Lieberman urges Senate Rules Cmte. to foster better access to CRS reports
Just a few days after pressing for more open access to the PACER system, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, renewed his call to improve public access to the reports of the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
In a letter to Sen. Charles Schumer, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, Lieberman wrote that “we need a system that ensures widespread public access to CRS reports,” and urged Schumer and his committee to “review this issue and consider recommending the creation of a more comprehensive system so that CRS reports can be easily accessed by the taxpayers who pay for them.”
More equitable access to CRS Reports is an issue long of concern to open government advocates. Defending the restriction of these reports from routine public access, CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan wrote in a memo to CRS staff in April of 2007 that “our work remains proprietary to the members (of Congress) unless and until they decide otherwise.” In practice, however, the great bulk of these reports have been readily available through private vendors to anyone with the ability to pay for them. The result has been a distribution system giving well-heeled insiders privileged access to publicly funded research laying out congressional thinking on the critical issues of the day.
In his letter, Lieberman mentioned that thousands of these reports recently became available through wikileaks.org. Many other repositories, such as OpenCRS, have strived for years to try to fill the gaps in public access to this research. But, Lieberman wrote, while such “ad hoc efforts allow more reports to enter the public domain … they do not ensure the dissemination of the most accurate and up-to-date information. Nor are they likely to be discovered by all those who might desire the reports.” What is needed instead, Lieberman wrote, is “a clearinghouse that would offer all reports and would be automatically updated,” in order to “ensure that those with power and those without have equal access to this important resource.”