S. 4822: Saving the OOI Act of 2026 (119th Congress) Bill Summary

This bill would stop the National Science Foundation (NSF) from using federal money to descope or decommission certain Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) instruments. These are scientific monitoring instruments anchored off the coasts of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and North Carolina, as well as in the Irminger Sea.

What the bill requires

No spending on decommissioning or reducing the system until NSF completes a thorough review of the OOI and the national benefits it provides.
Stakeholder input must be part of that review, including input from scientific and coastal communities.
Current operations must continue in full and consistently during the review period.
If any OOI instruments had already been decommissioned, NSF would need to keep monitoring in those states until the review is finished.

Practical effect

In plain terms, the bill would pause any effort by NSF to shrink or shut down the OOI instrument network and require the agency to keep the system running while it studies whether those instruments should remain in place.

Relevant Companies

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This is an AI-generated summary of the bill text. There may be mistakes.

Actions

6 actions

Date	Action
Jun. 18, 2026	Held at the desk.
Jun. 18, 2026	Message on Senate action sent to the House.
Jun. 18, 2026	Received in the House.
Jun. 17, 2026	Introduced in Senate
Jun. 17, 2026	Introduced in the Senate, read twice, considered, read the third time, and passed without amendment by Voice Vote. (consideration: CR S2885-2886; text: CR S2885-2886)
Jun. 17, 2026	Passed/agreed to in Senate: Introduced in the Senate, read twice, considered, read the third time, and passed without amendment by Voice Vote.

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