P ending legislation could make electronically stored government data more accessible to the public. During the last session of Congress, the House Administration Committee approved the Government Printing Office (GPO) Electronic Information Access Enhancement Act of 1992. The bill would require the GPO to provide on-line public access to the Federal Register, the Congressional Record and a directory of federal information.
The bill would also provide for on-line access to some publications under the control of the superintendent of documents and other departments. The act 5983) awaits a floor vote in the House and a vote in the Senate when Congress reconvenes. The legislation is a boon for report- ers. On-line access would make it easier and less expensive to retrieve and use government information. "The bill would particularly help small news organizations by making available some of the things that can only be accessed through tapes now," said Penny Loeb, an investigative reporter for New York Newsday and a member of the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors.
"It would make it possible, for example, to go on-line cheaply and get background on a specific issue, like hazardous waste. It opens up a whole avenue of opportu- nity," she said. Loeb testified on the bill at the hearings. The bill is the brainchild of the Taxpayer Assets Project and the American Library Association, and the result of the efforts of numerous organizations including the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Project Censored and the Coalition of Networked Information.
James Love, director of the Taxpayer Assets Project, anticipates congressional approval, but not of the legislation he originally sought. "It's more a matter of how good a bill we'll get, not if we'll get a bill," Love said. Rep. Charlie Rose (D-N.C.) and Vice President-elec Albert Gore sponsored the original legislation, commonly called the GPO Gateway/WINDOWS bills. But somewhere between their initial proposals and the revised House- approved version, lobbyists for com- mercial data vendors convinced Republican members of the House Administration Committee to narrow the scope of the legislation.
The most significant exclusion in the revised bill is funding, Love said. The original bills suggested appropriating $3 million this year and $10 million next year for development of on-line databases. The revised bill doesn't offer any appropriations. The new bill also limits the range of on-line information. The Gateway/ WINDOWS bills sought an array of line databases, including the federal LEGIS and JURIS systems, the SEC's EDGAR system, MEDLINE and the FDA Bulletin Board.
The revised bill only mandates that the Federal Regis- ter, the Congressional Record and the federal information directory go on- line. The original bills provided for on- line access through mainframe net- works like Internet and through federal depository libraries. The revised bill abandoned mandatory network access in favor of a study of Internet access. The new bill still allows for free access for 1,400 federal depository libraries and will charge all other users cost of dissemination only.
Fees should be significantly less expensive than those charged by private data vendors. Love said that Rep. Rose and other members of Congress have promised to give the bill priority next session. Despite the limitations of the revised bill, the legislation would provide the public with government information for which taxpayers continually pay but can rarely access. "We should all push to make it better," Loeb said.
"Even though it's small step, it's something."