[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 109 (Monday, July 14, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H6164-H6166]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FEDERAL REGISTER MODERNIZATION ACT
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill
(H.R. 4195) to amend chapter 15 of title 44, United States Code
(commonly known as the Federal Register Act), to modernize the Federal
Register, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 4195
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Federal Register
Modernization Act''.
SEC. 2. FEDERAL REGISTER MODERNIZATION.
(a) References to Printing.--Chapter 15 of title 44, United
States Code, is amended--
(1) in section 1502--
(A) in the heading, by striking ``printing'' and inserting
``publishing''; and
(B) by striking ``printing and distribution'' and inserting
``publishing'';
(2) in section 1507 is amended--
(A) by striking ``the duplicate originals or certified
copies of the document have'' and inserting ``the document
has''; and
(B) in paragraph (2), by striking ``printed'' and inserting
``published''; and
(3) in section 1509, in subsections (a) and (b) of, by
striking ``printing, reprinting, wrapping, binding, and
distributing'' and inserting ``publishing'', each place it
appears.
(b) Publish Defined.--Section 1501 of title 44, United
States Code, is amended--
(1) by striking ``; and'' at the end of the definition for
``person'' and inserting a semicolon;
(2) by inserting after the definition for ``person'' the
following:
`` `publish' means to circulate for sale or distribution to
the public; and''.
(c) Filing Documents With Office Amendment.--Section 1503
of title 44, United States Code, is amended to read as
follows:
``Sec. 1503. Filing documents with Office; notation of time;
public inspection; transmission for publishing
``The original document required or authorized to be
published by section 1505 of this title shall be filed with
the Office of the Federal Register for publication at times
established by the Administrative Committee of the Federal
Register by regulation. The Archivist of the United States
shall cause to be noted on the original of each document the
day and hour of filing. Upon filing, the document shall be
immediately available for public inspection in the Office.
The original shall be retained by the National Archives and
Records Administration and shall be available for inspection
under regulations prescribed by the Archivist, unless such
original is disposed of in accordance with disposal schedules
submitted by the Administrative Committee and authorized by
the Archivist pursuant to regulations issued under chapter 33
of this title; however, originals of proclamations of the
President and Executive orders shall be permanently retained
by the Administration as part of the National Archives of the
United States. The Office shall transmit to the Government
Printing Office, as provided by this chapter, each document
required or authorized to be published by section 1505 of
this title. Every Federal agency shall cause to be
transmitted for filing the original of all such documents
issued, prescribed, or promulgated by the agency.''.
(d) Federal Register Amendment.--Section 1504 of title 44,
United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
``Sec. 1504. `Federal Register'; publishing; contents;
distribution; price
``Documents required or authorized to be published by
section 1505 of this title shall be published immediately by
the Government Printing Office in a serial publication
designated the `Federal Register'. The Public Printer shall
make available the facilities of the Government Printing
Office for the prompt publication of the Federal Register in
the manner and at the times required by this chapter and the
regulations prescribed under it. The contents of the daily
issues shall constitute all documents, required or authorized
to be published, filed with the Office of the Federal
Register up to the time of the day immediately preceding the
day of publication fixed by regulations under this chapter.
There shall be published with each document a copy of the
notation, required to be made by section 1503 of this title,
of the day and hour when, upon filing with the Office, the
document was made available for public inspection.
Distribution shall be made at a time in the morning of the
day of distribution fixed by regulations prescribed under
this chapter. The prices to be charged for the Federal
Register may be fixed by the Administrative Committee of the
Federal Register established by section 1506 of this title
without reference to the restrictions placed upon and fixed
for the sale of Government publications by sections 1705 and
1708 of this title.''.
(e) Documents To Be Published in Federal Register.--Section
1505 of title 44, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in subsection (b)--
(A) in the heading, by striking ``Comments'' and inserting
``News Commentary''; and
(B) by striking ``comments'' and inserting ``news
commentary''; and
(2) in subsection (c), in the matter following paragraph
(2)--
(A) by inserting ``telecommunications, the Internet,''
after ``the press, the radio,''; and
(B) by striking ``and two duplicate originals or two
certified copies'' and inserting ``document''.
(f) Administrative Committee of the Federal Register
Amendment.--Section 1506 of title 44, United States Code, is
amended to read as follows:
``Sec. 1506. Administrative Committee of the Federal
Register; establishment and composition; powers and duties
``The Administrative Committee of the Federal Register
shall consist of the Archivist of the United States or Acting
Archivist, who shall chair the committee, an officer of the
Department of Justice designated by the Attorney General, and
the Public Printer or Acting Public Printer. The Director of
the Federal Register shall act as secretary of the committee.
The committee shall prescribe, with the approval of the
President, regulations for carrying out this chapter. The
regulations shall provide for, among other things--
``(1) the documents which shall be authorized under section
1505(b) of this title to be published in the Federal
Register;
``(2) the manner and form in which the Federal Register
shall be published;
``(3) the manner of distribution to Members of Congress,
officers and employees of the United States, or Federal
agency, for official use, and the number which shall be
available for distribution to the public;
``(4) the prices to be charged for individual copies of,
and subscriptions to, the Federal Register and any reprints
and bound volumes of it;
``(5) the manner and form by which the Federal Register may
receive information and comments from the public, if
practicable and efficient; and
``(6) special editions of the Federal Register.''.
[[Page H6165]]
(g) Code of Federal Regulations Amendment.--Section 1510 of
title 44, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
``Sec. 1510. Code of Federal Regulations
``(a) Special Edition for Codification of Agency
Documents.--The Administrative Committee of the Federal
Register, with the approval of the President, may require,
from time to time as it considers necessary, the preparation
and publication in a special edition of the Federal Register
a complete codification of the documents of each agency of
the Government having general applicability and legal effect,
issued or promulgated by the agency by publication in the
Federal Register or by filing with the Administrative
Committee, and which are relied upon by the agency as
authority for, or are invoked or used by it in the discharge
of, its activities or functions, and are in effect as to
facts arising on or after dates specified by the
Administrative Committee.
``(b) Code of Federal Regulations.--A codification prepared
under subsection (a) of this section shall be published and
shall be designated as the `Code of Federal Regulations'. The
Administrative Committee shall regulate the manner and forms
of publishing this codification.
``(c) Supplementation, Collation, and Republication.--The
Administrative Committee shall regulate the supplementation
and the collation and republication of the codification with
a view to keeping the Code of Federal Regulations as current
as practicable. Each unit of codification shall be
supplemented and republished at least once each calendar
year. The Office of the Federal Register may create updates
of each unit of codification from time to time and make the
same available electronically or may provide public access
using an electronic edition that allows a user to select a
specific date and retrieve the version of the codification in
effect as of that date.
``(d) Preparation and Publication by the Federal
Register.--The Office of the Federal Register shall prepare
and publish the codifications, supplements, collations, and
user aids authorized by this section.
``(e) Prima Facie Evidence.--The codified documents of the
several agencies published in the Code of Federal Regulations
under this section, as amended by documents subsequently
filed with the Office and published in the daily issues of
the Federal Register, shall be prima facie evidence of the
text of the documents and of the fact that they are in effect
on and after the date of publication.
``(f) Regulations.--The Administrative Committee, with
approval of the President, shall issue regulations for
carrying out this section.
``(g) Exception.--This section does not require
codification of the text of Presidential documents published
and periodically compiled in supplements to title 3 of the
Code of Federal Regulations.''.
(h) Technical and Conforming Amendments.--The table of
sections for chapter 15 of title 44, United States Code, is
amended by striking the items related to sections 1502, 1503,
and 1504 and inserting the following:
``1502. Custody and publishing of Federal documents; appointment of
Director.
``1503. Filing documents with Office; notation of time; public
inspection; transmission for publishing.
``1504. `Federal Register'; publishing; contents; distribution;
price.''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Arizona (Mr. Gosar) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona.
General Leave
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Arizona?
There was no objection.
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
The Federal Register Modernization Act is an important bill that will
allow our government to better adapt to 21st century technology while
both serving the public better and saving money. Much of the Federal
recordkeeping and document publishing includes outdated requirements
for printed version of documents. This is especially true for the
Federal Register.
Today, there are only 124 paid subscribers to the print version of
the Federal Register. Despite this fact, the Federal Government is
legally required to continue to produce a print version of the
Register. Moreover, statutes biased towards paper-based communication
also require Federal agencies to submit multiple physical copies of the
same document for publication. The result is a nonsensical situation in
which agencies must hand-deliver CDs to the Office of the Federal
Register with identical versions of the same documents saved on it.
This commonsense legislation will fix both of these issues. First, it
will allow the Register to be published rather than printed, allowing
for an eventual switch to a digital-only version, patterned off of the
Federal Register's already award-winning Web site. Second, it will
streamline the document submission process to eliminate the requirement
for multiple copies and give the Register more freedom in how documents
may be submitted.
Importantly, this bipartisan proposal has the support of the
administration, and I encourage all Members to support this
legislation.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I want to thank Chairman Darrell Issa for introducing this bill. I am
happy to be an original cosponsor of the Federal Register Modernization
Act.
This is a good government bill that will reduce waste and save
taxpayers money. This bill is based on a legislative proposal from the
National Archives and Records Administration.
The Archivist of the United States sent a letter to Congress last
November that read:
This legislation would modernize the Federal Register to
take advantage of modern technology to increase efficiency.
The bill would give the Office of the Federal Register the
flexibility to publish the Federal Register electronically. It also
would allow agencies to stop sending unnecessary paper copies of
documents when they send materials to be published in the Federal
Register. The National Archives estimates that this one step could save
almost $900,000 over 5 years.
This is exactly the kind of legislation Congress should be passing.
It is bipartisan, noncontroversial, and will make a modest update that
will make the government more efficient and effective with regard to
information being accessible. I urge my colleagues to support the
legislation.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from California, Chairman Issa, my distinguished colleague
and the chairman of the committee.
Mr. ISSA. I would inquire if the ranking member is yielding back so
that I can close.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes.
Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Then I will close.
Mr. Speaker, the Federal Register Modernization Act does exactly what
the title suggests--it modernizes the Federal Register Act.
When you look at a well-intended bill that hasn't been addressed
since the 1930s, it comes to mind how easy it is to ask something to go
on and to have a Federal bureaucracy actually do a good job. The
National Archives and many of the institutions here in Washington do
work, but from time to time, you ask the question: At what cost?
The Modernization Act seeks to do two things: one, simply lower the
cost for printing, which is no longer necessary in a digital age, and,
in fact, to open the door for what I believe is the modernization that
goes beyond that.
Since 1994, when the Office of the Federal Register first published
its electronic edition of the Federal Register, we have, in fact, had
an opening for our government to go digital beyond just any minor
amount. Today, many people ask the question--and I am going to ask the
question here today--if the IRS has 50 years' worth of your tax
returns, why wouldn't we capture the workings of government digitally,
hold them and, at the appropriate time, make them available for our
children and our grandchildren for whatever purpose they may have in
studying the history of what we do here today?
This small modernization is about cost savings, but it is also a
recognition that, in this day and age, we can capture everything
digitally, that we can store vast amounts of it and that we can make it
searchable and valuable to the next generation. For that reason, this
is a small recognition that it is time to get off paper, to save money
and to have the Federal Register accessible online to offices, homes,
and public libraries, and not simply to print paper because, in the
1930s, that is
[[Page H6166]]
what we said to do. I believe, when we look at the last decade, in
which the annual page count exceeded 75,000 pages, we recognize that
those pages were made possible by the same computers--the same
automation--that allow us to no longer print paper.
I ask the Conference and the Congress to vote for H.R. 4195 in order
to remove these outdated statutory requirements. I urge its passage.
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, as a senior member of the Homeland
Security Committee, I rise to speak about H.R. 4195, the ``Federal
Register Modernization Act,'' which modernizes the Federal Register.
I want to thank Chairman Darrell Issa and Ranking Member Elijah
Cummings for their leadership and efforts in bringing this bill to the
floor.
This bill will bring much needed transparency without compromising
national security to the decisions, orders, and actions of federal
agencies.
There are challenges to providing government information solely in
digital format since there are constituents that lack access to
technology or the skills necessary to locate information online.
Electronic documents can easily be changed and modified from original
postings which challenges federal transparency.
Digital records can also challenge transparency by the capacity of
systems to manage demand for accessing information online.
It would be good for transparency if we allow public and private
achieving of federal registration content because constituents would
have access to material in multiple ways.
This bill requires the Federal Register to be published (e.g., by
electronic means), rather than printed, and that documents in the
Federal Register be made available for sale or distribution to the
public in published form.
This bill also revises the requirements for the filling of documents
with the Office of the Federal Register for inclusion in the Federal
Register and for the publication of the Code of Federal Regulations to
reflect the publication requirement.
The Office of the Federal Register (OFR) of the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA) and the U.S. Government Printing Office
(GPO) does a great job by informing citizens of their rights and
obligations, documenting the actions of Federal Agencies, and providing
a forum for public participation in the democratic process.
The Federal Register informs citizens by publishing the following
entries:
Presidential Documents, including Executive orders and proclamations;
Rules and Regulations, including policy statements and
interpretations of rules;
Proposed Rules, including petitions for rulemaking and other advance
proposals; and
Notices, including scheduled hearings and meetings open to the
public, grant applications, administrative orders, and other
announcements of government actions.
Mr. Speaker, we need to make it easier for citizens and communities
to understand the regulatory process and to participate in Government
decision-making.
We can ensure that transparency our constituents demand by making
material more searchable and easier to access.
I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting passage of H.R.
4195.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar) that the House suspend the rules and
pass the bill, H.R. 4195.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.
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