Congressional Research Service Products: Taxpayers Should Have Easy Access. From the report: “$81 million of tax-payer money funded the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in FY 2002. CRS authors products at the request of current Members of Congress, many of whom become lobbyists, but CRS products are made difficult if not impossible for the public to access. CRS also operates both the CRS website and the Legislative Information System (LIS) website, which are arguably the best sources of information regarding the legislative process of the United States. However, they are not available to the public in any form.”
See also this press release stating that Senator’s McCain and Leahy “will be announcing the re-introduction of Senate sunshine legislation that would make many Congressional Research Service (CRS) products as well as other public records of the Senate and Congressional committees available on the internet.”