Congressional Future Caucus Trio Leads Bipartisan Effort to Ensure Public Access to Agency Reports

UPDATE: As of July 27th, 2021, the House of Representatives passed HR2485 unanimously without objection. The bipartisan bill heads to the U.S. Senate for debate and amendment.

On April 13th 2021, Rep. Mike Quigley (IL-15) and Rep. Comer (KY-1)  introduced HR2485, the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act. Congressional Future Caucus (CFC) members Rep. Rodney Davis (IL-13) and Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) are original co-sponsors, and fellow CFC member Rep. Seth Moulton (MA-6) is also a cosponsor. 

The legislation, which is active and has been referred to the House Committees on Oversight and Reform, Administration, and Budget, received a hearing on May 13th, 2021. The House Oversight and Reform committee hearing highlighted the fact that HR2485 passed the House of Representatives unanimously in the 116th Congress and is currently supported by over 30 good-government groups. 

The Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act aims to increase government transparency by creating a single, publicly accessible website that displays all agency reports submitted to Congress. The bill would require the Government Publishing Office (GPO) to establish and maintain the website and allow the public to search, sort, and download all reports submitted to Congress for free. The bill would make the director of the GPO responsible for maintaining and updating the website. 

The bill is a notable bipartisan effort, and has 12 Democratic and 10 Republican co-sponsors as of May 21, 2021. The diversity of support for this bill demonstrates that members of the House are taking seriously the need to modernize government.