[Senate Report 117-106]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Calendar No. 363
117th Congress } { Report
SENATE
2d Session } { 117-106
_______________________________________________________________________
ACCESS TO CONGRESSIONALLY MANDATED REPORTS ACT
__________
R E P O R T
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
to accompany
S. 2838
TO REQUIRE THE DIRECTOR OF THE GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING
OFFICE TO ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN AN ONLINE PORTAL
ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC THAT ALLOWS THE PUBLIC TO
OBTAIN ELECTRONIC COPIES OF ALL CONGRESSIONALLY
MANDATED REPORTS IN ONE PLACE, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
May 5, 2022.--Ordered to be printed
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
29-010 WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
Lena C. Chang, Director of Governmental Affairs
Matthew T. Cornelius, Senior Professional Staff Member
Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
Sam J. Mulopulos, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Calendar No. 363
117th Congress } { Report
SENATE
2d Session } { 117-106
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ACCESS TO CONGRESSIONALLY MANDATED REPORTS ACT
_______
May 5, 2022.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Peters, from the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany S. 2838]
[Including cost estimate of the Congressional Budget Office]
The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, to which was referred the bill (S. 2838), to require
the Director of the Government Publishing Office to establish
and maintain an online portal accessible to the public that
allows the public to obtain electronic copies of all
congressionally mandated reports in one place, and for other
purposes, reports favorably thereon without amendment and
recommends that the bill do pass.
CONTENTS
Page
I. Purpose and Summary..............................................1
II. Background and Need for the Legislation..........................2
III. Legislative History..............................................2
IV. Section-by-Section Analysis of the Bill, as Reported.............2
V. Evaluation of Regulatory Impact..................................4
VI. Congressional Budget Office Cost Estimate........................4
VII. Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported............5
I. PURPOSE AND SUMMARY
S. 2838, the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports
Act, requires the Government Publishing Office (GPO) to create
and maintain a public online portal that contains electronic
copies of congressionally mandated reports, with the exception
of classified reports. The bill also requires agencies to
submit their congressionally mandated reports to GPO, and GPO
must track agency submissions and publish them no later than 30
days after receipt. Agencies must submit the reports to GPO
within 30 to 45 days after they are submitted to Congress.
Within 180 days after the bill's enactment, the Office of
Management and Budget must issue agency guidance on
implementation. To the extent practicable and within one year
of enactment, GPO must publish on the portal reports that were
required to be submitted to Congress before the bill's
enactment.
This bill will increase government transparency by
providing the public easily-accessible information on how
agencies are accomplishing their policy goals. This bill will
consolidate information in one database and will help build
institutional knowledge within congressional staff as well as
serve as a resource for concerned citizens, students, and
academics.
II. BACKGROUND AND THE NEED FOR LEGISLATION
Congress receives thousands of reports from agencies
annually but does not compile them in a central place. Agencies
are not always required to publicly post congressionally-
mandated reports. Without such a requirement, agencies decide
whether or not to make them accessible to the public. Agencies
expend taxpayer-funded time and resources to produce these
reports which are intended to inform legislation or
congressional oversight of agency operations, yet the general
public and Congress itself faces obstacles in locating and
reviewing these reports. In addition, when congressional staff
who receive a report move on, or there is a transition at a
committee, historical reports often are lost.
S. 2838 provides easier public access to congressionally
mandated reports by requiring all federal agencies to send any
such reports to the GPO for publication on its website. This
will help encourage agency compliance with reporting
requirements and will support timely access to the reports by
concerned citizens, students, and academics, with the
additional benefit of decreasing the burden on agencies to
process Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
III. LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
Ranking Member Rob Portman (R-OH) introduced S. 2838, the
Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, on September
23, 2021, with Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Gary Peters (D-
MI), and Margaret Hassan (D-NH). The bill was referred to the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
The Committee considered S. 2838 at a business meeting on
November 3, 2021. The bill was ordered reported without
amendment favorably by voice vote en bloc. Senators present
were Peters, Hassan, Sinema, Rosen, Padilla, Ossoff, Portman,
Johnson, Lankford, Romney, Scott, and Hawley.
IV. SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS OF THE BILL, AS REPORTED
Section 1. Short title
This section establishes the short title of the bill as the
``Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act.''
Section 2. Definitions
This section defines a congressionally mandated report as
``a report of a Federal agency that is required by statute to
be submitted to either House of Congress or any committee of
Congress or subcommittee thereof.'' Excluded from this
definition are reports from private and national organizations
(e.g., the Boy Scouts), inspectors general, congressional
committees that receive classified information (e.g., the
Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on Armed
Services, the Committee on Appropriations, or the Committee on
Foreign Relations of the Senate; the Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence, the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee
on Appropriations, or the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the
House of Representatives.)
Section 3. Establishment of online portal for congressionally mandated
reports
This section requires the GPO Director to establish an
online portal for users to access reports issued to Congress.
The reports must be downloadable individually and in bulk, and
be capable of retrieval by key terms search (such as submitting
agency, date, and the law requiring the report). To the extent
possible, the reports should be in an open format. In addition,
the website must list all congressionally mandated reports and,
for each report, whether and when it was submitted by the
agency.
This section requires reports to be published on the portal
30 days after GPO receives the report. It also provides an
exception for reports submitted to committees or subcommittees
where the chair has notified the GPO director in writing to
withhold the report from public display. If this occurs, GPO is
required to disclose that the report is withheld on the portal.
Section 4. Federal agency responsibilities
This section stipulates how agencies are to interface with
GPO and the new reports website. Each agency is responsible for
submitting to GPO a copy of the report that the agency also
submits to Congress. This section also directs OMB to issue
guidance to implement this law.
Section 5. Changing or removing reports
This section provides that a report can be changed or
removed from the website if the head of the submitting federal
agency consults with the congressional committee of
jurisdiction (regardless of whether the report was submitted to
the committee directly), and Congress enacts a joint resolution
authorizing the change to, or removal of, the report.
Section 6. Withholding of information
This section states that the bill does not require the
disclosure of information or records that are exempt from
public disclosure under FOIA. If a report contains specific
information that cannot be publicly disclosed under FOIA, the
federal agency shall redact that information before the
submission of the report to GPO. This section further clarifies
that nothing in the billrequires the release of any report
containing information that is classified, or the public
release of which could harm national security.
Section 7. Implementation
This section sets a one year deadline after enactment for
implementation of the bill. For reports due to Congress, or a
committee thereof, published prior to the date of enactment,
agencies are not required to submit those historical reports to
GPO, but rather may do so to the extent practicable.
Section 8. Determination of budgetary effects
This section ensures compliance with House and Senate
budget rules.
V. EVALUATION OF REGULATORY IMPACT
Pursuant to the requirements of paragraph 11(b) of rule
XXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee has
considered the regulatory impact of this bill and determined
that the bill will have no regulatory impact within the meaning
of the rules. The Committee agrees with the Congressional
Budget Office's statement that the bill contains no
intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the
Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA) and would impose no costs
on state, local, or tribal governments.
VI. CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE COST ESTIMATE
U.S. Congress,
Congressional Budget Office,
Washington, DC, March 9, 2022.
Hon. Gary C. Peters,
Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office has
prepared the enclosed cost estimate for S. 2838, the Access to
Congressional Mandated Reports Act.
If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be
pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Matthew
Pickford.
Sincerely,
Phillip L. Swagel,
Director.
Enclosure.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
S. 2838 would require the Government Publishing Office
(GPO) to establish and maintain a website for the public to
obtain electronic copies of all Congressionally mandated
reports. Under the bill, all federal agencies would be required
to provide GPO with electronic copies of reports required by
law each year.
Using information from GPO and federal agencies that
produce thousands of Congressionally mandated reports, CBO
estimates that implementing the bill would cost about $400,000
a year or $2 million over the 2022-2026 period. Those costs
primarily consist of the salaries and expenses associated with
four employees who would establish and maintain the website. In
addition, there would be some costs for the agencies to collect
and submit reports in the required format. CBO also expects the
website would primarily contain recent filings and would not
include many older reports. Any spending would be subject to
the availability of appropriated funds.
Enacting S. 2838 could affect direct spending by some
agencies that are allowed to use fees, receipts from the sale
of goods, and other collections to cover operating costs. CBO
estimates that any net changes in direct spending by those
agencies would be negligible because most of them can adjust
amounts collected to reflect changes in operating costs.
On June 14, 2021, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R.
2485, the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, as
ordered reported by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform
on May 13, 2021. The two pieces of legislation are similar, and
the estimated costs are the same.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew
Pickford. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss,
Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.
VII. CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW MADE BY THE BILL, AS REPORTED
Because this legislation would not repeal or amend any
provision of current law, it would not make changes in existing
law within the meaning of clauses (a) and (b) of paragraph 12
of rule XXVI of the Standing Rules of the Senate.
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