Markup of a bill to make agency reports to Congress transparent did not occur as planned on Thursday after the measure was pulled to allow technical improvements. The Committee on House Administration was set to review the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, which if enacted would require that reports from agencies to Congress be available altogether on a single website, thereby improving transparency and facilitating congressional oversight.

Committee Chairman Dan Lungren explained the delay:

We had originally planned to consider a fifth bill, H.R. 1974. However, some of our colleagues identified some issues with it that they wanted additional time to work out. After consulting with Representative Quigley, the sponsor, they asked that we remove it from today’s schedule and we have done so.

The scheduling of the legislation for markup is a strong indicator of support for the measure by committee Republicans. Committee Democrats released a statement Thursday afternoon:

House Administration Democrats support the bill, but we wanted to make some technical improvements to the bill prior to marking it up. We hope to see continued action on this bill in the coming weeks.

The legislation, introduced by Rep. Mike Quigley, enjoys broad bipartisan support and already has been favorably reported out of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. It also enjoys broad support from the transparency community.

We hope that the measure will be ready for consideration by the full House in the near future. A companion measure is pending before a Senate committee.