Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and House have proposed making freely available thousands of reports produced annually for lawmakers.
Sens. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Reps. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) introduced legislation on Thursday that would direct the Congressional Research Service (CRS) to publish its reports online.
The Federation of American Scientists, a non-partisan public policy institute that routinely publishes CRS reports notes that “most…are available to anyone who has access to a congressional intranet.”
“Yet at the direction of Congress, CRS does not make even its non-confidential publications directly available to the public online,” it says on its website.
The bill introduced Thursday would make an exception for “custom” reports that aren’t generally made available on the CRS intranet.
A statement released by Sen. Leahy’s staff said CRS publishes in excess of 3,000 reports every year.
“Current restrictions prevent these taxpayer-funded reports from being directly distributed to the public,” it noted, “but third-party for-profit companies often make them available to lobbyists for hefty subscription fees.”
