Web of Biological Data Act of 2026
Current understanding
The Web of Biological Data Act of 2026 (S4770) was introduced in the 119th Congress and referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, proposing a coordinated federal framework — a ‘Web of Biological Data’ — for biological-data infrastructure. Public bill text is limited at the introduced stage, so specific individual data-rights provisions (consent, access, downstream research use) and obligations on entities generating, curating, or sharing biological data are not yet characterized. The Energy and Natural Resources referral (rather than Commerce or HELP) suggests the bill is oriented toward biodiversity/ecosystem or federally-held scientific biological data rather than clinical health records, though the scope will need to be confirmed as text becomes available.
Evidence log
- 2026-06-11 — Web of Biological Data Act of 2026: cross-connection with ai-ready-bio-data-standards-act: Both S4770 (Web of Biological Data Act) and S4069 (AI-Ready Bio-Data Standards Act) target federal biological-data infrastructure in the 119th Congress but on different committee tracks (Energy and Natural Resources vs. Commerce, Science, and Transportation), suggesting a fragmented committee jurisdiction over bio-data governance. (novelty: 3)