15 U.S.C. § 5524 — Department of Commerce activities

(a) General responsibilities. As part of the Program described in subchapter I: (1) NIST must: (A) conduct basic and applied measurement research needed for networking and information-technology systems and capabilities; (B) develop and propose standards and guidelines, measurement techniques, and test methods for those systems’ interoperability and usability; and (C) develop benchmark tests and standards for those systems and software. (2) NOAA must conduct basic and applied research in weather prediction and ocean science, especially new forecast models, computational fluid dynamics, and adding changing computer architectures and networks to systems that perform agency missions. (b) Networking and information-technology security. NIST is responsible for developing and proposing standards and guidelines needed for cost-effective security and privacy of federal-agency information and information systems.