Several billion dollars are spent each year on environmental data collection. It is critical that the nation realize the full benefit from this investment in environmental information.

Modern problems are becoming more complex. It is not unusual for science and policy questions to span several traditional disciplines, several geographic areas, several federal agencies, and other organizational jurisdictions. For example, natural hazards frequently involve environmental data to identify the hazard, to develop a response to the hazard, to mitigate the effects of the hazard, and, if possible, to plan and implement strategies to reduce the hazard in the future. In the business world, inventory composition, just-in-time strategies, product mix, engineering, and strategic planning increasingly require more environmental data, from more sources, and over longer time periods than previously required. Even individuals, who increasingly have access to electronic distribution media, are no longer satisfied with the information traditionally available.

Most agencies are currently developing, or are considering developing, indexes to their data holdings under A-130 . Providing one-stop access to these separate indexes for environmental data and information queries is a high priority task in the design and implementation of the NEDI, which will increase the effectiveness of the collective system. When fully implemented, the NEDI will provide a comprehensive mechanism to integrate individual agency data holdings in a cohesive, distributed system.

The National Performance Review recognized that there is now no single place for a user, expert or novice, to find comprehensive data and information about the environment and designated the development of a National Environmental Data Index (NEDI) as a key element of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). Specifically, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director, John Gibbons, directed NOAA to organize the implementation of this "yellow pages" for environmental data. Environmental data are an important public resource of value to all sectors of the nation. The NEDI will serve as a starting point to provide information for citizens, industry, government, and academia on the availability of a broad range of environmental data. The NEDI further supports the objectives of OMB Circular A-130 by providing a tool to assist the public in locating government environmental data holdings. Also the NEDI will provide a tool for identifying existing activities and thus reduce the potential for duplicate research. With the current proliferation of data discovery systems, the burden on the user is growing. NEDI is to be designed to overcome this problem for the user of environmental data.

The first phase of the NEDI implementation focuses on federal agencies to ensure full and appropriate knowledge of how to access information gathered by the Federal Government . The second phase is to coordinate the indexing of non-federal and international environmental data.

The Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) Task Force on Observations and Data Management (TFODM) established an interagency team to develop the plan for the NEDI. This implementation plan details the steps to be taken to achieve the program objectives. In developing this plan, the working group will ensure unity of purpose and a design compatible with agency systems and with issue-specific systems such as the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Clearinghouse and the Global Change Data and Information System (GCDIS). The goal is to provide a seamless path between them. Other systems such as Fedworld, which have grown up without attention to the special needs of environmental data, will be linked to NEDI, as appropriate. At a minimum, all information resources identified in NEDI will be available to the public in a manner compliant with OMB Bulletin 95-01 and Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 192. OMB Bulletin 95-01 establishes the Government Information Locator Service (GILS) as called for in The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, Information Infrastructure Task Force (September 15, 1993). FIPS Pub 192 is the Application Profile for the Government Information Locator Service (GILS).