2 U.S.C. § 166a — Equal access to Congressional Research Service Reports

(a) Definitions. A "CRS product" is any finished written report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) that Members and staff can already see on the CRS's internal website, called the CRS Congressional Intranet. A "CRS Report" is a specific kind of CRS product: either a "Congressional Research Service Report" or a "Congressional Research Service Authorization of Appropriations Product and Appropriations Product," including any updates to one. A CRS Report does NOT include: work CRS marked confidential because Congress asked for private analysis and it isn't posted on the Intranet; older reports from before this law took effect that still aren't on the Intranet; or CRS work that CRS has already chosen to publish on some other public government website (besides the one this law creates) or through the Library of Congress. This section also defines: "CRS" as the Congressional Research Service; the "CRS Congressional Intranet" as CRS's internal site at www.crs.gov; the "CRS Director" as CRS's director; the "Librarian of Congress" as the officially appointed Librarian; "Member of Congress" as including Delegates and the Resident Commissioner; and "Website" as the public site created under subsection (b). (b) Availability of CRS Reports through Library of Congress Website. The Librarian of Congress, working with the CRS Director, must build and run a public website holding CRS Reports plus a full index of them. Reports on the Website must be searchable, sortable, and downloadable, including in bulk. The Librarian can never charge a fee to use the Website. The Librarian must also make sure the Website updates itself automatically as soon as new or revised CRS Reports come out, shows whether each report is new, updated, or archived, and displays a required notice explaining that CRS reports are prepared for Congress, aren't for other purposes, aren't copyrighted as U.S. government works (though they may include copyrighted material from outside sources), and can be freely copied in full. The CRS Director must give the Librarian everything needed to run the site — including the specific details listed in subsection (c)(1)(A) — in whatever format the Librarian wants, and must help make sure new reports flow to the Website automatically. The Librarian isn't limited to only posting CRS Reports; other information can go on the Website too. The Librarian and CRS Director may also use other methods, beyond the Website, to share CRS Reports with the public, as long as those methods follow this law. CRS is encouraged (but not required) to give the Librarian other non-confidential CRS materials to post, and the Librarian is encouraged to publish them. (c) Website contents. For each CRS Report on the Website, the Librarian must list its name and ID number, whether it's new, updated, or archived, its release date, and any other details the Librarian and CRS Director agree belong there. Before sending a report to the Librarian, the CRS Director may strip out the names and contact information of CRS staff who worked on it, and must add the same required notice described above directly into the report. The index of all CRS Reports on the Website must be complete, updated in real time, searchable, sortable, readable by people, available as structured data (for computers to use), downloadable, and must include the same details (name, status, date, etc.) for every report. (e) Rules of construction. Nothing in this section weakens the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause or any other legal privilege Congress or its members and staff have. Nothing in this section forces Congress to release confidential CRS communications — those stay under Congress's control and can only be released by Congress itself, following each chamber's own rules. And nothing in this section stops a Member, office, or committee from posting or sharing CRS materials on their own, including as part of helping constituents. (f) Effective date. Generally, this section takes effect 90 days after the Librarian of Congress formally certifies that CRS has given the Librarian what's needed to launch the Website. To make that happen, CRS had 90 days from March 23, 2018 to hand over the necessary information, after which the Librarian must certify to Congress that CRS did so. If technical problems come up while building or running the Website, the Librarian or CRS Director can send a detailed report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees explaining the problems and a timeline to fix them — and doing so pushes back the effective date by up to 90 more days.