The latest products from the Congressional Research Service include these reports:
Gun Control Proposals in the 113th Congress: Universal Background Checks, Gun Trafficking, and Military Style Firearms, March 1, 2013
Party Leaders in the United States Congress, 1789-2013, March 4, 2013
Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs: Status of the Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR), February 26, 2013
Environmental Regulation and Agriculture, February 22, 2013
Oil Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline: Background and Selected Environmental Issues, February 21, 2013
A bill was introduced today by Reps. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) and Mike Quigley (D-IL) that would facilitate public access to CRS reports without the need for subterfuge, unauthorized access, or payment of fees to private vendors. Similar legislative efforts in the past have repeatedly been rejected. See “It’s Time to Give the Public Access to CRS Reports” by Matthew Rumsey, Sunlight Foundation, March 7.
No one will be surprised if we end up with a continuing resolution to push our shutdown deadline out past the midterms, so the real question is what else will they get done this summer?
Rebuilding public participation starts with something simple — treating the public not as a problem to manage, but as a source of ingenuity government cannot function without.
If the government wants a system of learning and adaptation that improves results in real time, it has to treat translation, utilization, and adaptation as core functions of governance rather than as afterthoughts.
Coordination among federal science agencies is essential to ensure government-wide alignment on R&D investment priorities. However, the federal R&D enterprise suffers from egregious siloization.