources used, material gaps, assumptions, disputed interpretations, confidence level, date and responsible creator, and any generative model or synthetic technique.

(c) A user shall be able to reach the authenticity summary and source list without leaving the experience permanently or purchasing an additional product.

(d) No person administering funds under this Act may knowingly label synthetic speech, conduct, imagery, or presence as an authentic recording of an identifiable person.

(e) Knowing and material misrepresentation in a federally certified experience is subject to correction, decertification, suspension of funding, and civil penalties under section 1804.

A deliberately broad record of civilization, from landmark events to ordinary days

SEC. 601. NATIONAL SPATIAL HERITAGE SURVEY.

(a) The Secretary of the Interior shall conduct a rolling survey of places and built environments warranting immersive documentation.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior shall—

(1) integrate National Register, HABS/HAER/HALS, Tribal, State, local, environmental, planning, insurance, and community nominations

(2) include buildings, landscapes, infrastructure, streetscapes, transportation systems, farms, industrial sites, interiors, public art, and vernacular places

(3) rank imminent loss while ensuring every State, territory, and Tribal region receives capacity

(4) coordinate physical preservation where feasible but recognize that digital documentation is not a substitute for saving a place

(5) repeat selected captures to show change over decades

(6) make non-sensitive survey results available in geospatial form

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with State and Tribal historic preservation officers, local governments, property owners, planners, environmental agencies, and communities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report places surveyed, threat level, geographic equity, physical-preservation referrals, and repeat documentation.

SEC. 602. IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORHOOD MEMORY PROGRAM.

(a) The Archivist and Chair of NEH shall establish grants to document immigrant neighborhoods and migration experience without creating immigration-enforcement records.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) support streetscape and interior capture, oral history, language and signage, businesses, worship, foodways, music, celebrations, mutual-aid networks, housing, labor, and intergenerational change

(2) permit mixed-status and undocumented participants to use pseudonyms, delayed release, community custody, or restricted access

(3) prohibit collection of immigration status unless affirmatively offered and essential to the participant’s chosen account

(4) bar use of program records for civil immigration enforcement, except pursuant to a judicial warrant for a specifically identified record or as necessary to prevent an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm

(5) fund trusted community intermediaries and translation

(6) document both welcome and exclusion, achievement and exploitation, continuity and assimilation

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with immigrant-serving organizations, historians, labor, religious institutions, privacy and civil-rights organizations, and participants.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report communities, languages, participant control choices, access tiers, and attempted enforcement demands.

SEC. 603. EVERYDAY AMERICAN LIFE CENSUS.

(a) The Archivist shall conduct a recurring qualitative and spatial documentation program known as the Everyday American Life Census.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) document a stratified, voluntary sample of homes, workplaces, schools, stores, transportation, leisure, care work, communication, food, clothing, technology, family and community routines

(2) conduct cycles at least every 10 years with smaller annual rotating panels

(3) use transparent sampling to include income, region, age, disability, race, ethnicity, household type, housing tenure, occupation, urbanicity, and territorial residence without stereotyping

(4) allow participants to select rooms, objects, topics, identities, and access terms and to stop capture at any time

(5) separate research identifiers from public assets and apply disclosure limitation

(6) commission community-defined modules on experiences missed by national sampling

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, privacy experts, social scientists, community organizations, and participants.

(e) Participation is voluntary, compensation is permitted, refusal affects no benefit or legal status, and raw identifiers are protected as restricted research data.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report sample coverage, nonresponse, participant controls, geographic distribution, and research use.

SEC. 604. EXTINCT AND TRANSFORMING INDUSTRIES.

(a) The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and Secretary of Labor shall preserve endangered industrial, occupational, and craft knowledge.

(b) The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution shall—

(1) document facilities, tools, supply chains, workflows, maintenance, tacit skill, worker culture, hazards, labor relations, products, and community impacts

(2) prioritize closing plants, obsolete technologies, disappearing trades, and workplaces undergoing rapid automation or decarbonization

(3) include workers, unions, owners, engineers, customers, surrounding communities, and people harmed by pollution or unsafe conditions

(4) capture safe demonstrations and simulations when live operation is dangerous

(5) protect trade secrets for a negotiated period while preserving them for later research where lawful

(6) coordinate salvage of representative tools, manuals, software, control systems, and product samples

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution shall consult with workers, unions, employers, occupational-safety experts, environmental-justice communities, historians, and technical societies.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report industries, occupations, worker interviews, facilities, safety exceptions, and trade-secret embargoes.

SEC. 605. PERFORMING ARTS PRESERVATION DEPOSIT.

(a) The Librarian of Congress shall establish a voluntary National Performance Preservation Deposit for theatrical, musical, dance, circus, opera, comedy, fashion, spoken-word, and other live performance.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) offer secure deposit of full-cast or representative performance capture, scripts, scores, choreography, designs, cues, rehearsal and production records, and interviews

(2) provide standardized agreements addressing performers, authors, directors, designers, stage workers, producers, venues, unions, estates, underlying works, and music

(3) permit preservation-only deposit, limited scholarly access, scheduled embargo, ticketed archival exhibition, or open release

(4) provide grants and tax-neutral cost reimbursement for capture and rights administration

(5) prioritize culturally significant, innovative, regional, touring, closing, and underdocumented productions, including Broadway and Off-Broadway without favoring commercial success

(6) maintain a rights registry and contact-update process

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with the Copyright Office, creators, performers, unions, guilds, producers, nonprofit theaters, venues, estates, and educators.

(e) Deposit does not authorize public performance, adaptation, model training, merchandising, or substitution for live labor except as expressly licensed.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report deposits, genres, regions, rights status, embargoes, union agreements, and scholarly access.

SEC. 606. SPEECHES, DEMONSTRATIONS, AND PUBLIC MOVEMENTS.

(a) The Archivist and Librarian of Congress shall preserve major public addresses, demonstrations, assemblies, campaigns, vigils, celebrations, and social movements from multiple lawful perspectives.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) acquire or license existing recordings and related manuscripts, photographs, oral histories, spatial evidence, signs, ephemera, and broadcast context

(2) seek rights to preserve and present historically significant speeches, including those whose text or delivery remains copyrighted

(3) support prospective multi-perspective capture of public events without covert biometric surveillance

(4) document organizers, participants, observers, journalists, officials, affected residents, and dissenting views

(5) blur or restrict identifiable bystanders when context does not justify exposure and provide an objection process

(6) preserve law-enforcement and government records under existing records schedules and access law

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with rights holders, organizers, civil-liberties organizations, journalists, law enforcement, historians, and affected communities.

(e) No grant or capture decision may depend on agreement with the viewpoint expressed, and program data may not be used to create generalized protester or attendee watchlists.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report events, perspectives represented, rights cleared, privacy restrictions, objections, and corrections.

SEC. 607. HISTORIC COURT CASES AND LEGAL EXPERIENCE.

(a) The Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, in cooperation with the Archivist and subject to Judicial Conference policy, may establish an immersive legal history program.

(b) The Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts shall—

(1) preserve official audio, transcripts, exhibits, courtroom layouts, procedural records, and interviews where lawful

(2) document representative federal trial and appellate processes through simulations or recordings approved by the presiding court

(3) create evidence-based reconstructions of historically significant proceedings when original audiovisual records do not exist

(4) clearly distinguish official records, participant memory, scholarly inference, and dramatic reenactment

(5) protect jurors, witnesses, victims, minors, sealed information, attorney-client material, and ongoing proceedings

(6) include the experiences of litigants, counsel, court staff, interpreters, observers, and communities affected by decisions

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts shall consult with the Judicial Conference, judges, clerks, lawyers, historians, victims’ advocates, civil-rights groups, journalists, and privacy experts.

(e) Nothing in this Act directs the outcome of a case, alters rules of evidence, requires cameras in a courtroom, unseals a record, or limits inherent judicial authority to protect proceedings.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report courts participating, cases documented, access restrictions, participant perspectives, and educational use.

SEC. 608. PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATIONS AND NATIONAL CEREMONIES.

(a) The Archivist shall coordinate high-fidelity preservation of Presidential inaugurations and other recurring national ceremonies.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) capture public ceremony, procession, spatial layout, sound, weather, materials, accessibility, logistics, and participant experience at a fidelity appropriate to permanent preservation

(2) preserve planning records and public-facing security history while segregating active protective methods

(3) document workers, performers, volunteers, journalists, attendees, protesters, nearby residents, and remote audiences in addition to principal officials

(4) coordinate rights for music, performance, broadcasts, and private contributions

(5) create repeatable longitudinal datasets across administrations without partisan variation in basic coverage

(6) release public derivatives promptly where rights and security permit

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, Presidential Inaugural Committee, NARA, Secret Service, Capitol Police, rights holders, and the District of Columbia.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report capture completeness, perspectives, rights status, security review, and release time.

SEC. 609. SPACE, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGICAL MILESTONES.

(a) NASA, NSF, the Department of Energy, NIST, NOAA, and other science agencies shall identify milestones suitable for immersive preservation.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) preserve launch environments, mission control, laboratories, observatories, field stations, instruments, clean rooms, prototypes, experiments, and work practices

(2) document both celebrated successes and instructive failures after safety, proprietary, export-control, and security review

(3) capture the work of technicians, contractors, support staff, communities, and international partners alongside principal investigators and leaders

(4) retain software, telemetry schemas, interfaces, training simulations, manuals, and oral histories necessary to interpret the event

(5) use repeat capture to document changing scientific facilities and methods

(6) coordinate with agency historians and records officers so program capture supplements rather than replaces federal records duties

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with science agencies, workers, contractors, unions, researchers, safety and export-control officials, and communities near facilities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report missions and facilities documented, occupational roles, software dependencies, restrictions, and research use.

SEC. 610. OBJECTS, ARTIFACTS, AND COLLECTIONS.

(a) Federal collecting institutions shall adopt coordinated plans for priority 2D, 3D, spectral, material, and contextual documentation of collection objects.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) prioritize fragile, frequently handled, repatriation-pending, inaccessible, unique, scientifically important, and high-demand objects

(2) document condition, scale, material, color, reflectance, provenance, prior restoration, and known uncertainty

(3) link digital surrogates to collection-management and repatriation records without treating the surrogate as a substitute for lawful return

(4) provide open derivatives for public-domain and rights-cleared works while preserving higher-fidelity masters

(5) restrict sensitive locations, sacred details, security information, and culturally governed material

(6) publish digitization queues, selection criteria, and aggregate progress

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, NARA, NPS, federal museums, Tribes, conservators, scientists, rights holders, and originating communities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report objects digitized, priority classes, repatriation links, rights status, and public use.

Urgent, consent-based preservation of human experience

SEC. 701. NATIONAL ORAL HISTORY INITIATIVE.

(a) The Librarian of Congress, acting through the American Folklife Center and in partnership with the Smithsonian, shall establish a National Oral History and Living Memory Initiative.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) support community-designed interviews, life histories, group conversations, walking interviews, demonstration interviews, and intergenerational projects

(2) provide training, equipment loans, consent tools, transcription, translation, preservation, and repository placement

(3) connect and strengthen existing projects rather than centralizing all custody

(4) document context, interviewer relationship, editing, translation, and access decisions

(5) enable narrators to choose attribution, pseudonymity, embargo, culturally governed access, or public release

(6) create pathways for descendants and community stewards to update context without erasing the original account

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with oral historians, folklorists, community archives, Tribes, veterans, civil-rights historians, labor, disability organizations, survivors’ advocates, and privacy experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report interviews, communities, languages, narrator controls, repository placement, and access.

SEC. 702. URGENT WITNESS PRESERVATION.

(a) The Librarian shall maintain a rapid program for people whose knowledge is at imminent risk of loss because of age, illness, displacement, disaster, institutional closure, or rarity of expertise.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) accept urgent nominations from families, communities, institutions, researchers, unions, and public officials

(2) make a triage decision within 15 days and deploy or fund a qualified interviewer within 45 days for accepted cases where practicable

(3) offer remote, in-person, audio-only, video, volumetric, language-specific, and disability-accessible methods

(4) permit staged interviewing and fatigue-sensitive protocols

(5) provide trauma-informed options and referral information without converting archivists into clinicians

(6) preserve unprocessed emergency interviews immediately and complete documentation later

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with hospice and aging experts, disability organizations, trauma-informed practitioners, language communities, and local repositories.

(e) Urgency does not reduce informed-consent requirements; a person lacking capacity may participate only under an ethically reviewed process and lawful representative authorization.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report nominations, response time, interviews, incomplete cases, and reasons for decline.

SEC. 703. NARRATOR CONSENT AND CONTINUING AGENCY.

(a) Before recording, the interviewer shall provide a plain-language explanation of purpose, methods, foreseeable uses, preservation term, access choices, AI rules, withdrawal limits, risks, compensation, and contact information.

(b) Consent shall be recorded in writing, audio, video, or another accessible durable form. Broad boilerplate waivers that obscure material uses are not valid for an award under this Act.

(c) A narrator may place a reasonable embargo, restrict identified topics, choose attribution, require notice of specified uses, and submit a correction or contextual statement.

(d) A narrator may withdraw before public release unless the agreement clearly states a narrower rule supported by substantial reliance. After public release, the repository shall consider removal, increased restriction, or de-indexing based on safety, privacy, material misunderstanding, or changed circumstances.

(e) Consent to preservation or public access is not consent to AI training, synthetic voice, avatar generation, biometric identification, commercial advertising, or new dramatic performance.

SEC. 704. COMMUNITY-OWNED ORAL HISTORY.

(a) NEH and IMLS shall fund repositories that allow communities to retain custody or co-stewardship.

(b) The Chair of NEH shall—

(1) support local servers, trusted repositories, community catalogues, rights management, digitization, conservation, and succession planning

(2) permit a national catalogue record without transfer of the interview file

(3) fund governance documents identifying decisionmakers, succession, disputes, access, and emergency backup

(4) provide optional encrypted preservation replication in the Memory Cloud

(5) support return of copies and metadata to narrators and families

(6) avoid grant conditions requiring immediate global publication

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Chair of NEH shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Chair of NEH shall consult with community archives, public libraries, Tribes, religious and cultural organizations, narrators, and digital-preservation experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report community repositories, custody models, backup coverage, access terms, and sustainability.

SEC. 705. TRANSCRIPTION, TRANSLATION, AND SEARCH.

(a) The Librarian shall provide accurate, accessible, and privacy-protective tools for transcription, translation, indexing, and discovery.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) retain original-language recordings and distinguish human, machine-assisted, and unreviewed transcripts or translations

(2) provide confidence indicators and permit correction by narrators, language experts, and authorized community reviewers

(3) protect restricted names, locations, health data, immigration details, and culturally sensitive terms from search indexing

(4) support time-aligned captions, speaker identification by consent, and accessible transcripts

(5) build shared terminology resources without appropriating community-controlled language data

(6) evaluate error rates across accents, dialects, disabilities, code-switching, and low-resource languages

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with language communities, linguists, accessibility experts, privacy experts, translators, and speech-technology researchers.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report hours processed, languages, error rates, human review, corrections, and restricted indexing.

SEC. 706. CHILDREN, SURVIVORS, AND HIGH-RISK NARRATORS.

(a) Projects involving minors, survivors of violence, people in custody, people facing retaliation, or other high-risk narrators shall use enhanced consent, minimization, safety planning, and access review.

(b) A minor’s assent and a parent’s or guardian’s permission are required unless a lawful institutional-review exception applies. Public release of identifiable material requires a renewed review when the narrator reaches 18 years of age where practicable.

(c) No interviewer may condition aid, services, immigration assistance, employment, grades, custody benefits, or legal representation on participation.

(d) A project shall avoid collecting graphic, intimate, or identifying detail beyond the narrator’s informed choice and the legitimate preservation purpose.

(e) Restricted records may be preserved under sealed access terms so that protection today does not erase history forever.

SEC. 707. ETHICAL REVIEW AND COMPLAINTS.

(a) The Librarian shall establish proportionate review tiers for minimal-risk public history, sensitive interviewing, and high-risk human-subject work, recognizing that not every oral history constitutes research governed by the Common Rule.

(b) Every funded project shall designate an ethics contact and a process for narrators to ask questions, change contact information, assert agreed restrictions, or complain.

(c) Material violations may result in access suspension, corrective labeling, return, transfer, grant remedies, or referral under section 1804.

Preserving speech communities without converting living language into extractive data

SEC. 801. AMERICAN LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS INITIATIVE.

(a) The Librarian of Congress and Chair of NEH shall establish an initiative for endangered and underdocumented languages, dialects, accents, signed languages, professional vocabularies, slang, and naming systems used in the United States and territories.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) fund community-selected recording of fluent speakers, conversation, narrative, ceremony where authorized, song where rights permit, humor, place names, technical vocabulary, and everyday speech

(2) support dictionaries, grammars, annotated corpora, teaching materials, keyboards, fonts, orthographies, sign-language video, and community archives

(3) document variation across region, generation, identity, migration, and setting without declaring one variety inherently superior

(4) give priority to speaker communities facing rapid loss and to projects that return usable materials to those communities

(5) support intergenerational transmission in addition to documentation

(6) preserve raw and processed material under community-selected access and licensing terms

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with language communities, Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, territorial governments, linguists, educators, deaf-led organizations, and technologists.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report languages and dialects, speakers, community use, materials created, access classes, and transmission activity.

SEC. 802. TRIBAL AND NATIVE HAWAIIAN CULTURAL DATA SOVEREIGNTY.

(a) An Indian Tribe or Native Hawaiian organization shall determine whether and on what terms its culturally affiliated knowledge, language, ceremony, cultural patrimony, sacred place, or community record participates in a program under this Act.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) recognize Tribal or Native Hawaiian law, protocol, and designated decisionmakers to the maximum extent permitted by federal law

(2) use written stewardship agreements covering custody, intellectual and cultural authority, access, succession, repatriation, security, attribution, benefits, research, and withdrawal

(3) permit Tribe-controlled encryption keys, local custody, community-only access, seasonal access, role-based access, and non-disclosure of catalogue metadata

(4) provide direct grants and self-governance contracting pathways where legally available

(5) pay community experts fairly and support local technical capacity

(6) return or restrict digital surrogates when continued federal custody would violate the agreement or applicable law

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with affected Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations on a government-to-government basis.

(e) No officer may condition unrelated federal benefits on consent to digitize, disclose, surrender, or license culturally affiliated material.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report agreements, direct awards, custody models, restrictions, requested returns, and disputes.

SEC. 803. NATIVE LANGUAGE PRESERVATION AND REVITALIZATION GRANTS.

(a) The Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Education, and Administration for Native Americans shall coordinate grants under this Act with the Native American Languages Act and Esther Martinez programs.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior shall—

(1) support master-apprentice programs, immersion, teacher development, documentation, curriculum, broadcasting, community technology, and intergenerational use

(2) allow Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to define fluency, success, orthography, access, and appropriate technology

(3) avoid requiring public release of language materials as a condition of preservation funding

(4) support long-duration awards and operating capacity, not only short pilot projects

(5) permit equipment, facilities, compensation for speakers, childcare, transportation, and indirect costs

(6) ensure this Act supplements and does not displace existing Native language funds

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, Native educators, speakers, and existing federal program offices.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report speakers and learners served, community-defined proficiency, use domains, materials, and continuation after award.

SEC. 804. PROHIBITION ON UNAUTHORIZED LANGUAGE-MODEL TRAINING.

(a) No asset preserved under this title may be used to train, fine-tune, evaluate, benchmark, or retrieve for a generative or biometric model unless the authorized community steward gives specific, informed, written permission identifying the model purpose and benefit terms.

(b) Permission for search, transcription, translation, education, or public listening does not imply permission for model training.

(c) A recipient that authorizes model use shall preserve the authorization, dataset manifest, model documentation, known downstream recipients, revocation terms, and benefit-sharing obligations.

(d) Unauthorized use by a federal contractor is a material breach and may result in deletion of derived weights where technically and legally feasible, suspension, damages, and debarment.

SEC. 805. COMMUNITY ACCESS AND LEARNING.

(a) The Librarian and Secretary of Education shall make preserved language materials useful to speaker communities.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) fund community portals, offline kits, classroom and adult learning resources, captioned media, keyboards, fonts, and accessible sign-language tools

(2) provide copies in usable formats rather than only archival masters

(3) support local trainers, librarians, teachers, and youth creators

(4) permit community authentication and role-based access without imposing federal identity systems where inappropriate

(5) measure community use and transmission rather than raw download counts alone

(6) support migration of community tools as technology changes

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with speaker communities, schools, libraries, disability organizations, and educational technologists.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report community access, learning resources, active users, local trainers, and technology migration.

SEC. 806. CULTURALLY SENSITIVE AND RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.

(a) A federal employee or recipient shall not knowingly record, disclose, render immersive, or infer the content or location of a closed ceremony, sacred site, burial place, confidential religious practice, or restricted cultural knowledge without authorization from the lawful steward.

(b) The absence of copyright or ownership in the conventional sense does not by itself make culturally sensitive information appropriate for public access.

(c) Access conditions may incorporate ceremonial timing, gender or role protocols, community review, limited metadata, researcher undertakings, and restrictions on reproduction, subject to law.

(d) This section shall be administered consistently with the First Amendment, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, NAGPRA, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, and other applicable law.

Preserving places and ecosystems altered or erased by environmental change

SEC. 901. CLIMATE-THREAT PRESERVATION PROGRAM.

(a) The Secretary of the Interior, NOAA Administrator, and Archivist shall establish a coordinated program for cultural and natural heritage at material risk from climate change and associated hazards.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior shall—

(1) combine sea-level, flood, fire, heat, drought, erosion, subsidence, permafrost, storm, ecological, and cultural vulnerability information

(2) prioritize physical protection, adaptation, relocation, or documentation according to feasibility and community values

(3) fund baseline and repeat spatial capture, oral history, archives, material analysis, ecological measurement, and interpretation

(4) document adaptation choices and unavoidable loss without describing digital capture as equivalent to the original

(5) provide emergency small grants before a forecast event when practicable

(6) coordinate with hazard mitigation and disaster recovery without delaying life-safety work

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with NOAA, USGS, FEMA, EPA, NPS, FWS, Tribes, State and local governments, property owners, scientists, and communities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets assessed, actions selected, physical preservation, captures, repeat measurements, and losses.

SEC. 902. NATIONAL ECOSYSTEM MEMORY BASELINES.

(a) NOAA, USGS, FWS, EPA, USDA, and NPS shall identify representative and endangered ecosystems for long-term multisensory documentation.

(b) The NOAA Administrator shall—

(1) record spatial structure, species assemblages, genetics where lawful, soundscape, hydrology, soil, water and air conditions, seasonality, phenology, light, weather, human use, and traditional ecological knowledge where authorized

(2) use repeatable protocols and permanent control points sufficient to measure change

(3) link federal monitoring datasets, specimens, imagery, remote sensing, models, and community observations

(4) include urban, agricultural, coastal, marine, freshwater, forest, grassland, desert, Arctic, island, cave, and subterranean systems

(5) preserve uncertainty, sampling design, calibration, and model assumptions

(6) provide public educational derivatives while restricting poaching-sensitive species locations and culturally sensitive knowledge

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the NOAA Administrator shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the NOAA Administrator shall consult with Tribes, States, territories, researchers, conservation groups, landowners, farmers, fishers, hunters, environmental-justice communities, and local observers.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report ecosystems, repeat coverage, variables, data completeness, sensitive restrictions, and research use.

SEC. 903. SPECIES, BREEDS, VARIETIES, AND ECOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS.

(a) The Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture shall preserve evidence of endangered and extinct-in-the-wild organisms and associated human knowledge.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior shall—

(1) coordinate high-resolution morphology, movement, behavior, sound, habitat, ecological interaction, husbandry, cultivation, ethnobiological knowledge, and specimen records

(2) support lawful genetic and tissue repositories without requiring new collection where ethically or ecologically inappropriate

(3) document domesticated breeds, crop varieties, pollinators, pests, pathogens, and symbiotic relationships with major cultural or ecological significance

(4) prioritize living, noninvasive capture and animal-welfare standards

(5) record extinction, extirpation, restoration, reintroduction, and de-extinction proposals with scientific uncertainty

(6) prevent release of location or genetic information likely to facilitate trafficking, poaching, biopiracy, or ecological harm

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with Tribes, wildlife agencies, zoos, aquaria, botanical gardens, seed banks, farmers, animal-welfare experts, and scientists.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report species and varieties, welfare review, living capture, restricted data, and conservation use.

SEC. 904. AMERICAN SOUNDSCAPE MAP.

(a) The National Park Service and NOAA shall create a longitudinal map of natural, rural, urban, industrial, and civic soundscapes.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior shall—

(1) use calibrated, privacy-conscious protocols and repeat recording locations

(2) document biological sound, weather, water, transportation, industry, public space, quiet, and culturally significant acoustic events

(3) measure acoustic change related to biodiversity, development, technology, and climate

(4) avoid recording intelligible private conversation where not integral to a consented public-history project

(5) make accessible binaural and visualized-frequency derivatives

(6) coordinate with noise, health, ecology, and planning research

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with acousticians, ecologists, public-health experts, communities, Tribes, planners, privacy experts, and artists.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report sites, repeat recordings, calibration, privacy exclusions, and research outputs.

SEC. 905. COMMUNITIES FACING RELOCATION OR IRREVERSIBLE CHANGE.

(a) HUD, FEMA, Interior, and the Archivist shall offer voluntary preservation assistance to communities facing relocation, managed retreat, disaster displacement, land loss, or major infrastructure transformation.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) fund community-led documentation before, during, and after change

(2) preserve homes, public spaces, cemeteries, sacred and social places, routes, businesses, landscapes, records, and oral histories with consent

(3) provide copies and governance rights to displaced residents

(4) document governmental decisions, compensation, disagreement, environmental conditions, and unequal burdens

(5) avoid using preservation participation to obtain releases, waive claims, reduce compensation, or imply consent to relocation

(6) support reunions, virtual community spaces, teaching materials, and descendant access

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with affected residents, Tribes, local governments, legal-aid organizations, planners, insurers, and disaster-recovery officials.

(e) Participation or refusal shall not affect eligibility for disaster, housing, relocation, immigration, or other public assistance.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report communities offered assistance, participation, resident control, access, and post-relocation use.

SEC. 906. PUBLIC HERITAGE RISK ATLAS.

(a) The Archivist shall maintain a public, regularly updated Heritage Risk Atlas.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) display generalized risk, preservation status, responsible steward, and nomination pathways

(2) combine climate, disaster, demolition, institutional, technological, language, witness, and collection-risk indicators

(3) allow communities to submit corrections and confidential risk information

(4) withhold precise locations or vulnerabilities when disclosure increases looting, trespass, attack, poaching, privacy invasion, or cultural harm

(5) distinguish federal assessment from community assessment and uncertainty

(6) provide machine-readable and accessible interfaces

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with federal hazard and cultural agencies, States, Tribes, local governments, insurers, scientists, and community stewards.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets mapped, corrections, restricted locations, risk changes, and preservation actions triggered.

Operational rescue capacity before, during, and after disaster

SEC. 1001. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CORPS.

(a) FEMA and the Smithsonian Institution shall jointly establish a Cultural Heritage Emergency Corps building on the Heritage Emergency National Task Force.

(b) The FEMA Administrator shall—

(1) maintain full-time national coordination and deployable regional teams of conservators, archivists, structural and digital documentation specialists, emergency managers, safety officers, logistics staff, and culturally competent liaisons

(2) credential qualified reservists from public, Tribal, academic, nonprofit, union, and private institutions

(3) integrate with the National Incident Management System and Emergency Support Function structures

(4) provide worker safety, personal protective equipment, liability, workers’ compensation, mental-health support, and deployment standards

(5) maintain mutual-aid and mission-assignment templates

(6) train local institutions in continuity, salvage, documentation, and post-disaster digital security

(c) Not later than 1 year after enactment, the FEMA Administrator shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the FEMA Administrator shall consult with FEMA, Smithsonian, NARA, NPS, Tribes, States, emergency managers, conservation organizations, labor, and insurers.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report teams, reservists, training, deployments, response time, safety incidents, and assets stabilized.

SEC. 1002. ACTIVATION AND MISSION PRIORITIES.

(a) The Corps may deploy upon a Stafford Act mission assignment, request of a federal agency, agreement with a Tribe or government, or request from an eligible memory institution accepted by FEMA.

(b) The FEMA Administrator shall—

(1) prioritize life safety and incident command before cultural-property operations

(2) conduct rapid assessment, triage, stabilization, emergency documentation, drying and freezing, secure transport, digital recovery, and referral

(3) respect ownership, custody, law-enforcement scenes, religious protocols, Tribal authority, and donor restrictions

(4) coordinate one incident action plan and avoid self-deployment into unsafe areas

(5) document actions, chain of custody, disposition, and unresolved claims

(6) transition long-term recovery to the lawful owner or custodian as soon as practicable

(c) Not later than 270 days after enactment, the FEMA Administrator shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the FEMA Administrator shall consult with incident command, owners, custodians, Tribes, State and local officials, law enforcement, and insurers.

(e) Corps participation does not transfer title or create federal custody beyond the mission and agreed stabilization period.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report requests, acceptances, response time, missions, assets, transfers, and reasons for nondeployment.

SEC. 1003. EMERGENCY CONSENT AND CULTURALLY SENSITIVE RESPONSE.

(a) The Corps shall use emergency protocols that preserve lawful control while enabling rapid action.

(b) The FEMA Administrator shall—

(1) obtain consent from the owner, custodian, Tribe, or responsible public official whenever practicable

(2) allow temporary stabilization without prior consent only when federal law independently authorizes entry or custody and delay would likely cause irreversible loss

(3) consult affected Tribes before handling Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or cultural patrimony and comply with NAGPRA and other law

(4) restrict imagery, location, inventory, and condition information that could enable theft or violate cultural protocol

(5) segregate disputed property and avoid resolving title in the field

(6) create a clear claims and return process

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the FEMA Administrator shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the FEMA Administrator shall consult with Tribes, Native Hawaiian organizations, owners, custodians, law enforcement, emergency managers, and legal counsel.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report consent basis, sensitive items, disputed custody, claims, and return time.

SEC. 1004. REGIONAL CACHES AND MOBILE LABORATORIES.

(a) FEMA shall establish strategically located equipment caches and mobile conservation and digitization laboratories.

(b) The FEMA Administrator shall—

(1) stock drying, freezing coordination, packing, air-quality, power, lighting, scanning, imaging, data storage, networking, stabilization, and protective equipment appropriate to regional hazards

(2) maintain deployment, calibration, shelf-life, cybersecurity, and replenishment schedules

(3) pre-negotiate transport, cold storage, freeze-drying, secure warehouse, cloud recovery, and laboratory capacity

(4) make equipment available for training and declared incidents through accountable checkout

(5) include accessible and culturally appropriate field operations supplies

(6) test every regional cache at least annually

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the FEMA Administrator shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the FEMA Administrator shall consult with regional emergency managers, memory institutions, Tribes, logistics providers, conservators, and cybersecurity officials.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report readiness, deployment time, inventory deficiencies, vendor capacity, and annual test results.

SEC. 1005. PRE-DISASTER PREPAREDNESS GRANTS.

(a) FEMA and IMLS shall offer preparedness grants to eligible memory institutions, with simplified applications for small organizations.

(b) The FEMA Administrator shall—

(1) support risk assessment, continuity planning, insurance review, inventories, evacuation priorities, digitization, backup, environmental monitoring, fire and flood mitigation, cybersecurity, and mutual aid

(2) permit consortium applications and shared regional services

(3) require realistic maintenance and exercise plans

(4) provide 90-percent federal cost share for small, rural, Tribal, territorial, and financially distressed institutions and up to 75 percent otherwise

(5) allow microgrants up to $25,000 through formula or rolling processes

(6) coordinate with hazard mitigation without requiring National Register eligibility

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the FEMA Administrator shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the FEMA Administrator shall consult with States, Tribes, local emergency managers, insurers, memory institutions, and disability organizations.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report grants, institution size, hazards addressed, exercises, continuity improvements, and loss avoided where measurable.

SEC. 1006. INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL ASSISTANCE.

(a) At the request of the Secretary of State or the United States Agency for International Development and with host-nation consent, the Corps may provide technical assistance, remote support, training, or limited deployment for heritage threatened by disaster or conflict.

(b) Assistance shall comply with sanctions, export controls, cultural-property law, security requirements, and the principle that custody and decisionmaking remain with the lawful national or community steward.

(c) No international activity may materially impair domestic readiness or be used to remove cultural property from its country of origin except for lawful, temporary protective custody under a written agreement.

National scale through local custody, capacity, and trust

SEC. 1101. LOCAL CIVILIZATION PRESERVATION GRANTS.

(a) NEH and IMLS shall jointly administer competitive grants for local immersive preservation and digital stewardship.

(b) The Chair of NEH shall—

(1) fund capture, oral history, digitization, conservation, description, rights clearance, accessibility, community engagement, storage, training, and public interpretation

(2) permit grants to local and Tribal governments, libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, schools, colleges, public media, unions, faith-based organizations, neighborhood groups, and qualified nonprofits

(3) support both nationally significant and locally meaningful subjects

(4) reserve at least 40 percent of funds for organizations with annual operating budgets below $2,000,000 or consortia led by such organizations

(5) provide planning, implementation, emergency, and sustainability awards

(6) pay allowable indirect costs and lifecycle preservation expenses

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Chair of NEH shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Chair of NEH shall consult with State humanities councils, State library agencies, State and Tribal historic preservation offices, community foundations, and prospective applicants.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report awards, geography, institution size, communities, outputs, preservation status, and public access.

SEC. 1102. COMMUNITY MICROGRANTS.

(a) IMLS shall create a rolling microgrant program for projects requesting not more than $50,000.

(b) The Director of IMLS shall—

(1) use an application no longer than necessary to establish eligibility, purpose, rights, safety, budget, and stewardship

(2) allow fiscal sponsors and consortium intermediaries

(3) provide advance payment where permitted and needed by small organizations

(4) offer technical assistance before and after award

(5) accept community-defined evidence of significance and capability

(6) issue decisions within 90 days for complete applications

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of IMLS shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of IMLS shall consult with small museums, libraries, community archives, rural institutions, Tribes, territorial organizations, and grants-management experts.

(e) An applicant shall not be required to hire a professional grant writer, own a building, maintain a large endowment, or surrender custody to compete.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report application burden, decision time, first-time federal grantees, award distribution, and completion.

SEC. 1103. STATE, TRIBAL, AND TERRITORIAL CAPACITY GRANTS.

(a) The Archivist shall provide formula and competitive capacity grants to State archives, State historic preservation offices, Tribal historic preservation offices, Native Hawaiian organizations, and territorial cultural agencies.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) support regional storage nodes, equipment pools, training, staff, standards implementation, emergency mutual aid, and technical assistance

(2) use population, land area, number of Tribes, hazard exposure, institutional capacity, language endangerment, and documented need in allocation

(3) guarantee a meaningful minimum allocation for each State and territory that submits an approved plan

(4) provide direct Tribal awards without routing funds through a State

(5) permit compact and self-governance mechanisms where authorized

(6) require public plans and performance measures while protecting sensitive information

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with States, Tribes, territories, Native Hawaiian organizations, and regional associations.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report allocations, capacity gained, staff, equipment use, nodes certified, and disparities.

SEC. 1104. RURAL, REMOTE, ISLAND, AND UNDERSERVED ACCESS.

(a) Administering agencies shall remove structural barriers for rural, frontier, remote, island, Tribal, and underserved institutions.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) permit offline workflows, mailed drives, mobile labs, satellite or other connectivity, shared personnel, and travel

(2) adjust grant periods and procurement requirements for shipping, weather, limited vendors, and seasonal access

(3) fund local power resilience and environmentally appropriate storage

(4) provide application and reporting assistance in accessible and relevant languages

(5) recognize volunteer-led and traditional governance structures

(6) avoid concentrating awards solely in institutions with prior federal grants

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with rural libraries and museums, Tribes, territories, island communities, cooperatives, and regional universities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report awards by remoteness and capacity, application success, connectivity, travel, and service coverage.

SEC. 1105. MATCHING REQUIREMENTS.

(a) No match is required for a microgrant, emergency grant, Tribal or Native Hawaiian award, territorial award, or award to an organization with an annual operating budget below $1,000,000.

(b) For other grants, the federal share may not exceed 80 percent unless the agency finds financial distress, exceptional urgency, or unique national value.

(c) Allowable match includes cash, documented in-kind labor, donated professional service, equipment use, facilities, and community expertise. Uncompensated cultural knowledge shall not be assigned a fictional value without the contributor’s consent.

SEC. 1106. MERIT REVIEW AND EQUITABLE SELECTION.

(a) Each grant agency shall use published, discipline-appropriate review criteria and conflict controls.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) evaluate significance, urgency, community authority, feasibility, rights and ethics, preservation quality, accessibility, budget, and sustainability

(2) compensate nonfederal reviewers, including community experts

(3) use technical-assistance and clarification processes rather than rejecting curable minor defects

(4) publish aggregate applicant and award data sufficient to test geographic, institutional, and demographic equity

(5) provide short reasoned feedback and an administrative reconsideration process for procedural error

(6) prohibit political-appointee reversal based on partisan viewpoint or donor influence

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with grant applicants, peer reviewers, inspectors general, civil-rights officials, and community experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report applications, scores, awards, reviewer diversity, conflicts, reconsiderations, and disparities.

SEC. 1107. GRANT COMPLIANCE, RECORDS, AND REMEDIES.

(a) A recipient shall maintain financial, rights, consent, provenance, accessibility, security, and preservation records proportionate to the award and risk.

(b) Agencies shall prioritize technical assistance and cure for good-faith noncompliance that does not create imminent harm, fraud, rights violation, or loss of evidence.

(c) Remedies may include corrective action, special conditions, access restriction, repayment, suspension, termination, debarment referral, or transfer of preservation custody consistent with contributor rights.

(d) A recipient shall retain ownership unless the award states otherwise. The Federal Government receives only the preservation and access rights expressly stated in the award and accepted by the recipient.

Public experience, national collections, and coordinated federal practice

SEC. 1201. DIGITAL SMITHSONIAN EXPANSION.

(a) The Smithsonian Institution shall establish a Digital Smithsonian Immersive Commons.

(b) The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution shall—

(1) create rights-cleared immersive exhibitions drawing on Smithsonian and partner collections

(2) provide free browser-based and accessible non-headset versions of publicly funded experiences

(3) publish reusable public-domain and openly licensed 3D assets, metadata, educational modules, and developer tools

(4) establish regional and traveling immersive installations serving schools, libraries, museums, and communities

(5) preserve exhibition source packages, software, design rationale, accessibility, and version history

(6) distinguish institutional interpretation from archival evidence and invite contextual correction

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution shall consult with Smithsonian museums and research centers, educators, communities, rights holders, accessibility experts, and regional partners.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets, exhibitions, schools and institutions served, accessibility, geographic reach, and reuse.

SEC. 1202. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS DIGITAL CULTURE EXPANSION.

(a) The Librarian of Congress shall expand preservation and access for creative, broadcast, web, software, performance, and immersive culture.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) develop deposit guidance for immersive works, spatial media, interactive websites, games, applications, virtual worlds, and software-dependent publications

(2) coordinate voluntary and statutory deposits under title 17 without expanding public access beyond law

(3) preserve playback environments, dependencies, rights records, and creator documentation

(4) support lawful research access to restricted works in secure environments

(5) expand rights and contact registries for preservation and permission requests

(6) coordinate recommended formats and sustainability guidance with NARA and NIST

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with the Copyright Office, creators, publishers, broadcasters, software developers, libraries, archives, researchers, and users with disabilities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report new-format deposits, renderability, rights records, secure research use, and public-domain access.

SEC. 1203. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE DOCUMENTATION EXPANSION.

(a) NPS shall expand Heritage Documentation Programs and cultural-resource climate documentation.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior shall—

(1) increase permanent regional field teams and partnerships with universities, Tribes, States, and apprenticeship programs

(2) incorporate immersive capture while retaining measured drawings, photography, and written history

(3) create rapid documentation protocols for demolition, disaster, climate loss, and inaccessible sites

(4) deposit public documentation with the Library of Congress and register it in the Archive

(5) provide technical services to communities that lack equipment

(6) publish repeatable standards and exemplary datasets

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of the Interior shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of the Interior shall consult with the Library of Congress, State and Tribal historic preservation officers, professional bodies, property owners, and communities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report teams, projects, urgency, geographic coverage, datasets, and public use.

SEC. 1204. NARA IMMERSIVE FEDERAL RECORDS PROGRAM.

(a) The Archivist shall integrate immersive and complex digital records into federal records management.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) issue appraisal, scheduling, transfer, metadata, format, and preservation guidance for spatial, sensor, interactive, simulation, and immersive federal records

(2) require agencies to identify essential software, dependencies, calibration, and rights at creation

(3) prevent agencies from treating a rendered video as an adequate substitute when underlying spatial or interactive data has permanent value

(4) provide shared transfer and validation tools

(5) coordinate with agency records officers and inspectors general

(6) update the Digital Preservation Framework for new formats and risks

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with federal records officers, NIST, agency CIOs, inspectors general, researchers, and accessibility experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report schedules, transfers, validation, agencies compliant, and at-risk formats.

SEC. 1205. NEH AND IMLS PRESERVATION MODERNIZATION.

(a) NEH and IMLS shall align existing grants and technical assistance with the standards and opportunities of this Act.

(b) The Chair of NEH shall—

(1) support research, collections, digital public humanities, museum, library, workforce, and infrastructure projects that advance immersive preservation

(2) avoid requiring a headset-based output when another format better serves the community

(3) support planning, rights clearance, maintenance, migration, evaluation, and staff time

(4) fund shared services and open-source tools

(5) coordinate notices and reporting to reduce applicant burden

(6) preserve agency program identity and statutory missions while sharing infrastructure

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Chair of NEH shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Chair of NEH shall consult with humanities councils, libraries, museums, archives, educators, researchers, and grantees.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report aligned awards, maintenance support, shared services, applicant burden, and preservation outcomes.

SEC. 1206. FEDERAL CULTURAL ASSET INVENTORIES.

(a) Each covered federal agency shall inventory high-value cultural, scientific, industrial, civic, natural, and digital assets within its custody that may warrant preservation under this Act.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) use common minimum fields while allowing agency-specific detail

(2) identify authority, custody, rights, sensitivity, condition, format risk, threat, significance, existing copies, and proposed action

(3) exclude or generalize classified, security-sensitive, archaeological, privacy-sensitive, and culturally sensitive details from public inventories

(4) update the inventory at least every 2 years

(5) refer urgent items to the Archive or Corps

(6) integrate with records schedules, collection systems, and property systems rather than creating duplicative manual lists

(c) Not later than 2 years after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with agency records, property, science, cultural, security, privacy, and Tribal liaison officials.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report agencies, assets inventoried, urgent referrals, duplication, and action status.

Preservation authority that does not confuse custody with permission

SEC. 1301. GENERAL INTELLECTUAL-PROPERTY RULE.

(a) Except as expressly provided in this title, nothing in this Act limits or enlarges a right under title 17, title 35, title 15, contract, State publicity law, or other intellectual-property law.

(b) Possession of a copy, object, recording, scan, or preservation master does not by itself convey copyright, trademark, patent, publicity, performance, adaptation, merchandising, model-training, or commercial-reuse rights.

(c) Every public asset shall carry a machine-readable rights statement and contact or diligent-search record to the extent known.

(d) The United States shall not require a recipient or depositor to assign copyright as a condition of a grant or deposit, but may require a nonexclusive license tailored to preservation, audit, agreed access, and migration.

SEC. 1302. QUALIFIED PRESERVATION COPYING.

(a) Chapter 1 of title 17, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 108 the following: “§108A. Qualified preservation of immersive and complex works.”

(b) A nonprofit eligible memory institution or federal cultural institution may reproduce, extract, migrate, emulate, and make technically necessary adaptations of a lawfully possessed work solely to create and maintain secure preservation copies where the institution reasonably determines that the work, format, functionality, or contextual evidence faces material risk of loss or obsolescence.

(c) Authority under this section is conditioned on nonprofit purpose; reasonable security; preservation and rights metadata; no public distribution, display, or performance except as otherwise authorized by law or license; retention of copyright notice; and no substitution for a commercially available preservation service offered on reasonable terms.

(d) The institution may provide controlled, on-premises or comparably secure access to one user at a time for preservation research, verification, or scholarship when a usable copy cannot be obtained at a fair price, subject to technological controls and no downstream redistribution.

(e) Nothing in this section limits fair use, section 108, lawful circumvention exemptions, contract rights knowingly assumed, or remedies for unauthorized public exploitation. The Register of Copyrights shall review operation after 5 years and recommend adjustments.

SEC. 1303. PRESERVATION LICENSES AND DEPOSITS.

(a) The Copyright Office, NARA, and Library of Congress shall publish model preservation and access licenses.

(b) The Register of Copyrights shall—

(1) offer modular terms for preservation-only copying, migration, emulation, scholarly access, public access, embargo, performance, education, accessibility, model training, commercial reuse, attribution, withdrawal, and successor contact

(2) use plain language alongside legal terms

(3) support collective or multi-party rights clearance for performance and collaborative works

(4) permit deposit without immediate rights resolution where secure preservation is lawful

(5) maintain signed rights records and version history with the asset

(6) provide small creators and community institutions free guidance without giving individualized legal representation

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Register of Copyrights shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Register of Copyrights shall consult with authors, performers, unions, publishers, producers, libraries, archives, museums, Tribes, privacy experts, and users.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report licenses used, deposits, rights cleared, disputes, and processing time.

SEC. 1304. ORPHAN AND UNLOCATABLE-RIGHTS PRESERVATION.

(a) An institution may preserve an apparently copyrighted work whose owner cannot be identified or located after a reasonably diligent search, provided public access remains limited to what is permitted by law.

(b) The Register of Copyrights shall establish a public diligent-search record stating known authorship, publication, notices, sources searched, date, contact method, intended use, and a claim pathway.

(c) For a noncommercial public interpretive use beyond existing authority, an institution may petition the Copyright Royalty Judges for an extended collective license or reasonable escrowed license where a representative collective exists and due process is provided. Nothing takes effect without implementing regulations and judicial review.

(d) A later-appearing owner may update attribution, negotiate future access, receive undistributed escrow attributable to the work, and seek remedies for uses outside the authorization, but preservation copies need not be destroyed solely because ownership is later located.

SEC. 1305. PERFORMANCE, LIKENESS, AND PUBLICITY RIGHTS.

(a) A federally funded capture involving identifiable performers or deliberate digital replicas shall use express, specific terms.

(b) The Librarian of Congress shall—

(1) identify capture methods, body and voice data, authorized versions, preservation term, access, territory, compensation, attribution, and prohibited uses

(2) separate consent to record from consent to public perform, edit, adapt, train models, create replicas, or license commercially

(3) honor collective-bargaining agreements and applicable State and federal rights

(4) provide contact and successor processes for estates and rights administrators

(5) restrict raw biometric and volumetric data more strongly than rendered access derivatives where appropriate

(6) maintain takedown and dispute procedures

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Librarian of Congress shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Librarian of Congress shall consult with performers, unions, guilds, producers, rights holders, estates, privacy experts, and State officials.

(e) No contract funded under this Act may authorize an unlimited digital replica through inconspicuous language unrelated to the preservation project.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report agreements, compensation, access, disputes, takedowns, and unauthorized-use incidents.

SEC. 1306. PRIVACY AND DATA MINIMIZATION.

(a) The Archivist shall issue privacy rules for nonrecord preservation activities under this Act.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) require purpose specification, minimization, informed participation, restricted raw data, retention schedules for nonarchival identifiers, role-based access, logging, and incident response

(2) conduct privacy impact assessments for large-scale public capture, everyday-life sampling, biometric data, precise location, minors, health, immigration, or household interiors

(3) avoid facial recognition and persistent identification unless necessary for a documented archival purpose and lawfully authorized

(4) provide notice and objection mechanisms for identifiable persons incidentally captured where practicable

(5) prohibit sale of personal data and targeted advertising using program data

(6) use disclosure limitation for public datasets and research interfaces

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with agency privacy officers, NIST, civil-rights and civil-liberties organizations, archivists, researchers, and affected communities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assessments, sensitive collections, incidents, objections, restrictions, and retention compliance.

SEC. 1307. DIGNITY, MINORS, VICTIMS, AND DESCENDANTS.

(a) In access and interpretation, institutions shall consider foreseeable risks of harassment, retraumatization, identity theft, exposure of intimate facts, interference with burial or mourning, and exploitation of children or victims.

(b) Dignity is not authority to erase truthful public history merely because it is painful, contested, or embarrassing. Restrictions shall be tied to a concrete protectable interest and periodically reviewed.

(c) Descendants may provide context and request review, but do not automatically own all historical facts or works concerning an ancestor. Existing copyright, privacy, publicity, donor, repatriation, and cultural rights remain controlling.

(d) Graphic human remains, death, medical, sexual, or violent content shall use warnings, age-appropriate access, and contextual presentation proportionate to risk.

SEC. 1308. CULTURAL RIGHTS, NAGPRA, AND REPATRIATION.

(a) Digitization does not extinguish or delay a duty to inventory, consult, repatriate, return, or protect material under NAGPRA or other law.

(b) A museum or agency may not create a new digital surrogate of Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, or objects of cultural patrimony for research or public access without consultation required by applicable law and the authorization required by section 802.

(c) A Tribe or Native Hawaiian organization may request restriction, return, or deletion of a digital surrogate inconsistent with law or agreement. The agency shall decide within 180 days and provide written reasons and review rights.

(d) No asset under this Act may be used to facilitate trafficking, authentication for sale, or unauthorized commercial reproduction of cultural patrimony.

SEC. 1309. CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT.

(a) Information received in confidence under sections 802, 806, 901 through 906, or 1001 through 1006 that identifies a sacred, burial, archaeological, endangered-species, security-sensitive, or culturally restricted location or practice is exempt from disclosure under section 552 of title 5 if the responsible official determines disclosure would create a material risk of harm and records the basis.

(b) The exemption shall be construed narrowly, reviewed at least every 10 years unless cultural or safety conditions require continued protection, and does not permit withholding evidence of unlawful government conduct merely because it is culturally or politically sensitive.

(c) Segregable, generalized, and nonharmful information shall be released. The contributor or affected steward shall receive notice before discretionary release where practicable.

SEC. 1310. PROPERTY, ACCESS, AND NO TAKING.

(a) No officer may enter nonpublic property, scan an interior, seize an object, or compel access under this Act without consent, a warrant, an emergency authority, or another independent source of law.

(b) A federal grant condition or contract may require project access and preservation rights stated before acceptance.

(c) If implementation would effect a taking of private property, the agency shall avoid the taking, obtain voluntary terms, or provide just compensation under applicable law.

Using computation to recover evidence without manufacturing false memory

SEC. 1401. PERMITTED AI-ASSISTED PRESERVATION USES.

(a) Federal institutions may use AI to support preservation only under documented risk controls and human responsibility.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) permit transcription, translation, optical recognition, metadata suggestion, anomaly detection, search, noise reduction, stabilization, color or geometry repair, frame interpolation, super-resolution, and reconstruction when appropriate

(2) validate tools against representative materials and monitor disparate errors across languages, dialects, skin tones, disabilities, formats, and degradation types

(3) retain input, output, model and version, parameters, operator, date, evaluation, and known limitations

(4) require qualified human acceptance before an AI output becomes descriptive metadata or a public derivative

(5) segregate sensitive data and prohibit provider reuse absent authorization

(6) prefer reversible, reproducible, and independently reviewable workflows

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, archivists, conservators, historians, creators, language communities, disability experts, privacy experts, and AI researchers.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report uses, models, validation, human corrections, material errors, and sensitive-data handling.

SEC. 1402. PROHIBITED DECEPTIVE HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS.

(a) No federal officer, recipient, or contractor acting within a project under this Act may knowingly present generated or materially synthesized media as an authentic recording of an event, person, place, statement, or condition.

(b) A reconstruction may not fabricate a quotation, voice, facial performance, gesture, or action of an identifiable person and attribute it as fact without contemporaneous source evidence supporting that precise content and a clear reconstruction label.

(c) No restoration may remove or alter politically, historically, or legally material content merely to make a subject appear more favorable, orderly, complete, patriotic, or contemporary.

(d) A satirical, artistic, educational, or speculative experience may receive support if it is clearly and persistently identified as such and is separated from the certified archival record.

SEC. 1403. RESTORATION AND RECONSTRUCTION GRADES.

(a) NIST shall define a public grading scheme for computationally altered heritage content.

(b) The Director of NIST shall—

(1) include Grade 0 unaltered access copy; Grade 1 mechanical normalization; Grade 2 evidence-preserving restoration; Grade 3 inferential restoration; Grade 4 partial reconstruction; and Grade 5 creative or speculative interpretation

(2) define permitted operations, documentation, confidence, human review, and display requirements for each grade

(3) allow discipline-specific profiles and combined grades for separate elements

(4) require machine-readable and human-readable grade indicators

(5) prohibit a higher grade from being passed off as a lower grade

(6) update the scheme as methods evolve

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of NIST shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of NIST shall consult with NARA, Smithsonian, Library of Congress, NPS, NIST technical experts, historians, creators, journalists, courts, and the public.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets by grade, labeling compliance, disputes, and reclassifications.

SEC. 1404. TRAINING DATA AND MODEL DOCUMENTATION.

(a) An AI system used for material restoration or reconstruction shall have documentation sufficient for independent evaluation.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) identify developer, model and version, intended use, known limitations, training-data categories and legal basis to the extent available, evaluation results, and security controls

(2) record project-specific input sources and whether restricted or culturally governed material was used

(3) prohibit training on Archive assets unless authorized by rights and access terms

(4) require contractors to disclose material model changes during performance

(5) provide reproducibility artifacts or an equivalent validation pathway when proprietary restrictions prevent full disclosure

(6) retain outputs from alternative methods when uncertainty is material

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, rights holders, vendors, researchers, communities, and procurement officials.

(e) Trade-secret protection may limit public disclosure but may not prevent confidential federal audit, incident investigation, rights verification, or vendor-exit obligations.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report models, documentation completeness, restricted-data use, audits, and material changes.

SEC. 1405. HUMAN SCHOLARLY AND COMMUNITY REVIEW.

(a) A material restoration or reconstruction shall be reviewed by qualified humans before certification or prominent public use.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) include at least one preservation or technical reviewer and one subject-matter reviewer

(2) include an authorized community or cultural reviewer when the work depends materially on living cultural knowledge

(3) document disagreement and permit minority assessments

(4) test whether the result overstates certainty, introduces stereotype, or erases inconvenient evidence

(5) re-review after a material model, source, or interpretive change

(6) compensate nonfederal reviewers fairly

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Standards Board, professional associations, community stewards, and subject-matter experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report reviews, disagreements, changes required, reviewer compensation, and re-review.

SEC. 1406. CORRECTION, CHALLENGE, AND REDRESS.

(a) The Archivist shall operate a public process to challenge authenticity, labeling, attribution, description, access, privacy, or cultural-protocol compliance.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) accept evidence and permit confidential submissions where disclosure would create harm

(2) acknowledge a complete challenge within 10 days and issue an initial disposition within 90 days

(3) place an interim notice on a public asset when credible evidence indicates material deception or rights harm

(4) preserve the challenged version for audit while preventing continued public harm where warranted

(5) provide review by an official not responsible for the original decision

(6) publish decisions and corrections with lawful redactions

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with affected persons, rights holders, communities, technical experts, historians, and civil-liberties officials.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report challenges, response time, interim notices, corrections, restrictions, and reversals.

SEC. 1407. PROVENANCE CREDENTIALS AND DURABLE LABELING.

(a) NIST shall identify one or more interoperable cryptographic provenance standards capable of recording origin and material edits, including standards comparable to Content Credentials where suitable.

(b) Provenance credentials shall supplement, not replace, archival chain of custody, human documentation, rights records, and critical evaluation.

(c) The Archive shall retain provenance information separately so that stripping metadata from an access copy does not destroy the authoritative record.

(d) Public interfaces shall explain that a valid credential verifies claimed provenance events, not the truth of every depicted fact or interpretation.

Free discovery, accessible experience, controlled research, and responsible reuse

SEC. 1501. NATIONAL MEMORY PORTAL.

(a) The Archivist and Smithsonian shall establish a unified National Memory Portal for discovery and access.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) provide federated search across participating repositories without requiring centralized custody

(2) support map, timeline, subject, community, format, rights, language, accessibility, and confidence filters

(3) display rights, restrictions, authenticity, restoration grade, source context, and citation information prominently

(4) provide lightweight web, high-fidelity immersive, accessible alternative, downloadable, and offline options as rights permit

(5) permit users to save, cite, annotate, compare versions, and report errors

(6) avoid personalized political or commercial profiling and provide a nonpersonalized default

(c) Not later than 3 years after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, NARA, NPS, educators, researchers, communities, disability organizations, libraries, and privacy experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report assets discoverable, access modes, performance, accessibility, search success, and corrections.

SEC. 1502. FREE PUBLIC ACCESS AND PERMISSIBLE FEES.

(a) No fee shall be charged to search the public catalogue, view standard public derivatives, read accessibility materials, or access federally owned public-domain assets in ordinary formats.

(b) Reasonable cost-recovery fees may be charged for extraordinary compute, physical media, custom research, commercial high-resolution delivery, licensed performance, or services beyond standard access, with waivers for education, research, journalism, disability access, and inability to pay.

(c) A fee may not exceed the direct and allocated service cost plus any lawful third-party royalty and shall not be structured to suppress criticism or disfavored viewpoints.

(d) Fee schedules, waivers, receipts, and use of revenue shall be public.

SEC. 1503. CONTROLLED RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTS.

(a) The Archivist and Librarian may provide secure research access to restricted digital material when authorized.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) use identity, training, agreements, isolated workspaces, output review, query controls, disclosure limitation, and logging proportionate to risk

(2) permit remote secure access where comparable protection is demonstrated

(3) prioritize research that cannot reasonably be conducted with open derivatives

(4) involve rights holders or community stewards where the agreement requires

(5) prohibit attempts to reidentify, extract, redistribute, or train models beyond authorization

(6) provide sanctions, appeal, and incident response

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with researchers, rights holders, Tribes, privacy experts, cybersecurity officials, institutional review boards, and libraries.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report applications, approvals, time, projects, outputs, incidents, and sanctions.

SEC. 1504. EDUCATION AND CIVIC LEARNING.

(a) The Department of Education, NEH, Smithsonian, and Library of Congress shall create voluntary educational resources using lawfully accessible assets.

(b) The Secretary of Education shall—

(1) support inquiry-based modules that compare source evidence, perspectives, uncertainty, and later interpretation

(2) include local history, Tribal history, immigration, labor, civil rights, science, environment, arts, institutions, and everyday life

(3) teach students how to distinguish capture, restoration, reconstruction, simulation, and misinformation

(4) provide age-appropriate, accessible, multilingual, offline, and low-bandwidth versions

(5) avoid a federally prescribed curriculum and permit educator adaptation

(6) compensate teachers and community experts who develop materials

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Secretary of Education shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Secretary of Education shall consult with educators, students, States, Tribes, historians, librarians, parents, civil-rights groups, and disability organizations.

(e) Nothing in this section authorizes federal control over State or local curriculum or compels a student to use immersive technology.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report resources, schools and libraries, accessibility, educator use, and learning evaluation.

SEC. 1505. RESEARCH INTERFACES AND REPRODUCIBILITY.

(a) The Archivist shall provide responsible programmatic access to open assets and metadata.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) publish documented application programming interfaces, bulk metadata, stable identifiers, version histories, and citation formats

(2) provide rate limits and compute environments proportionate to security, rights, cost, and equitable access

(3) require researchers to cite asset versions and transformation grades

(4) support reproducible notebooks, benchmark datasets, and validation tools where rights permit

(5) prevent open interfaces from exposing restricted data through metadata, embeddings, inference, or aggregation

(6) publish significant interface changes and deprecation schedules

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with researchers, journalists, digital-humanities scholars, computer scientists, communities, and privacy and security experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report users, queries, datasets, publications, reproducibility, incidents, and service equity.

SEC. 1506. LIBRARIES AND OFFLINE PUBLIC ACCESS.

(a) IMLS shall equip libraries and community institutions to serve as public gateways to the Archive.

(b) The Director of IMLS shall—

(1) provide headsets where appropriate, accessible displays, workstations, projection, spatial audio, loanable devices, trained staff, and safe physical space

(2) provide offline packages for areas with limited connectivity

(3) fund maintenance, sanitation, replacement, accessibility, privacy screens, and technical support

(4) support guided community events and intergenerational use

(5) permit reservations without requiring unnecessary identification

(6) collect only aggregate usage data unless a user affirmatively creates an account

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of IMLS shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of IMLS shall consult with public, Tribal, school, academic, and special libraries; disability organizations; rural and territorial communities; and educators.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report sites, equipment uptime, offline use, accessibility, staff training, and patron demand.

SEC. 1507. MULTILINGUAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL ACCESS.

(a) Public interfaces and high-priority experiences shall provide meaningful language access.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) prioritize English, Spanish, American Sign Language, languages of significant user communities, and the language of the preserved subject

(2) clearly label machine translation and provide human review for legally, culturally, or historically sensitive content

(3) preserve original words and allow parallel display with translation

(4) provide community correction and terminology governance

(5) avoid replacing endangered-language content with an English-only derivative

(6) support text, audio, sign, caption, and easy-language presentation

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with language communities, Tribes, translators, deaf-led organizations, educators, and accessibility experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report languages, reviewed translations, corrections, original-language use, and unmet requests.

SEC. 1508. RESPONSIBLE COMMERCIAL REUSE.

(a) Public-domain assets and openly licensed assets may be reused according to their legal status. The Portal shall not imply additional restrictions that do not exist.

(b) Commercial reuse of copyrighted, publicity-protected, culturally governed, privacy-restricted, or licensed material requires the applicable authorization.

(c) The Archivist may offer standardized commercial licenses for federally owned material, but revenue shall not override free public, educational, research, and journalistic access.

(d) No commercial partner may receive exclusive control over the only public immersive presentation of a federally funded asset for longer than reasonably necessary to recoup a documented contribution, and in no event longer than 5 years absent specific congressional authorization.

SEC. 1509. NO ADVERTISING OR POLITICAL MICROTARGETING.

(a) The National Memory Portal and public installations funded under this Act shall not display behavioral advertising.

(b) Usage data may not be sold, used for political microtargeting, or combined with unrelated commercial profiles.

(c) Contextual acknowledgement of funders shall be factual, proportionate, and may not resemble product placement within a historical reconstruction.

Protecting permanent memory from manipulation, loss, surveillance, and dependency

SEC. 1601. RISK-BASED CYBERSECURITY PROGRAM.

(a) The Archivist shall operate the Archive and Memory Cloud under a risk-based cybersecurity program consistent with applicable federal standards.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) maintain asset inventory, zero-trust access, strong authentication, least privilege, segmentation, encryption, key management, logging, vulnerability management, secure development, supply-chain risk management, incident response, and recovery

(2) treat authenticity and silent alteration as core security risks in addition to confidentiality and availability

(3) segregate public delivery, ingest, preservation, administrative, and restricted environments

(4) require independent penetration and recovery testing

(5) provide secure researcher and contractor access with time-limited privileges

(6) report material incidents under federal law and notify affected partners

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with CISA, NIST, GSA, intelligence and law-enforcement officials as appropriate, privacy officers, and participating repositories.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report control maturity, incidents, detection and recovery time, vulnerabilities, privileged access, and test results.

SEC. 1602. INTEGRITY MONITORING AND INSIDER RISK.

(a) The Archivist shall implement controls against unauthorized alteration, deletion, substitution, suppression, or falsification by insiders and automated systems.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) separate duties for ingest, rights change, deletion, restoration, and public release

(2) require dual authorization for destruction or irreversible restriction of high-value assets

(3) maintain tamper-evident logs outside the control of ordinary administrators

(4) monitor anomalous bulk access and changes while respecting workforce privacy

(5) provide protected reporting channels and anti-retaliation safeguards

(6) conduct forensic preservation and independent review after a material integrity event

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the NARA Inspector General, CISA, NIST, labor representatives, privacy officers, and archivists.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report privileged actions, anomalies, investigations, substantiated events, and corrective actions.

SEC. 1603. SENSITIVE AND CLASSIFIED INFORMATION.

(a) An asset containing classified, controlled unclassified, law-enforcement-sensitive, export-controlled, or security-sensitive information shall be handled only in an authorized environment.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) apply existing classification, declassification, records, export-control, and safeguarding law

(2) segregate classified source from unclassified metadata and derivatives

(3) conduct declassification and release review on applicable schedules

(4) avoid public 3D or immersive release of exploitable security details even when ordinary photographs exist

(5) maintain provenance across redacted and downgraded versions

(6) prevent a restriction from being used to conceal unlawful conduct or avoid mandatory review

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with originating agencies, the Information Security Oversight Office, security officials, historians, civil-liberties officials, and inspectors general.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report classified assets, reviews due and completed, declassification, redactions, and overdue cases.

SEC. 1604. PRIVACY-PRESERVING IDENTITY AND ACCESS.

(a) Restricted systems shall collect only identity information necessary to administer access and accountability.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) offer federated, institutional, pseudonymous, or community-issued credentials where risk permits

(2) avoid requiring social security numbers or commercial identity profiles for ordinary public access

(3) separate access credentials from research content and browsing history

(4) provide role and attribute-based access for community-governed collections

(5) publish retention and audit rules

(6) permit human review of automated access denials

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with NIST, privacy officers, Tribes, libraries, civil-liberties groups, researchers, and identity experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report credential types, data collected, denials, appeals, incidents, and retention.

SEC. 1605. SUPPLY-CHAIN AND FOREIGN INFLUENCE RISK.

(a) The Archivist and CISA shall assess material technology and financing dependencies that could compromise preservation integrity or continuity.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) review critical hardware, firmware, software, libraries, codecs, certificate authorities, cloud services, and maintenance providers

(2) require software bills of materials and vulnerability disclosure for material systems where appropriate

(3) avoid nationality-based exclusion unsupported by risk and law

(4) evaluate coercive control, sanctions, surveillance, intellectual-property theft, remote access, and single-source dependency

(5) maintain alternative suppliers or recovery strategies for critical functions

(6) disclose major nonfederal funders and contractual influence over public experiences

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with CISA, NIST, GSA, intelligence officials, competition authorities, vendors, open-source communities, and civil-liberties experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report critical dependencies, mitigations, single sources, vulnerabilities, and influence disclosures.

SEC. 1606. LONG-TERM CRYPTOGRAPHY AND KEY STEWARDSHIP.

(a) NIST and the Archivist shall plan for cryptographic obsolescence and century-scale access.

(b) The Director of NIST shall—

(1) maintain cryptographic agility and post-quantum migration plans

(2) separate integrity signatures from access encryption and preserve validation context

(3) use split knowledge, escrow, succession, and recovery for critical keys

(4) prevent permanent loss caused by a deceased contributor, dissolved organization, or failed vendor where the agreement permits future access

(5) log and authorize every key recovery

(6) re-sign or timestamp authenticity records before algorithms become unreliable

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of NIST shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of NIST shall consult with CISA, NIST cryptographers, archivists, rights holders, Tribes, privacy experts, and vendors.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report algorithms, assets at risk, migrations, key recoveries, and failed decryptions.

SEC. 1607. NO GENERALIZED SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY.

(a) Nothing in this Act authorizes real-time facial recognition, persistent tracking, social-graph analysis, predictive policing, protest monitoring, immigration watchlisting, or population surveillance.

(b) Law-enforcement access to nonpublic program records requires legal process otherwise applicable to the record. The Archive shall publish aggregate transparency reports on demands, except where prohibited.

(c) Historic research using lawfully open records is not prohibited, but the institution shall assess and mitigate foreseeable reidentification or harassment risks.

A national preservation capacity that can outlast today’s devices

SEC. 1701. NATIONAL PRESERVATION WORKFORCE STRATEGY.

(a) The Archivist, Secretary of Labor, and Secretary of Education shall publish and implement a workforce strategy.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) identify occupations, competencies, shortages, pay barriers, geographic gaps, career ladders, and future needs

(2) cover archivists, conservators, librarians, historians, curators, oral historians, linguists, capture technicians, surveyors, engineers, software preservation specialists, accessibility experts, cybersecurity staff, rights professionals, emergency responders, and community experts

(3) support apprenticeships, registered apprenticeships where suitable, fellowships, reskilling, midcareer entry, and continuing education

(4) recognize community and traditional expertise without requiring unnecessary degrees

(5) improve recruitment and retention in rural, Tribal, territorial, and high-cost locations

(6) publish model position descriptions and competency frameworks

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with labor organizations, professional associations, Tribes, universities, community colleges, employers, and workers.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report workforce size, vacancies, pay, retention, training, placements, and geographic coverage.

SEC. 1702. TIME PRESERVATION CORPS FELLOWSHIPS.

(a) The Archivist shall establish paid fellowships and service placements known as the Time Preservation Corps.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) place fellows with federal, Tribal, State, local, academic, nonprofit, and community repositories

(2) offer tracks in capture, oral history, language, conservation, emergency response, software, rights, accessibility, education, and community stewardship

(3) pay at least the applicable federal locality-adjusted GS-7 equivalent plus benefits or a higher prevailing professional rate

(4) provide equipment, travel, housing supplement for high-cost or remote placements, mentorship, and training

(5) prioritize applicants from communities and regions underrepresented in preservation professions without unlawful quotas

(6) create conversion and alumni pathways

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with host institutions, labor, professional associations, Tribes, disability organizations, and educational institutions.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report fellows, demographics as lawfully collected, placements, completion, conversion, retention, and host capacity.

SEC. 1703. REGIONAL CAPTURE AND CONSERVATION LABORATORIES.

(a) The Archivist, Smithsonian, NPS, and IMLS shall support regional laboratories serving multiple institutions.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) provide laser scanning, photogrammetry, volumetric, audio, spectral imaging, digitization, conservation, data processing, and training capacity

(2) use mobile units and equipment lending to serve remote communities

(3) publish transparent scheduling and cost policies

(4) provide subsidized or free services to small institutions

(5) maintain calibration, quality, cybersecurity, accessibility, and environmental standards

(6) permit university and private partners under agreements preserving public access and vendor neutrality

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with regional institutions, Tribes, States, universities, unions, small businesses, and communities.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report laboratories, service regions, projects, equipment utilization, wait time, and small-institution share.

SEC. 1704. RESEARCH, PRIZES, AND OPEN TOOLS.

(a) NSF, NEH, NIST, and the Archivist shall fund research and challenge prizes for preservation technology and methods.

(b) The Director of NSF shall—

(1) support durable storage, compression, authenticity, format identification, emulation, accessible immersion, low-cost capture, ethical AI restoration, language tools, privacy, cultural governance, environmental efficiency, and disaster salvage

(2) require reproducible evaluation and preservation of research outputs

(3) prefer open standards and require an open-source plan where public value exceeds proprietary justification

(4) support humanities and community evaluation, not only technical benchmarks

(5) fund test collections that are rights-cleared and representative

(6) use prizes only where success criteria and post-award stewardship are clear

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Director of NSF shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Director of NSF shall consult with NIST, NEH, researchers, communities, memory institutions, disability experts, labor, startups, and established vendors.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report awards, tools, standards, publications, adoption, accessibility, and commercialization.

SEC. 1705. SMALL BUSINESS AND COMPETITION.

(a) Federal procurement and grants under this Act shall promote competitive, diverse, and resilient markets.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) unbundle procurements where modular competition improves value and interoperability

(2) use small-business innovation programs, challenge-based acquisition, pilots, and shared test environments

(3) avoid past-performance requirements that only incumbent mega-vendors can satisfy

(4) require portability, interfaces, data rights, and documentation sufficient for replacement

(5) evaluate total lifecycle and exit cost, not only initial price

(6) monitor consolidation, conflicts, and exclusive arrangements

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Small Business Administration, competition authorities, GSA, small businesses, open-source communities, workers, and memory institutions.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report small-business share, bidders, concentration, switching costs, and performance.

SEC. 1706. LABOR STANDARDS AND ETHICAL CAPTURE.

(a) Construction, installation, and service contracts shall comply with applicable federal labor standards, prevailing-wage requirements, worker-classification law, and collective-bargaining obligations.

(b) Capture shall not require a worker or cultural practitioner to demonstrate an unsafe process. Hazard controls, informed participation, and stop-work authority apply.

(c) Community experts, speakers, narrators, performers, and reviewers shall be compensated fairly when the project budget and context support compensation; an agency shall not presume that cultural labor should be donated.

(d) A recipient shall disclose plans to automate or synthetically replace documented labor using project assets, and such use requires separate authorization under titles XIII and XIV.

Auditable decisions, proportional enforcement, and lawful review

SEC. 1801. INSPECTOR GENERAL OVERSIGHT.

(a) The Inspector General of NARA shall establish a dedicated oversight function for this Act and may coordinate with inspectors general of participating agencies.

(b) The Inspector General of NARA shall—

(1) audit grants, contracts, storage, cybersecurity, authenticity, access restrictions, AI use, privacy, rights, ethics, and program performance

(2) investigate fraud, interference, retaliation, falsification, unauthorized use, and destruction

(3) operate confidential reporting channels for workers, contributors, narrators, communities, and the public

(4) issue public reports with necessary redactions and track recommendations

(5) refer criminal, civil, administrative, ethics, or procurement matters to appropriate authorities

(6) avoid exposing restricted cultural or personal information through oversight publication

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Inspector General of NARA shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Inspector General of NARA shall consult with other inspectors general, GAO, rights holders, Tribes, whistleblowers, privacy and civil-rights officials, and auditors.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report audits, findings, recommendations, recoveries, referrals, retaliation claims, and closure.

SEC. 1802. ANNUAL PUBLIC REPORT AND DASHBOARD.

(a) The Archivist shall submit a consolidated annual report to Congress and maintain a quarterly public performance dashboard.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) report appropriations, obligations, outlays, staffing, grants, contracts, storage, capture, rights, access, geographic and institutional distribution, security, privacy, accessibility, energy, emergency deployments, and research

(2) report targets, actuals, methodology, material variance, corrective action, and known data limitations

(3) distinguish counts of raw files from preservation packages, subjects, experiences, and meaningful public use

(4) publish machine-readable data with privacy and cultural protections

(5) include independent views from the Standards Board, Advisory Assembly, and Inspector General

(6) preserve reports permanently in the Archive

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with OMB, GAO, inspectors general, Congress, program agencies, and public users.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report report timeliness, completeness, data quality, corrections, and public use.

SEC. 1803. ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLAINTS AND APPEALS.

(a) The Archivist shall create a unified process for complaints concerning rights, privacy, cultural protocol, authenticity, access, grants procedure, accessibility, and prohibited interference.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) route subject-matter decisions to qualified officials while giving the complainant one intake point

(2) provide emergency temporary restriction where specific irreparable harm is credible

(3) state evidence, burden, decision deadline, available relief, and appeal rights

(4) permit confidential evidence and protective handling

(5) provide an appeal to an official independent of the initial decision

(6) publish redacted precedential decisions and processing statistics

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with the Department of Justice, rights holders, Tribes, civil-rights and disability officials, grantees, and the public.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report complaints by type, resolution time, interim relief, outcomes, appeals, and compliance.

SEC. 1804. CIVIL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ENFORCEMENT.

(a) After notice and an opportunity for hearing, the responsible agency may impose corrective action, suspension, termination, repayment, damages authorized by contract, decertification, exclusion from access, or debarment referral for a material violation.

(b) A person who knowingly and materially falsifies an authenticity record, labels synthetic material as authentic, uses restricted assets for unauthorized model training, or obtains access by fraud is liable to the United States for a civil penalty not exceeding $50,000 per violation or twice the measurable financial gain, whichever is greater, adjusted for inflation.

(c) The agency shall consider intent, harm, benefit, cooperation, cure, history, ability to pay, small-entity status, cultural consequence, and deterrence. A good-faith technical error promptly corrected is not subject to a punitive penalty absent substantial negligence or harm.

(d) Penalties do not displace copyright, privacy, contract, fraud, computer-crime, civil-rights, or other remedies.

SEC. 1805. JUDICIAL REVIEW.

(a) Final agency action under this Act is reviewable under chapter 7 of title 5, United States Code, unless another statute provides a more specific review scheme.

(b) A person suffering concrete injury from an alleged violation of sections 802, 804, 1305, 1306, 1308, 1402, or 1607 may seek declaratory or injunctive relief against the responsible federal official after exhaustion of the expedited administrative process, except exhaustion is excused for imminent irreparable harm.

(c) Nothing in this Act waives sovereign immunity for money damages except as otherwise expressly provided by law, creates damages liability for good-faith curatorial judgment, or limits a right of action existing independently of this Act.

SEC. 1806. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE EVALUATIONS.

(a) GAO shall evaluate implementation after 3, 5, and 10 years.

(b) The Comptroller General shall—

(1) assess governance, duplication, grants equity, technology, lifecycle costs, cybersecurity, rights compliance, AI integrity, access, workforce, environmental performance, and measurable preservation outcomes

(2) compare alternative institutional and technical models

(3) identify unfunded liabilities, vendor lock-in, underrepresented history, and ineffective requirements

(4) consult affected communities and small institutions, not only federal officials and major contractors

(5) make recommendations for authorization, appropriation, consolidation, or repeal

(6) submit reports to the committees of jurisdiction and publish them

(c) Not later than 3 years after enactment for the first evaluation, the Comptroller General shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Comptroller General shall consult with program agencies, Congress, grantees, Tribes, rights holders, workers, researchers, and users.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report recommendations, agency agreement, implementation, and unresolved high-risk issues.

A funded national system with lifecycle discipline and transparent allocation

SEC. 1901. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

(a) There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this Act $1,550,000,000 for fiscal year 2027, $2,050,000,000 for fiscal year 2028, $2,450,000,000 for fiscal year 2029, $2,700,000,000 for fiscal year 2030, and $2,850,000,000 for fiscal year 2031.

(b) For each of fiscal years 2032 through 2036, there are authorized to be appropriated $2,650,000,000, adjusted by the annual percentage change in the gross domestic product price index, for continued operations, grants, migration, access, workforce, emergency response, and technology refresh.

(c) Amounts for permanent preservation infrastructure, grants with multi-year periods, emergency caches, and format migration remain available until expended when specified in appropriations Acts.

(d) Authorization does not guarantee appropriation. Agencies shall scale new ingest and public-service commitments to credible lifecycle resources and shall disclose any preservation liability created without full funding.

SEC. 1902. TIME PRESERVATION FUND.

(a) There is established in the Treasury a Time Preservation Fund consisting of appropriations, gifts accepted under section 1905, reimbursements, licensing receipts, recoveries, and other amounts made available by law.

(b) Subject to appropriations law, amounts are available for preservation, migration, emergency response, public access, and grants and may not be used for partisan communication or unrelated agency operations.

(c) The Archivist shall maintain separate accounts for federal operations, grants, emergency response, technology refresh, and restricted gifts and shall publish quarterly obligations and outlays.

SEC. 1903. ALLOCATION FLOORS AND CEILINGS.

(a) Of appropriated program funds over the first 10 fiscal years, the Archivist shall seek the following portfolio ranges, subject to annual Acts: 22 to 30 percent for local, Tribal, territorial, and community grants; 18 to 25 percent for Memory Cloud and preservation infrastructure; 14 to 20 percent for capture and federal stewardship; 7 to 11 percent for languages and oral history; 6 to 10 percent for climate and natural memory; 5 to 8 percent for emergency capacity; 4 to 7 percent for workforce and research; and not more than 8 percent for central administration.

(b) At least 5 percent of total grant funds shall support Tribal and Native Hawaiian projects, without limiting eligibility for other funds. At least 12 percent shall support rural, remote, territorial, or organizations under $1,000,000 annual operating budget.

(c) The Archivist may vary a range by up to 5 percentage points for emergency, appropriations, demand, or readiness reasons, but shall explain the variance publicly and notify Congress.

SEC. 1904. LIFECYCLE COST AND CAPITAL PLANNING.

(a) OMB and the Archivist shall require total-lifecycle estimates for material systems and collection commitments.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) include capture, ingest, description, rights, storage, integrity, cybersecurity, migration, egress, access, accessibility, energy, facilities, staff, and decommissioning

(2) distinguish one-time capital, recurring operations, contingent liabilities, and third-party royalty

(3) use sensitivity analysis for data growth, vendor pricing, energy, utilization, and refresh cycles

(4) require an exit plan and funded transition reserve for major contracts

(5) compare cloud, federal, institutional, hybrid, and shared-service options

(6) publish nonproprietary cost models and update actuals

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with OMB, GAO, GSA, agencies, repositories, vendors, economists, and budget experts.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report estimate accuracy, lifecycle liabilities, reserves, unit costs, and corrective action.

SEC. 1905. GIFTS, PARTNERSHIPS, AND EARNED REVENUE.

(a) The Archivist and participating federal cultural institutions may accept gifts of money, property, services, equipment, rights, or data for purposes of this Act, subject to ethics, security, rights, and curatorial independence review.

(b) A gift agreement shall disclose donor restrictions, naming, access, data use, term, and reversion. No gift may conceal evidence, purchase historical endorsement, require partisan content, or impose a perpetual proprietary dependency inconsistent with public value.

(c) Licensing, service, and exhibition receipts may be retained and used for rights payments, preservation, access, and maintenance to the extent provided in appropriations Acts. Public-domain status shall not be obscured to generate revenue.

SEC. 1906. PROCUREMENT AND FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY.

(a) Material contracts and grants shall be disclosed in a searchable public register.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) publish recipient or contractor, amount, purpose, period, procurement method, major subcontractors, data and intellectual-property terms, portability, and performance status

(2) protect trade secrets, security, personal data, and culturally sensitive information narrowly

(3) require beneficial ownership and conflict disclosure as applicable

(4) publish sole-source and limited-competition justifications

(5) track modifications, overruns, service credits, terminations, and transition costs

(6) link each award to public deliverables or a lawful reason for restriction

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with GSA, OMB, inspectors general, competition authorities, recipients, contractors, and transparency organizations.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report awards, competition, modifications, overruns, disclosure, and performance.

SEC. 1907. NO UNAUTHORIZED EARMARKING OR SUBSTITUTION.

(a) An agency may not reduce an existing cultural, archival, language, preservation, museum, library, park, science, or emergency program solely because this Act authorizes related activity unless Congress expressly directs the reduction.

(b) No officer may reserve grant funds for a named nonfederal entity absent statutory direction or a competitive or formula process authorized by law.

(c) Shared infrastructure may replace duplicative technology only after rights, custody, access, continuity, cost, and mission requirements are documented.

Phased execution, legal coordination, review, and durability

SEC. 2001. PHASED IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE.

(a) Within 90 days: establish the Interagency Council; designate implementation leads; freeze no existing preservation activity; identify urgent legal and operational gaps.

(b) Within 6 months: establish the Office; begin emergency nominations; publish interim contributor, rights, privacy, and capture guidance; initiate workforce hiring.

(c) Within 1 year: publish the first national strategy; launch pilot grants; establish the Corps; issue initial NIST framework; begin Memory Cloud procurement and prototype federation.

(d) Within 2 years: operate regional capture capacity; accept certified immersive deposits; deploy the initial public catalogue; complete federal asset inventories; conduct a full recovery exercise.

(e) Within 3 years: launch the National Memory Portal, controlled research environments, national education pilots, and nationwide grant cycles; complete the first GAO evaluation.

(f) Within 5 years: complete independent program, civil-rights, cybersecurity, environmental, and fiscal reviews; revise authorities and standards; publish a 30-year lifecycle plan.

SEC. 2002. RULEMAKING AND PUBLIC PARTICIPATION.

(a) The Archivist and each responsible agency may issue regulations necessary to carry out assigned provisions.

(b) The Archivist shall—

(1) use notice-and-comment rulemaking for substantive rights, restrictions, grants, penalties, certification, and access standards

(2) conduct negotiated or structured consultation for Tribal, cultural, copyright, performance, privacy, and technical matters where useful

(3) publish plain-language summaries, accessible formats, and responses to material comments

(4) provide at least 60 days for public comment absent documented urgency

(5) issue interim final rules only for urgent preservation, cybersecurity, disaster, or statutory-deadline needs and promptly seek comment

(6) review rules at least every 5 years for necessity, burden, rights impact, and technological change

(c) Not later than 18 months after enactment, the Archivist shall issue public implementation guidance or regulations, as applicable, after notice and an opportunity for public comment.

(d) In carrying out this section, the Archivist shall consult with affected agencies, Tribes, State and local governments, regulated parties, beneficiaries, rights holders, civil-society organizations, and the public.

(f) The annual report under section 1802 shall report rules, consultation, comments, deadlines, petitions, and review outcomes.

SEC. 2003. FEDERALISM, PREEMPTION, AND LOCAL AUTHORITY.

(a) This Act does not preempt a State, Tribal, territorial, or local law that provides equal or greater protection for privacy, publicity, cultural heritage, burial sites, historic places, consumer rights, labor, environment, or intellectual property, except where compliance would make a federal records duty or expressly authorized federal preservation act impossible.

(b) No State or local government is required to participate. A participating government is bound only by clear grant, contract, deposit, or cooperative-agreement terms it knowingly accepts.

(c) Nothing diminishes Tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, trust responsibilities, or jurisdiction.

SEC. 2004. RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER LAWS AND PROGRAMS.

(a) This Act supplements and does not displace the Federal Records Act, Presidential Records Act, National Historic Preservation Act, NAGPRA, Archaeological Resources Protection Act, Native American Languages Act, Museum and Library Services Act, National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, Copyright Act, Privacy Act, Freedom of Information Act, Rehabilitation Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Federal Information Security Modernization Act, Stafford Act, or other applicable law.

(b) Where duties overlap, agencies shall use shared inventories, portals, grants systems, standards, audits, and infrastructure to the extent consistent with custody, rights, and mission.

(c) Nothing requires release of a federal record before the date or process otherwise applicable.

SEC. 2005. SEVERABILITY.

(a) If any provision of this Act, an amendment made by this Act, or the application of a provision to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder and other applications shall not be affected.

(b) Congress intends that preservation-only authority, voluntary grants and deposits, public access, and AI-authenticity protections operate independently to the maximum lawful extent.

SEC. 2006. EFFECTIVE DATES AND TRANSITION.

(a) Except as otherwise provided, this Act takes effect 180 days after enactment.

(b) Sections establishing offices, councils, planning, appropriations authority, emergency nominations, and rulemaking authority take effect on enactment.

(c) A preexisting agreement is not impaired. An agency may invite a party to amend the agreement to use the Archive or Memory Cloud.

(d) No asset shall be denied preservation solely because final standards are pending; interim standards shall preserve raw sources and document uncertainty.

SEC. 2007. FIVE-YEAR REVIEW; AUTHORIZATION RENEWAL; NO DESTRUCTION SUNSET.

(a) Not later than 5 years after enactment, the Archivist shall submit a reauthorization proposal informed by GAO, Inspector General, Standards Board, Advisory Assembly, rights-holder, Tribal, community, workforce, and public review.

(b) Program authorities remain in effect unless repealed. Authorizations of appropriations after fiscal year 2036 require renewal, but expiration of an authorization does not authorize destruction, abandonment, or loss of custody of preserved assets.

(c) The United States remains responsible for lawful stewardship of assets accepted as permanent federal holdings, subject to transfer, repatriation, return, and deaccession provisions.

How the statutory architecture works in practice

Defines a broad but disciplined subject: civilization includes tangible places, intangible practices, natural systems, civic institutions, creative works, and ordinary life. The findings support spending, records, property, copyright, commerce, courts, and necessary-and-proper authority. The rules of construction expressly reject commandeering, compelled speech, warrantless entry, and vague grant conditions.

Places the lead office inside NARA, where provenance and permanent custody belong, but prevents NARA from monopolizing subject expertise. The Interagency Council aligns agencies; the independent Standards Board disciplines technology and authenticity; the compensated Community Assembly identifies what elite institutions miss. Ethics provisions address donor capture and partisan manipulation.

Creates a federated archive rather than a compulsory national database. Contributors may retain custody. Every asset carries a rights and access class; every certified asset has a source package. Citizen contribution is welcomed but moderated, rights-aware, and correctable. Deaccession is narrow and auditable.

Treats preservation as infrastructure with recovery, not merely storage. Requirements for multiple administrators, isolated recovery, fixity, migration, emulation, environmental accounting, and vendor exit respond to the principal ways digital archives fail over decades.

Assigns NIST outcome-based standards and NPS documentation practice. Immersive capture includes geometry, sound, time, movement, calibration, context, uncertainty, and accessibility. Certification attaches to quality and provenance, not a product brand. Truthful-presentation rules make evidence distinguishable from reconstruction.

Operationalizes the theme through places, immigrant neighborhoods, everyday-life sampling, disappearing industries, performance, public movements, courts, inaugurations, science, and objects. Each program includes a rights and security lane. Digital preservation supplements physical preservation and never excuses demolition or neglect.

Builds on successful Library of Congress oral-history models but expands them beyond single subjects. Narrators receive continuing agency, not an opaque one-time release. Urgent capture has rapid deadlines, while minors, survivors, and high-risk narrators receive additional safeguards.

Separates ordinary language preservation from Indigenous cultural governance. Tribal and Native Hawaiian authorities choose custody, access, and permitted reuse. Public listening does not imply AI training. Revitalization and everyday use matter as much as archival documentation.

Creates baselines before ecological and cultural change makes comparison impossible. Natural memory includes sound, seasonality, relationships, specimens, sensors, and community knowledge. The Act expressly says a digital record is not a substitute for an ecosystem, home, or sacred place.

Converts the FEMA-Smithsonian heritage task-force concept into deployable capacity with regional teams, reservists, equipment caches, safety, incident command, consent, chain of custody, and pre-disaster grants.

Makes local scale possible. Microgrants, formula capacity, match waivers, indirect costs, advance payment, reviewer compensation, and rural accommodations are designed to keep federal process from selecting only institutions already fluent in federal grants.

Gives each institution the job it is best equipped to do: Smithsonian for public experience; Library of Congress for formats, deposit, and creative culture; NPS for places; NARA for federal records; NEH and IMLS for grants. Common infrastructure reduces duplication without collapsing institutional missions.

Uses a preservation-first/access-later structure. Proposed 17 U.S.C. §108A permits secure reproduction, migration, emulation, and limited controlled research, while public use still needs a license or other authority. Specific rules cover performance, likeness, privacy, NAGPRA, culturally sensitive information, and property entry.

Permits useful restoration but creates grades, provenance, model documentation, human review, challenges, and a direct prohibition on passing synthesis off as authentic capture. The bill avoids freezing a particular commercial provenance technology.

Requires free ordinary public access, accessibility, multilingual presentation, library gateways, responsible APIs, and secure research. It permits narrowly defined cost recovery and commercial licenses while banning behavioral advertising and political microtargeting.

Protects not only confidentiality but archival integrity and availability. The title addresses insiders, supply chain, cryptographic aging, classified material, identity minimization, and a categorical refusal to create new generalized surveillance authority.

Treats community experts and preservation workers as skilled labor. Paid fellowships, regional labs, apprenticeships, open tools, small-business competition, and safe work practices create durable capacity rather than one-off digitization campaigns.

Titles XVIII–XX — Accountability and execution

Create Inspector General and GAO review, public reporting, complaints, proportional penalties, APA review, transparent appropriations, lifecycle cost estimates, phased deadlines, clear federalism, savings clauses, and severability. Preserved assets do not disappear merely because a future authorization expires.

Authority, rights burdens, standards of review, tailoring, and litigation exposure

Bottom line

The core of the Act—federal archives and museums, federal records, voluntary grants, voluntary deposits, public-domain access, standards, research, procurement, and disaster assistance—is constitutionally strong. The material litigation risks lie at the edges: copyright limitations, culturally based access rules, grant selection involving expressive content, privacy and likeness, FOIA withholding, and any attempt to mandate state or judicial participation. The draft narrows those risks through explicit authority, opt-in participation, content-neutral procedures, preservation/access separation, due process, judicial review, and severability.

First Amendment and curatorial independence

Archives and museums necessarily select. A federal program may define what it funds, but it may not turn “historical significance” into a loyalty test or remove otherwise eligible material because officials dislike its viewpoint. The Act therefore uses published, plural criteria; treats selection as nonendorsement; compensates diverse expert review; documents overrides; and creates challenge and audit mechanisms. These features reduce the risk that a change in administration converts the Archive into official propaganda. They also protect curators from donor and political pressure.

The bill supports religious, political, artistic, and activist material for historical and educational purposes. Neutral access to a secular preservation program does not itself establish religion or endorse a political movement. The more difficult questions arise in description and public interpretation. The Act requires sources, uncertainty, and the distinction between institutional interpretation and archive evidence, rather than pretending the government can produce a single uncontested national story.

Copyright and the preservation/access distinction

Current 17 U.S.C. §108 permits specified library and archive copying, including limited preservation copies, but restricts digital distribution and does not function as a general mass-digitization license. Immersive preservation can implicate reproduction, adaptation, public display, public performance, software access, and anti-circumvention. The proposed §108A addresses only technically necessary reproduction, extraction, migration, emulation, secure research, and preservation. It leaves public distribution to existing law or license. That narrowness is the difference between a credible preservation exception and a government-created free streaming service for copyrighted culture.

Broadway and other performance receive a voluntary deposit system because a production may contain a web of rights: script, score, choreography, direction, design, costumes, music, performances, union agreements, venue, publicity, and underlying works. The model license is modular; preservation does not authorize a synthetic performer or substitute exhibition. Committee counsel should refer §108A and orphan-licensing provisions to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and obtain Copyright Office testimony before markup.

Privacy, likeness, and public-space capture

The Constitution does not create a general right to control all observation in public, but immersive capture changes practical risk because it can preserve faces, voices, precise location, bystanders, and surroundings at high resolution. The bill treats large-scale or biometric capture as privacy-sensitive, bars generalized surveillance, requires objections and minimization, and permits lower-resolution or deidentified public derivatives. Entry into homes and other nonpublic property requires consent or independent legal authority. Performance and deliberate digital-replica capture use express, separately stated permissions.

Indigenous and culturally sensitive knowledge

Conventional intellectual-property law often does not map cleanly onto collective, intergenerational, sacred, or role-restricted knowledge. The Act does not attempt to declare a new universal federal property right in all traditional knowledge. It instead uses federal custody rules, direct grants, stewardship agreements, access controls, a narrow FOIA provision, NAGPRA compliance, and explicit permission for AI training. For federally recognized Tribes, these rules rest on the government-to-government relationship and Congress’s Indian affairs authority. Native Hawaiian provisions warrant careful committee findings tying the program to existing statutory relationships and specific cultural stewardship purposes.

Administrative law and nondelegation

NIST and the Archivist receive substantial technical discretion, but Congress supplies intelligible principles: authenticity, preservation, access, rights, open standards, proportional risk, and specific required elements. Binding rules affecting rights or penalties require notice-and-comment. Standards may incorporate external technical work only through a transparent federal adoption process and free public availability or reasonable access. Final action is reviewable under the APA.

Most important amendments before introduction

Have the Copyright Office produce redline codification and treaty analysis for §108A, orphan licensing, and anti-circumvention interactions.

Ask the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and Judicial Conference to review section 607 and identify records, sealing, and courtroom-policy changes they would accept.

Develop formal Tribal consultation language and, if requested, separate statutory authority for community-controlled encryption, return, and Traditional Knowledge labels.

Coordinate the FOIA provision with the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy so it qualifies as a precise Exemption 3 statute and does not swallow segregability.

Reconcile civil penalties and debarment processes with existing agency authorities and the Civil Monetary Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act.

Obtain a privacy analysis of the Everyday American Life Census, including whether identifiable research records need a bespoke confidentiality statute comparable to stronger statistical protections.

Provide explicit appropriations committee account structure and score the fund mechanics to avoid accidental direct spending.

Order-of-magnitude cost ranges, not a CBO score

Scoring caveat

This estimate is a policy-planning model in constant 2026 dollars. It is not an official estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, Office of Management and Budget, or any agency. Actual outlays depend on annual appropriations, federal pay, grant demand, data volumes, rights costs, procurement choices, storage and energy prices, construction, cybersecurity, and how much existing infrastructure can be shared.

The base case roughly tracks the statutory authorization: a ramp from $1.55 billion to $2.85 billion annually, followed by mature operations near $2.65 billion in constant dollars. Thirty-year cost is higher than a simple 10-year multiple because successive refresh and migration cycles, replacement of capture equipment, security modernization, and cumulative permanent holdings create recurring obligations.

Illustrative mature-year allocation

Staffing model

The base case assumes approximately 1,850 additional federal full-time equivalents across NARA, NPS, Smithsonian, Library of Congress, FEMA, NIST, NEH, IMLS, and partner science agencies at maturity, plus 1,500 to 2,500 fellows, reservists, seasonal staff, and term appointments. Most funded labor would remain outside the federal workforce through grants, universities, Tribes, State and local institutions, nonprofit repositories, unions, and contractors. Central administration is capped to prevent the program from becoming a headquarters-heavy grant pass-through.

Economic and budget effects

Direct federal spending: personnel, contracts, grants, equipment, storage, facilities, cybersecurity, travel, rights administration, and emergency missions.

Private and subnational effects: optional match for larger institutions, compliance records, staff time, power and connectivity, rights negotiation, and ongoing custody. Match waivers and shared services reduce burden on small entities.

Potential savings: shared storage and procurement, avoided duplicate scans, lower disaster loss, faster format migration, and reuse of open assets. These are real possibilities but should not be booked as federal savings without evidence.

Potential receipts: service fees, commercial licenses, gifts, and reimbursements. The base score assumes modest receipts and does not use them to justify core stewardship.

Macroeconomic value: cultural tourism, education, research, creative reuse, preservation technology, and skilled jobs. These benefits are not counted as direct budget offsets.

Risk of cost growth: accepting vast high-resolution data without lifecycle pricing. Sections 402, 408, 1903, and 1904 are the principal controls.

Sensitivity analysis

Distributional effects

The allocation floors deliberately move resources beyond Washington and large metropolitan museums. Small-organization reserves, match waivers, direct Tribal awards, territorial minimums, rural accommodations, equipment lending, library gateways, and paid community expertise should produce a progressive distribution of institutional capacity. The main contrary risk is that technologically sophisticated applicants capture early awards. The first two years should therefore emphasize planning, technical assistance, regional shared services, and first-time federal grantees.

Sequencing law, people, standards, infrastructure, capture, and access

Operating workflow

Nominate: a person, community, institution, agency, or risk system identifies a subject and urgency.

Triage: the Office scores risk, significance, representational gap, rights, safety, feasibility, and cost; emergency cases use accelerated review.

Authorize: the lawful owner, custodian, official, rights holder, narrator, Tribe, or community steward agrees to scope and terms, unless independent federal law governs the record.

Plan: the project defines research questions, source context, capture profile, accessibility, privacy, cultural protocol, worker safety, rights, and lifecycle destination.

Capture: trained teams collect raw evidence, calibration, logs, metadata, interviews, and contextual material.

Validate: technical, scholarly, community, rights, accessibility, and security reviews identify error and uncertainty.

Ingest: preservation masters, source packages, rights records, and recovery copies enter certified repositories and the federated catalogue.

Interpret: public experiences are built as separate, versioned derivatives with visible source and reconstruction labels.

Review: fixity, renderability, access restrictions, rights contacts, security, energy, and community conditions are revisited on schedule.

Correct or return: challenges, repatriation, withdrawal, deaccession, and revised context follow recorded, reviewable processes.

Key performance indicators

Who benefits, who bears duties, where opposition forms, and how design changes behavior

Likely coalitions

Support can unite constituencies that do not always share a policy table: archives and museums; libraries and schools; Tribal governments and language advocates; theaters, creators, and unions; universities and technology companies; historic preservation and climate adaptation; rural institutions and urban community archives; veterans, civil-rights historians, and immigrant organizations. That breadth is a strength, but only if the bill resists becoming a collection of earmarked pet projects.

Opposition is most likely from appropriators concerned about cost, rights holders concerned about public substitution, privacy groups concerned about capture and biometrics, States concerned about federal conditions, agencies concerned about inventories and unfunded custody, and vendors opposed to portability or open standards. The bill addresses each concern structurally, but committee negotiations should preserve the source/access distinction, community consent, vendor exit, and lifecycle funding. Those are load-bearing provisions, not decorative safeguards.

What the proposal would mean for the public

Plain-language summary

The Act would build a permanent American “memory system.” It would let future generations walk through accurate digital records of places, hear historic soundscapes, study how machines and ecosystems worked, experience rights-cleared performances, and learn from people’s firsthand memories. It would preserve famous events—such as a launch or inauguration—but also everyday life, immigrant neighborhoods, disappearing jobs, local traditions, dialects, and environments.

The archive would not automatically put everything online. First it would preserve the best available source safely. Then it would provide public access only when copyright, privacy, security, cultural protocol, and consent allow. An original scan or recording would always remain separate from anything repaired or recreated by AI. Every reconstruction would have to say what is known, what is missing, and what was invented or inferred.

Is this just a giant VR museum?

No. VR is one way to experience the material. The core is durable evidence: raw capture, spatial data, sound, records, calibration, context, rights, and provenance. The same sources can support a browser, classroom, research tool, accessible audio experience, exhibit, or future technology that does not exist yet.

Would the government own my family history if I contribute it?

No. Contributor agreements let you retain ownership and choose a preservation license, public access, embargo, attribution, or withdrawal terms. The government receives only the rights you grant or that another law already provides.

Could immigration authorities use neighborhood interviews?

The bill bars program records from being turned into civil immigration-enforcement files, with a narrow judicial-warrant and imminent-harm rule. Projects minimize status information and allow pseudonyms and restricted access.

What about Indigenous ceremonies and sacred knowledge?

A Tribe or Native Hawaiian organization decides whether and how culturally affiliated material participates. It may keep custody, control keys, restrict metadata, limit access by role or season, require return, and refuse AI training.

Can AI make Martin Luther King Jr. say something he never said?

Not under a certified project. AI may clean damaged audio or help reconstruct a setting, but fabricated words, voice, or actions cannot be presented as authentic. The source, method, uncertainty, and alteration grade must remain visible.

Could it preserve a Broadway show?

Yes, through a voluntary performance deposit negotiated with the many rights holders and workers involved. A preservation copy does not automatically authorize public streaming, a new performance, or a digital replica of an actor.

Does a digital scan replace saving the real building or ecosystem?

Absolutely not. The bill repeatedly states that digital documentation supplements physical preservation, conservation, adaptation, and restoration. Sometimes loss will be unavoidable; a digital record keeps evidence, not the living reality.

Will everything be free?

Ordinary public catalogue access and standard public derivatives are free. Rights holders may still charge for copyrighted performances. Extraordinary computing, custom research, physical media, or commercial high-resolution use may carry transparent cost-recovery fees, with waivers.

What keeps one administration from rewriting history?

Immutable preservation masters, external standards, public provenance, a plural Standards Board, a community assembly, inspectors general, GAO audits, recorded decisions, challenges, judicial review, and a ban on partisan interference.

What happens when today’s headsets and file formats are obsolete?

The Memory Cloud keeps original files, documented normalized versions, software dependencies, emulators, fixity checks, multiple geographic copies, an offline recovery copy, and funded migration. Contracts must allow the government to leave a vendor.

How expensive is it?

The proposal authorizes a ramp to roughly $2.7 billion per mature year. The illustrative base estimate is about $11.6 billion over five years and $25.9 billion over ten years in constant 2026 dollars. Congress would still decide annual appropriations.

How can a small local history group participate?

Through microgrants, match waivers, advance payments, equipment lending, regional labs, public-library gateways, fiscal sponsors, simple applications, and paid technical assistance.

Could this become surveillance?

The bill says no. It does not authorize facial-recognition tracking, protest watchlists, predictive policing, immigration watchlisting, or population surveillance. Sensitive capture requires minimization, and private-property entry needs consent or other independent legal authority.

What if an archive gets a fact wrong?

Anyone can submit a correction or authenticity challenge. Credible risk can trigger a temporary notice or restriction. The archive preserves the original version for audit, links corrections, and publishes reviewable decisions.

Why preserve ordinary life?

Because ordinary life is the part of history most likely to disappear and the part future people may find most revealing: how homes felt, how people commuted, spoke, worked, shopped, cared for others, celebrated, argued, and adapted.

Primary sources and standards informing the draft

Research synthesis

The draft builds from existing law and practice rather than assuming immersive preservation starts from zero. Federal records law already requires adequate documentation and assigns the Archivist responsibility for electronic records. The National Historic Preservation Act provides State, Tribal, and local preservation structures and grants. NPS Heritage Documentation Programs already combine measured drawings, large-format photographs, historical reports, laser scanning, and photogrammetry. The Smithsonian manages 3D and other digital assets. The Library of Congress maintains recommended format guidance and longstanding oral-history programs. FEMA and Smithsonian already co-sponsor the Heritage Emergency National Task Force. The Act connects and expands these capacities, adds missing rights and authenticity rules, and funds lifecycle infrastructure.

Digital preservation authorities emphasize that preservation is continuous management, not a one-time scan. NARA’s strategy stresses trustworthy repositories, original retention, transformation that preserves significant properties, authenticity, and preservation metadata. Library of Congress format guidance evaluates characteristics that support long-term survival and accessibility. UNESCO’s documentary and digital heritage instruments similarly emphasize authenticity, reliability, ongoing management, broad representation, and lawful access. These principles appear throughout titles III through V and XVI.

The AI provisions draw on NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework and generative-AI profile, especially provenance, transparency, testing, human oversight, and the risk that synthetic media undermines trust. The bill does not mandate a single provenance vendor. It permits standards such as C2PA when interoperable and suitable, while preserving the deeper archival chain of custody that content credentials alone cannot provide.

The cultural-rights provisions respond to NAGPRA, Native American language policy, and the practical reality that some information is not appropriately governed by public-domain assumptions. The draft’s approach is stewardship and consent rather than federal appropriation. The performance and copyright provisions respond to current section 108’s limited preservation copying and the Copyright Office’s longstanding orphan-works and mass-digitization analysis.

Selected primary and institutional sources

1. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 44 U.S.C. ch. 21, National Archives and Records Administration. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title44/chapter21&edition=prelim

2. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 44 U.S.C. §§ 2902, 2904 and ch. 31, federal records management. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title44/chapter29&edition=prelim

3. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 54 U.S.C. subtitle III, National Preservation Programs. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title54/subtitle3&edition=prelim

4. National Park Service, Heritage Documentation Programs and HABS/HAER/HALS overview. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/heritagedocumentation/index.htm

5. National Park Service, Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Architectural and Engineering Documentation. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/heritagedocumentation/soi-standards-guidelines.htm

6. National Park Service, Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/upload/NPS-2016_Cultural-resoures-climate-change-strategy.pdf

7. National Archives, Digital Preservation Strategy 2022–2026. https://www.archives.gov/files/preservation/digital-preservation/digital-preservation-strategy-2022-2026.pdf

8. National Archives, Digital Preservation Framework and file-format resources. https://www.archives.gov/preservation/digital-preservation

9. Library of Congress, Recommended Formats Statement 2025–2026. https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rfs/

10. Library of Congress, Sustainability of Digital Formats. https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/

11. Smithsonian Institution, SD 600 Collections Management (2024). https://www.si.edu/sites/default/files/about/SD600.pdf

12. Smithsonian Institution, Stewarding the Invisible: Institution-Wide Digital Preservation. https://siarchives.si.edu/sites/default/files/pdfs/SI-DigitalPreservationAssessment_Final_2016-11-15_compressed.pdf

13. FEMA, Heritage Emergency National Task Force. https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/practitioners/environmental-historic/heritage-task-force

14. National Endowment for the Humanities, Protecting Our Cultural Heritage. https://www.neh.gov/grants/protecting-our-cultural-heritage

15. Institute of Museum and Library Services, FY 2022–2026 Strategic Plan. https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/imls-strategic-plan-2022-2026.pdf

16. Library of Congress, Veterans History Project. https://www.loc.gov/programs/veterans-history-project/about-this-program/

17. Library of Congress, Civil Rights History Project. https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/about-this-collection/

18. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 25 U.S.C. § 2903, Native American language policy. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title25-section2903&num=0&edition=prelim

19. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 25 U.S.C. ch. 32, NAGPRA. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title25/chapter32&edition=prelim

20. National Park Service, NAGPRA program. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/nagpra/

21. Office of the Law Revision Counsel, 17 U.S.C. §§ 107–108. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title17/chapter1&edition=prelim

22. U.S. Copyright Office, Orphan Works and Mass Digitization report (2015). https://www.copyright.gov/orphan/reports/orphan-works2015.pdf

23. NIST, Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework 1.0. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ai/nist.ai.100-1.pdf

24. NIST, Generative Artificial Intelligence Profile, NIST AI 600-1. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ai/NIST.AI.600-1.pdf

25. NIST, Reducing Risks Posed by Synthetic Content, NIST AI 100-4. https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ai/NIST.AI.100-4.pdf

26. C2PA, Content Credentials technical specifications. https://spec.c2pa.org/specifications/specifications/2.4/index.html

27. UNESCO, 2015 Recommendation on Documentary Heritage, Including in Digital Form. https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/recommendation-concerning-preservation-and-access-documentary-heritage-including-digital-form

28. UNESCO, Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage. https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/charter-preservation-digital-heritage

29. UNESCO, Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Basic Texts. https://ich.unesco.org/doc/src/2003_Convention_Basic_Texts_2024_version_EN.pdf

30. Constitution Annotated, Anti-Commandeering Doctrine. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt10-4-2/ALDE_00013627/

31. Constitution Annotated, Spending Clause Anti-Coercion Requirement. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C1-2-6/ALDE_00013361/

32. Constitution Annotated, Selective Funding Arrangements and the First Amendment. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt1-7-15-6/ALDE_00001278/

33. National Archives, FY 2026 Congressional Justification. https://www.archives.gov/files/about/plans-reports/performance-budget/2026-nara-congressional-justification.pdf

34. Institute of Museum and Library Services, FY 2025 Congressional Justification. https://www.imls.gov/sites/default/files/2024-03/fy25cj.pdf

35. Smithsonian Institution, FY 2026 Budget Request to Congress. https://www.si.edu/sites/default/files/about/fy2026-budgetrequestcongress.pdf

Citation note

Sources were reviewed for the policy and legal architecture as of July 20, 2026. Statutory links should be rechecked against the enrolled bill date and any intervening amendments before introduction. Technical standards should be incorporated by version or through a controlled federal adoption process, because standards and recommended formats change over time.

Legislative counsel self-audit

Final counsel conclusion

The Time Preservation Act is legislatively viable as a major federal cultural, scientific, educational, and infrastructure initiative. Its central concept is not futuristic decoration; it is a response to a familiar archival problem at a new scale. Evidence disappears. Formats rot. Institutions close. Witnesses die. Places burn or flood. Ecosystems change. Software stops running. Rights become harder to identify. And synthetic media makes authentic provenance more valuable, not less.

The bill’s durability depends on retaining five load-bearing choices through the legislative process: preserve sources separately from experiences; separate preservation authority from public-access authority; give communities and Tribes real control rather than ceremonial consultation; require open, portable, recoverable infrastructure; and make every AI restoration or reconstruction disclose what is direct evidence and what is inference. If those provisions survive, future generations will inherit a memory system rather than a warehouse of beautiful but unverifiable simulations.