The Library of Congress has announced that they’ve added direct searchable access to the Congressional Record (112th Congress – Present) along with Cost-Estimate Reports from the Congressional Budget Office to the Congress.gov beta release.
Congress.gov will eventually replacement for the THOMAS.gov site. The beta was launched in September 2012.
Today’s News: Congressional Record
The Congressional Record from the 112th Congress will be available, as well as records from the beginning of the 113th Congress and going forward. Congressional Records from previous Congresses going back to 1994 will be added during future updates. The Congressional Record is the official record of House and Senate floor proceedings and includes debates and statements made on the floor of each chamber as well as records of various parliamentary actions and roll-call votes. Like other data on Congress.gov, the metadata and contents of the Congressional Record are searchable through the single search box that enables targeted searching. Among the features:
- A Congressional Record landing page that will default to the most recent available issue of the Record.
- A persistent navigation header that will display details about the currently displayed issue, including a link to a PDF for the full issue.
- Ability to navigate the Record via a date selector or via year/volume and page.
- A web page displaying one issue of the Record, including tabs for each of the sections available for that issue: Daily Digest, House, Senate, Extensions of Remarks.
- A tabbed view of each section of an issue of the Record, listing all articles within that section.
- Detailed viewing of an article, including a link to the PDF for the page(s) containing the article.
- Page view – listing all articles that begin on a particular page.
- Page range view – listing all articles that begin on a specific range of pages
Note: The GPO’s FDsys provides access (search and browse) of the Congressional Record back to 1994. The Congressional Record Index (search and browse) is also available. It includes data back to 1983.
Today’s News: CBO Estimates
All bills from 2001 through the present that have a CBO Cost Estimate will now include a “CBO Cost Estimate” link to the right of the Overview section on the legislative detail page. This will open a pop-up that displays a list of associated CBO Cost Estimates, with a link to the CBO page displaying that report.
Read the Full Text of Today’s Announcement
See Also: Details About Features Added to Congress.gov During November 2012
About Gary Price
