Govwatch

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 10616 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                               H. R. 10616

   To require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a 
          repository of certain publicly available data sets.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 28, 2026

  Mr. Bentz introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on 
 Ways and Means, Education and Workforce, and Natural Resources, for a 
 period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the 
                          committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 
   To require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to create a 
          repository of certain publicly available data sets.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Public Access to HHS Health Data Act 
of 2026''.

SEC. 2. REQUIRING CREATION OF REPOSITORY OF CERTAIN PUBLICLY AVAILABLE 
              DATA SETS.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall 
create on the internet website opendata.hhs.gov (or any successor 
website) a repository of all publicly available data sets generated or 
maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services.
    (b) Data Set Requirements.--Each data set made available through 
the website described in subsection (a) shall--
            (1) be machine-readable (as defined in section 3502 of 
        title 44, United States Code);
            (2) be published in a format accessible to the public;
            (3) be made available for unrestricted access, use, and 
        reuse (including automated processing and bulk access) at no 
        cost; and
            (4) include associated metadata.
    (c) Website Requirements.--The Secretary shall ensure that the 
website described in subsection (a)--
            (1) allows individuals to search, sort, and download the 
        data sets made available through such website at no cost;
            (2) is accessible through standardized application 
        programming interfaces that permit automated, machine-to-
        machine retrieval of such data sets, including bulk download 
        and query-based access mechanisms; and
            (3) is updated on a regular and timely basis.
    (d) Report.--Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment 
of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services shall submit to Congress a report including--
            (1) the number and types of data sets made available 
        through the website described in subsection (a);
            (2) the frequency of updates to such data sets; and
            (3) any legal, technical, operational, financial, or 
        administrative constraints limiting or delaying the publication 
        of additional data sets on the website described in subsection 
        (a), including any constraints relating to privacy, 
        confidentiality, security, data quality, interoperability, 
        interagency data governance, or resource availability.
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Public Access to HHS Health Data Act of 2026

Full Text
