[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 89 (Tuesday, May 8, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Page 23228]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-11522]


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 Notices
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  Federal Register / Vol. 66, No. 89 / Tuesday, May 8, 2001 / Notices  

[[Page 23228]]



ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES COURTS


Electronic Access Fees for Federal Agencies

AGENCY: Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

ACTION: Clarification.

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SUMMARY: The Administrative Office of the United States Courts will 
begin collecting fees for electronic public access in bankruptcy courts 
that have installed and are using Version One of the new Case 
Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) system, as of July 1, 2001. 
Deployment is scheduled to be completed for all court types by 2005.

DATES: This policy is applicable as of July 1, 2001.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mary Stickney, Chief of the EPA 
Program Office, (202) 502-1500.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: As the federal judiciary moves increasingly 
toward using electronic case files, there has been a great deal of 
interest in the manner and scope of the application of public access 
charges for electronic court data, as mandated by Congress in the 
Judicial Appropriations Act of 1991 and set forth in the Judicial 
Conference Miscellaneous Fee Schedule (28 U.S.C. 1913, 1914, 1926, 
1930, 1932). The schedule imposes a charge of seven cents per page for 
access to data obtained electronically from the public dockets of 
individual case records in the court. This charge is collected by the 
Administrative Office through its Electronic Public Access (EPA) 
program and applies largely to case data from docket sheets obtained 
through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) system, 
although an increasing number of courts have begun providing online 
images of official court documents as well, to which the fee equally 
applies.
    Recently, a small number of courts have implemented a prototype 
version of the judiciary's new CM/ECF system, which permits electronic 
access to all case file documents, in addition to docket sheets. Access 
to CM/ECF has been available free of charge to all users in these 
prototype courts.
    With deployment of the first full version (``Version One'') of the 
bankruptcy software, the EPA program will begin administering the 
required seven cents per page fee in the bankruptcy courts, as of July 
1, 2001. District courts and courts of appeals will begin billing when 
their respective Version One applications are implemented, which is 
expected in 2002 and 2003 respectively.
    Although the access fee applies to all users, it should be noted 
that it will not apply to official recipients of electronic documents, 
i.e. those parties legally entitled to receive service, or to whom 
service is directed by the filer. This policy will entitle attorneys of 
record, as well as, in most instances, U.S. Trustees and bankruptcy 
case trustees, to one free electronic copy of all of the documents that 
they need from the case file in order to fulfill their legal 
responsibilities. As before, parties will still be responsible for 
maintaining their own files; should they fail to make a copy at the 
time of service, however, then any additional copy from the court will 
cost seven cents per page for an electronic version, fifty cents per 
page for paper.
    As CM/ECF is deployed, the fee for Internet access to case data, 
which currently explicitly applies to federal agencies, has obvious 
potential impact on the everyday operations of many federal agencies, 
as well as on bankruptcy case trustees and United States Trustees. In 
order to assess that impact, and to ensure that, consistent with the 
policy of the Judicial Conference, usage charges are set at the lowest 
possible level sufficient to fund the program, the Administrative 
Office has begun a study of the fee's potential impact on external 
users, including government agencies. The study is expected to be 
completed in the first half of 2001, and the input of the federal 
agencies who practice in the federal courts should prove an important 
source of data in this endeavor.

Leonidas Ralph Mecham,
Director.
[FR Doc. 01-11522 Filed 5-7-01; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 2210-55-P