The Advisory Committee on Transparency, a project of the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, set the stage for their 9 May 2011 program on the Congressional Research Service (CRS):
CRS director Dan Mulhollan's retirement on April 2 - after running Congress' think tank for 17 years - raises questions about the agency's policies and future.
Is CRS meeting the needs of Congress? Has its analytical expertise eroded? Are CRS Reports as relevant, accurate, and understandable as they need to be, and should they be available to the general public? What does a 21st century research service look like?
A video recording of the full 1.5 hour panel discussion is available from the CSPAN Video Library at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/ResearchS. The Nextgov news site summarizes the panel's discussion of CRS report availability in the article Sunshine advocates say Congressional Research Service reports should be posted online. U.S. Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL) is expected to introduce legislation on the availability of CRS reports later this month.
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