Part of LLSDC's Legislative Source Book
Reports to Be Made to Congress is an annual listing by agency of statutes with mandated report provisions prepared under the direction of the Clerk of the House. The listing of reports and their statutory provisions are not nearly complete and also contain many reports that have been sunsetted. The annual publication prepared since 1983 (98th Congress) is published as a House numbered document and can be found since 1995 (104th Congress) in PDF on GPO's FDsys and GPO Access databases. The digitized editions are missing those for the 105th Congress and do not have optical character recognition (OCR) software and thus are not digitally searchable. "Reports to Be Made to Congress" can also be found in the U.S. Congressional Serial Set.
Executive Communications, etc. is the area in the House proceedings of the daily Congressional Record listing all communications received from Federal agencies (usually a week or more after being sent by an agency). This is the most comprehensive listing available but also contains material not pertaining to agency reports and may lack reports sent directly and only to Committee chairs and not also to the Speaker of the House. A search for a particular agency and subject matter or statute may uncover a report of interest. The above link is to the title "Executive Commununications, Etc." in the Congressional Record on GPO's FDsys since January 1, 2010. The tile has been in use in the Congressional Record since 1899.
Executive and Other Communications is the area in the Senate proceedings of the daily Congressional Record listing all communications received from Federal agencies. This list should duplicate the items listed in the House proceedings but not necessarily on the same day. The area uses the phrase "report of a rule" and thus may present too many items in a search for "report." The title "Executive and Other Communications" has been in use in the Senate proceedings since 1979.
Reports Required by Congress (1994-2002) are annual indices and related microfiche by LexisNexis in its CIS series on Executive Branch Documents. Certain academic and other libraries may have purchased this collection. A 2004 catalog listed each yearly index at $580.00 and each yearly microfiche collection at $4,490.00.
Contacting Your Member of Congress - The office of your states's U.S. senator or U.S. representative can be contacted and requested to obtain a particular report that may be hard to obtain as Congressional committees of referral usually refer such queries to the agency that authors a report. However, a query from the office of a member of Congress can add weight to a petition for a report from a Congressional committee or Federal agency.
Federal Agency Web Sites - Each Federal agency should have its annual report on its Web site as well many other reports sent to Congress, but usually not all of them. An agency site index or search engine could be used to find these publications.
Fedreral Agency FOIA Offices - Each agency Freedom of Information Office can be requested to deliver reports not made available on an agency Web site subject to certain statutory exemptions (like national security matters). Federal agency Web sites will normally include FOIA information and frequently allow you to send a request by e-mail.
Federal Agency Congressional Liaison Offices - Most all agency reports to Congress are sent through an agency's Congressional liaison office (or legislative affairs office) and they may track these reports and possibly make them available upon request or they may refer callers to the agency FOIA office after hopefully identifying a report's title or existence.
Federal Agency Libraries - Many reports to Congress (particularly the older ones) may be cataloged and available for inter-library loan or for viewing and copying in agency libraries. The related link is to Federal agency libraries in the D.C. area with law collections, but it also has links to many other agency libraries.
By statute Congress mandates that several thousand reports be produced and submitted to it by Federal executive departments and independent agencies as well as by the President and parts of the Legislative and Judicial Branches. These mandates are normally specific to a particular agency, but a few are general and apply to most agencies such as the Inspector General Act, the Congressional Review Act, the Government Performance and Results Act, the Buy American Act, and the No FEAR Act. Some reports are to be sent to the House and Senate annually or other periodic sequence and some are one time reports or have other cessation time frames. Many specific reports are incorporated into an agency's annual report.
Until March of 2004 most all of the statutory provisions regarding mandated reports were placed in the U.S. Code. In the past the Office of the Law Revision Counsel would frequently place provisions regarding non-permanent required reports in the note area of a related U.S. Code section. Now however, unless a U.S. Code title is directly amended, only continually required reports are placed in the U.S. Code, which sets out all current, general and "permanent" U.S. law (see 12 U.S.C. § 204). After February of 2004 (beginning with PL 108-203) non-permanent required reports are only set out in the statute pages of specific public laws. The reports received by Congress (usually sent to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate) may be referred to the appropriate Senate or House standing committee. However, trying to get a copy of the report from a referred committee is generally a futile endeaver as Congressional committees normally receive but a single copy of a referred report and a committee may not maintain good records especially for reports in previous Congresses. In any case you will probably be referred to the agency who wrote the report.
The Federal Reports and Elimination Sunset Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-66) stipulates that four years after enactment, all the required reports listed in H. Doc. 103-07 (Reports to Be Made to Congress - pt.1, pt.2, pt.3) would no longer have to be submitted, unless Congress required their continuance by another specific statute. Effective on May 15, 2000 (it was extended from the original effective date of Dec. 21, 1999) some 500 listed reports were no longer required to be submitted to Congress. However, most sunsetted reports are still listed in the annual "Reports to Be Made to Congress" as their underlying statutes have not been repealed. Applicable notes to sections in the U.S. Code stipulate when a mandated report in that section is no longer required (hint - look for the date "May 15, 2000" in the note area of a U.S. Code section).
Compiled and maintained by Rick Mckinney, Assistant Law Librarian, Federal Reserve Board Law Library - - Last updated on March 18, 2010
