A Wall Street Journal column on March 26 reported that the Congressional Research Service “will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number of background of [budget] earmarks.” The new CRS policy, the Journal article alleged, “is helping its masters hide wasteful spending.”
“The article is replete with mischaracterizations of CRS work and policies,” wrote CRS Director Daniel P. Mulhollan in a memo to all CRS staff (pdf). “Such attacks on our independence cannot go unanswered.”
Mr. Mulhollan defended his agency in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, circulated with his March 26 memo. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
The Journal article “gratuitously alludes to issues related to public access to CRS work,” Mr. Mulhollan wrote in his letter. “The restriction on publication of CRS work was established long ago by Congress. CRS internal policies regarding distribution of its products ensure compliance with congressional directives. We leave to Members and committees the discretion to share CRS products how and when they wish.”
“CRS has recently been subjected to much scrutiny because we have not shied away from analysis of controversial issues,” Director Mulhollan told CRS staff.
The NCARS Act would amend the National Security Act of 1947 to establish a durable, coordinated federal approach to national resilience.
Federal data is a diverse ecosystem with well over 500,000 datasets – including those tackling Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
To build an affordable, modern grid powered by clean energy, we need more than the right policies; we must also upgrade—and, in some cases, redesign—PUCs to regulate in the public interest and effectively implement new policies.
X-Labs seek to expand on what FROs have shown is possible: the generation of foundational infrastructure for entire new fields of research science.