The Congressional Research Service (CRS) uses taxpayer dollars to produce excellent reports on public policy issues ranging from foreign affairs, to agriculture, to health care. These reports are made accessible to Members of Congress and their staff through an internal system, and are never released to the public directly from the Congressional Research Service.  Bills to provide free online public access to CRS Reports have been introduced in the House (H.R. 3762) and the Senate (S. Res. 118). The House bill is currently pending before the Committee on House Administration; the Senate bill is awaiting action by the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.

At present, members of the public can ask for these reports through their member of Congress, but they must first know that the report exists. While third party nonprofit websites, such as Open CRS, now collect and share the reports as they are released for free, for years the only way to get reports was to buy them from third party, for profit companies that somehow get access to all the non-confidential reports.

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