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Open CRS Bill Introduced In House and Senate
This is YUGE! The “Equal Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Act of 2016” was introduced in both the House and the Senate, cosponsored by Senators McCain and Leahy and Representatives Lance and Quigley. 40 organizations — including FGI and Stanford University libraries (where I work)! — signed a letter in support of the legislation, nicknamed the OpenCRS Act. Read Senator Leahy’s press release.
Today Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Representatives Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Mike Quigley (D-IL) introduced in the House and Senate legislation directing the online publication of Congressional Research Service reports that are available for general congressional access. A coalition of 40 civil society and grassroots organizations, libraries, trade associations, think tanks, and businesses from across the political spectrum released this statement in support of the legislation:
We, the undersigned organizations, endorse the Equal Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Act of 2016. The legislation provides the public timely, comprehensive, free access to Congressional Research Service reports.
We commend Sens. John McCain and Patrick Leahy and Reps. Leonard Lance and Mike Quigley for their tireless efforts to ensure equitable access for all Americans to these documents, which provide insight into the important issues before Congress and are paid for by taxpayers.
We urge the Senate’s Committee on Rules and Administration and the House of Representative’s Committee on House Administration to speedily approve the legislation.
via Open CRS Bill Introduced In House and Senate — Demand Progress — Medium.
Great news! New Bill calls for CRS reports to be publicly available
This is great news indeed! The Sunlight Foundation reported today that the “Public Access to Congressional Research Service Reports Resolution of 2012” (aka H. Res 727) has just been introduced by Representatives Quigley (D-IL) and Lance (R-NJ) — many thanks to both of them.
The resolution would ensure that reports by Congress’s $100 million-a-year think tank will become available to the public on a website maintained by the House Clerk. Numerous good government groups and advocates for more congressional transparency — including FGI! — have endorsed the measure. Please contact your Representative and ask them to vote HELL YEAH! on H. Res 727.
The reports, prepared by the Congressional Research Service, are frequently cited by the courts and the media and requested by members of the public, but CRS does not release them to the public. Instead, they come to widespread attention after they are released in dribs and drabs by Congressional offices and painstakingly collected by researchers. Some are collected and sold for $20 a copy, while others are made available by non-profit organizations for public consumption. By the time they become publicly available, the reports can become outdated, especially when an issue is moving quickly in Congress.
Reliable access to CRS Reports would ensure that everyone has timely and comprehensive access to the collective wisdom of hundreds of analysts and experts on political issues when they’re at their most salient. This is already common practice in other support arms of the Congress, like the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office.
In the past CRS reports have been more widely available, but relatively recent CRS-imposed policies are increasing limiting access even as the Internet has made the documents easier to share. In fact, the original limitation on public access was imposed in the 1950s on CRS’s predecessor agency and arose from a concern about the costs of printing and mailing the reports — not their confidentiality. In the Internet age, this limitation no longer makes sense, especially as these reports are already available on CRS’s internal website in electronic form.
Hot new CRS reports in the news
I’ve got a google search alert set up for “CRS report” OR “Congressional Research Service” and thought I’d share the CRS reports in my most recent alert. If you’re not familiar with this service, it’s a handy way to keep track of issues or subjects. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts to set up alerts, or do a search on google news and scroll down to the bottom of the page to create an alert for your search.
Here’s the latest CRS reports in the news:
- Taiwanese air force faces plane shortage by 2020. Taipei Times. “The annual report by the Congressional Research Service, entitled Taiwan: Major US Arms Sales Since 1990 — which Defense News has called “required reading inside Taiwan defense circles and among US defense officials working with the island’s military” — provides a detailed analysis of US arms sales to Taiwan over more than two decades.”
- The Domestic Terrorist Threat: Background and Issues for Congress. CRS Report R41780. Posted on the FAS Secrecy News site.
- eNewsUSA: CRS Report On GHG Emissions & Canadian Oil Sands
- China’s Stranglehold on Rare Earths to Loosen as North American Production Facilities Come Online. Finance.yahoo.com. “According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report in April China currently produces 97 percent of the world’s rare earth oxides.” I found the 2011 CRS report posted on OpenCRS but the 2012 report has not been made public yet.*
- Fox Mangles Data To Claim “The Poor” Are Getting “Richer”. Media Matters. “The CRS report notes that “although the rank of the United States differs somewhat from one study to the next, as discussed below, the United States typically is found to be among the least mobile of the advanced economies.” [Congressional Research Service, 3/7/12]”
The U.S. Income Distribution and Mobility: Trends and International Comparisons
March 7, 2012 – R42400 posted on OpenCRS. Also posted on Secrecy News.
*Our readers may or may not know that the Library of Congress does NOT make CRS reports public, nor are they distributed to libraries in the Federal Depository Library Program. The only way to make a CRS report public is for member of Congress to release it or for a citizen to request it from her/his representative. Many in the library and govt transparency communities have been trying for years to persuade CRS to change their policy that views CRS reports as confidential queries with members of Congress and begin to officially release them to the public. OpenCRS and other sites like Steven Aftergood’s Secrecy News regularly post CRS reports, but this is done only because CRS refuses to release them to the public. Please contact your representative and ask them to push CRS to change their policy.
CRS Reports to the People! Part III
Even with this year’s introduction of S.Res. 118 and H.R. 3762, it is still important to encourage our Government to make Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports publicly accessible online!
Thus, I finally updated the latest list of Bills and contact information for the sponsoring Congressmen in the Delicious.com “CRS” tag Delicious.com “CRS” tag.
See also: CRS Reports to the People! Part 1 and Part 2 for more information on how to contact/write to your Congressmen.
CRS Reports to the People! Part II
My earlier post, CRS Reports to the People!, dealt with which congressmen to contact and which congressmen sponsored what bills in the past, etc. But now I would like to offer some sample letters that you can emulate and send. I sent all of mine just after the inauguration of President Obama and will let you know what kinds of responses I get.
Here is a sample letter to send to those who have sponsored similar bills about publicly releasing all CRS Reports in the past (be sure to refer to my previous post that lists all these bills and their sponsors in your letter!):
The Honorable [full name]
[Room #] [Name] Senate [or] House Office Building
United States House of Representatives [or] United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515Dear Senator:
or
Dear Representative:Due to your [introduction/co-sponsorship] of BILL [X], I am writing to seek your support yet again in addressing the need for making Congressional Research Service Reports available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, yet it remains cumbersome to acquire these informative reports. Several libraries and non-profit organizations have sought to collect as many of the released reports as possible. Unfortunately, there is no feasible way to obtain all CRS reports, therefore, I believe that it would be best if Congress made all CRS Reports available to the public online.
President Obama has demonstrated and fosters the spirit of open access and transparency during his administration, as a Government Documents Librarian and contributor for the Free Government Information website [list your credentials, affiliations, etc. or simply say “as a tax paying citizen], I strongly believe that there is no greater time than now to address the need for the availability of these educational and beneficial reports to the public.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your official title/degree credentials]
[Contact Address and Email]
If the Congressmen you are writing to have not sponsored a bill related to the public release of all CRS Reports, then use this nearly identical form letter:
The Honorable [full name]
[Room #] [Name] Senate [or] House Office Building
United States House of Representatives [or] United States Senate
Washington, DC 20515Dear Senator:
or
Dear Representative:I am writing to seek your support in addressing the need for making Congressional Research Service Reports available to the public in a way that they can be easily obtained. Previous bills addressing this topic have been introduced by Congressmen, but were unsuccessful. Most recently, these included H.R. 2545 (2007) and S. Res. 401 (2007).
American taxpayers spend nearly $100 million a year to fund the Congressional Research Service, yet it remains cumbersome to acquire these informative reports. Several libraries and non-profit organizations have sought to collect as many of the released reports as possible. Unfortunately, there is no feasible way to obtain all CRS reports, therefore, I believe that it would be best if Congress made all CRS Reports available to the public.
President Obama has demonstrated and fosters the spirit of open access and transparency during his administration, as a Government Documents Librarian and contributor for the Free Government Information website [list your credentials, affiliations, etc. or simply say “as a tax paying citizen], I strongly believe that there is no greater time than now to address the need for the availability of these educational and beneficial reports to the public.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your official title/degree credentials]
[Contact Address and Email]
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