Of the roughly 1,040 Pentagon procurement programs--the $99.3 billion part of the Defense budget devoted to purchasing new equipment--some 212 of them, worth $21.4 billion, fund the work of a single company.

The Army wants $551 million to buy surface-to-air missiles from Lockheed Martin. The Navy wants to spend $157 million the aerospace giant's KC-130J tanker plane. The Air Force has $291 million worth of JASSM missiles on its wish list. Altogether, defense procurement programs worth $6.9 billion name Lockheed Martin as their sole contractor. And they're not the only one: 14 companies, including Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, were the only contractor listed on programs totaling $100 million or more.

Congress is now in the midst of its secretive spending process, with members of the Appropriations Committees of the House and Senate considering programmatic and language requests submitted by their colleagues--increases or decreases in the amount spent, or changes in emphasis in each program in the federal budget. Unlike an earmark, which directed money to a single, named recipient, a programmatic request refers only to a specific program in the the federal budget.

Some requests ask for additional funding for programs with hundreds of thousands of individual beneficiaries like loans and other aid for low income housing. And some requests can benefit a handful of contractors, or even just one.

Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman C.W. "Bill" Young, R-Fla., instructed colleagues to "include the applicable account and line number in the beginning of the program request description (i.e. RDTE A Line 30)." That particular account refers to the Army's Research, Development, Test and Evaluation budget; line 30 is for medical advanced research, which, according to the Army's budget justification documents for the program, includes 8 separate projects ranging from treating combat injuries to breast cancer.

In contrast, line 4 of the Navy Procurement budget refers to advanced funding for Virginia Class submarines. The Navy's budget justification lists Connecticut-based Electric Boat, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, as the prime contractor (four other companies--Kollmorgen, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and Stanley Associates, provide components for the submarine). In 2012, during the last round of Pentagon budgeting, one of the company's home state lawmakers, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, included that line item in his programmatic requests, which he disclosed online. Blumenthal requested an additional $777.6 million to expedite work on an additional submarine. The Navy's current budget justification notes that "Advance Procurement includes $778M required to fund the 2nd FY14 SSN as proposed as a FY13 Congressional Add."

Chances are Blumenthal wasn't the only member of Congress who requested the additional funding. But because neither the Senate nor the House discloses programmatic requests, it's impossible to say how many other members of Congress added their names to the request for additional funding for the Virginia Class Submarine.

Programmatic and language requests can direct hundreds of millions of dollars to programs that benefit a specific company. But unlike earmarks, many of which went to obscure firms like Kuchera Defense Systems, companies that have their own programs are generally among the biggest defense contractors. Lockheed Martin, for example, is the sole contractor listed for procurement programs totaling a proposed $6.9 billion, an increase of $1.3 billion over the programs' budget in the last fiscal year. Boeing is the sole contractor listed on $5.8 billion worth of programs, a drop of $95 million from last year. Raytheon was listed on $2.2 billion worth of programs, Northrop Grumman for $1.7 billion, and United Technologies for $1.2 billion. Not every dollar budgeted for those programs will go to those contractors--part will pay for oversight of the project within the military and other expenses, some will go to subcontractors, but if the Pentagon buys an extra submarine, or ups the number of replacement engines for the Joint Strike Fighter it acquires, the firm that provides those items will benefit accordingly.

In the first quarter of 2013, all five companies have disclosed lobbying on the procurement budget (to see the disclosures for Lockheed Martin, click here and here; for Boeing here and here; for Raytheon here, for Northrop Grumman here and for United Technologies here).

To view or download a complete list of Pentagon procurement programs that list only one recipient in the budget justification, click here. The data comes from a spreadsheet we downloaded from the Comptroller of the Defense Department; we looked up each line item in the procurement budget justifications--available from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Defense Department--to look for contractor names. As always, if you find errors, please contact us and let us know. Note: We only looked in the procurement budget for Defense, so this by means exhausts the number of federal programs that primarily benefit one company.

To read prior posts on darkmarks, click here and here.

U.S. Navy photo by Chris Oxley.

By making a programmatic request asking for additional funding for line 3 of the Army aircraft procurement budget, a member of Congress can direct taxpayer money to General Atomics. Increasing funding for line 7 of the Army missile procurement budget does the same for Raytheon. Line 19 of the Navy's weapons procurement funds a program supplied solely by Lockheed Martin.

Yesterday, we started exploring programmatic and language requests--the mechanism that allows individual members of Congress to ask the Appropriations Committees to provide additional funding for different programs in the President's Budget. House members face their next deadline for submitting requests, via an online system, tomorrow.

Unlike earmark requests, which Congress declared a moratorium on after Republicans captured the House in 2010, programmatic requests are not directed to a single recipient, but rather affect set levels and priorities for specific programs. The requests are not disclosed to the public.

In a letter sent to members, Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, R-Fla., chair of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, instructed members to include the account and line number for each request. A spreadsheet listing all of them is available here. In addition to the spreadsheet, the Defense Department and the service branches publish thousands and thousands of pages of justifications for each program (you can access them all from the bottom of this page). These include descriptions like this one:

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will develop and field a family of aircraft that meets the needs of the United States and its international partners. ... Its advanced avionics, data links and adverse weather precision targeting incorporate the latest technology available. The highly supportable, affordable, state-of-the-art aircraft commands and maintains global air superiority.

They also list the contractor--or contractors--that work on each program, like the F-35. That plane actually has more than one manufacturer involved. Lockheed Martin is the project lead while United Technologies' subsidiary Pratt & Whitney builds the engines (they're listed in the budget justification) and Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems also contribute to the project.

The F-35 in its various configurations can be found in the Airforce and Navy budget justifications--Navy Procurement Lines 5 to 8 (for carrier and short vertical take-off and landing configurations) and Air Force Procurement Lines 1-3. A member of Congress requesting additional funding for the Joint Strike Fighter is also requesting additional funding for Lockheed Martin and its partners.

There are 1,062 total procurement programs listed in Pentagon budget justifications. Sunlight has slogged through about 680 of them, of which about 145 list just one contractor. In other words, requesting additional funding for those 145 programs could benefit just one company. Generally, it's the bigger contractors that have programs all to themselves, companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics.

Some go so far as to spell out that a program is devoted to a single company, like this entry from a Fiscal Year 2013 budget justification for upgrades to an Air Force surveillance plane: "Delivery Orders were awarded on 31 July 2009 for the replacement portion of the RASP hardware and software subsystem along with Central Computer Subsystem upgrades and on 1 June 2010 for the replacement portion of the OWS computer. The contract is Sole Source to Northrop Grumman under the Joint STARS System Improvement Program II (JSSIP) contract."

Tomorrow, we'll look at a programmatic request referencing that line item.

The instructions are written in obscure Washingtonese that only an insider could understand: "Please include the applicable account and line number in the beginning of the program request description (i.e. RDTE A Line 30)." The sentence is in a letter from House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chair C.W. "Bill" Young, and explains one of the requirements for filing "programmatic and language requests," due starting today.

For most reporters, that kind of obscure language tends to make news antennae twitch. In this case, there's good reason: Through these requests, a member of Congress, or group of members, can express own spending priorities, such as more money for community health centers or for various loan and aid programs that support low income housing. They may also give members a way to direct money to big contributors.

This is the third year that Congress will go through the appropriations process without earmarks, the line items in spending bills that allowed a member to direct money to urgent local priorities -- or political cronies, depending on one's point of view. But it turns out, there's another way for members to ask for additional funding above and beyond what President Barack Obama requested in the budget he submitted to Congress last week, more than two months late.

Beginning in 2009, House and Senate rules required members to disclose their earmark requests online. In this case, because programmatic and language requests are not earmarks--they do not specify individual recipients--disclosure rules do not apply.

Bob Rapoza, executive secretary of the National Rural Housing Coalition, which is pushing for more money for low income housing along with Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Texas, explained how the system works:  Members circulate "Dear Colleague" letters asking support for funding. "By signing onto it, members are agreeing to send a programmatic request," he said. Rapoza added that, "All the programs we support have never been in an earmarked account. All the money is distributed on a competitive basis."

To borrow the jargon of social media, think of it as "liking" a request to spend taxpayer dollars: More signers mean more programmatic requests, which means a better chance to secure the funding. In his instructions, Young asks each member co-sponsoring a programmatic request for the Defense appropriations bill to "use identical language" and to include "a scanned copy of the group request letter."

And given the nature of the Pentagon's budget request, it's entirely possible for a member or group of members to steer money to a single recipient. That's where that Washingtonese we started with comes in. "RDTE A Line 30" refers to funding for the Army's Research Development Test and Evaluation budget. Line 30 refers to a specific program--Medical Advanced Technology--that the Army describes in its budget justification book, available here. In 24 pages of budget numbers and program descriptions, one finds that some components of the project are "congressionally directed," others are described as congressional interest items. The recipients include a multitude of military and government research institutions. Other programs, however--particularly in the procurement section of the Defense budget--list just a single recipient.

Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at those.

In the last 24 hours there have been three significant developments on providing the public with better access to legislative information. The Appropriations Committee approved a fundamentally flawed report; Rep. Honda spoke out in favor of bulk access to legislative information; and Speaker Boehner's spokesperson reaffirmed House Republicans' commitment to bulk data while simultaneously praising the move by appropriators.

As best as I can tell, House appropriators tried to move forward on the House's broader commitments to openness and transparency but became entangled in its implementation. Instead of striking a balance between the desire for openness with legitimate concerns about process, they fell victim to fears and misunderstanding about technology that resulted in a ham-fisted process that will likely freeze any forward momentum, or maybe even turn back the clock.

What remains to be seen is whether appropriators will be able to right themselves even at this late date; whether other congressional actors will weigh in; or if these transparency efforts will be dealt a staggering blow that will take years to recover from.

Approps Approves a Flawed Report

Yesterday the House Appropriations Committee approved a legislative report that provides lip service in support of bulk access to legislative data while effectively undermining it. The flawed language that we criticized yesterday has remained in place. Here's the good and bad, in two sentences, from the report.

The Committee has heard requests for the increased dissemination of congressional information via bulk data download from non-governmental groups supporting openness and transparency in the legislative process. While sharing these goals, the Committee is also concerned that Congress maintains the ability to ensure that its legislative data files remain intact and a trusted source once they are removed from the Government’s domain to private sites.

In other words, the report expresses concern that citizens will mash-up and make use of legislative information in ways that Congress cannot control. Indeed, that is the point, and it is already common practice. When citizens have access to raw legislative information, they built sites like GovTrack, Open Congress, Washington Watch, and Scout. After all, the information belongs to the American people.

The report's solution to this "problem" is to establish a task force to look at the issue ... without a date by which the task force must report, a mechanism for public input, a requirement for open meetings, or the inclusion of any members of the public as members. And the questions the task force is supposed to address have already been evaluated by the same people who will serve on this new task force.

We know this because we have a copy of a March 2008 Library of Congress memo that looked into "what resources would be needed to make the underlying raw THOMAS data available to the public in XML, so that other sites can re-package the data in different ways without having to link back to THOMAS." The best part of that 2008 report is its final sentence:

Finally, efforts are underway at the Library of Congress to undertake a study of the relationship between LIS and THOMAS that will serve as the basis of a strategic plan for THOMAS. This will provide a sound basis by which we can better assess the expectations of Congress and the public, and how best to meet them. The study will also include an examination of accuracy, permanence and authentication of legislative data, along with any attendant issues, risks and workload.

In the words of Yogi Berra, it's deja vu all over again. We're not even asking for new information to be made available, but rather for currently-available information to be made available in computer-friendly ways. Our fear is that the task force is simply a way of sweeping everything under the rug. It's happened before.

Rep. Honda Speaks In Favor of Bulk Access Now

Representative Mike Honda, who has been a consistent leader on bulk access to legislative information and is the ranking member of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, spoke out on the issue in his remarks yesterday. He has been involved since the beginning, and his remarks are particularly important because of the story they tell.

I represent Silicon Valley, the center of technological innovation in this country. Since I joined this subcommittee, I have tried to push the House and other agencies to explore technological solutions to issues such as transparency, evacuation management, and data storage.

As you probably know, Federal agencies, including our own in the legislative branch, can be slow to change and adapt new technologies. This is mentioned in the report, which includes language on the issue of bulk data downloads of legislative information, something I requested and secured language about in this bill in fiscal year 2009.

This effort is now also being championed by leadership on both sides of the aisle, as it is a way to increase transparency by allowing the public to easily download and analyze government data.

There are some concerns about cost and the ability to authenticate the data that the language in the report tries to address.

I think, however, that these are relatively simple matters to overcome, as data is already being compiled in a format that can easily be distributed and technology support staff has indicated that only a simple procedure is needed to make the bulk data available.

Furthermore, the GPO already employs an authentication standard for its own accessible bulk data through its FDSys website that we could also utilize.

I look forward to working with the Chairman and leadership of the House as this bill moves through the legislative process to advance these efforts to increase public access to legislative data. I believe the time to implement this is now. (emphasis added)

Speaker Boehner's Blog Reiterates Support for Bulk Access While Commenting on the Move by Appropriators

Speaker Boehner's Digital Communications Director Don Seymour wrote a blogpost called "House Moving Forward on Bulk Legislative Info." It is noteworthy for two reasons.

It reaffirms the House's commitment to make Congress more open and transparent, including by "releasing the House's legislative data in machine-readable formats." Simply put, the House has made significant strides towards online transparency, as we've written about many times before. A partial list must include the House's transparency portal, the Legislative Data and Transparency Conference, the Congressional Hackathon, the Boehner-Cantor letter, and the rules package. But bulk access to legislative data is the result that many of these efforts are working towards.

The blogpost also describes appropriators efforts to create a task force as "taking another step today toward making bulk legislative information easily available to the public." As we've described elsewhere, the devil is in the details, and the details in the committee's report would apparently undo some of the House leadership's current transparency efforts. While the approps bill moves through the legislative process, it may put all of the other data liberation efforts on ice while everyone waits to see what happens. I cannot imagine that's an acceptable solution to leaders in either party, to members of Congress, or to the public at large.

by Daniel Schuman and Eric Mill

House Appropriators may deal a tremendous blow to prospects for improving public access to legislative information. In a draft report expected to accompany the Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill for 2013, scheduled for a full committee vote tomorrow, appropriators misunderstand how data can be "authenticated," and kick responsibility for improving public access to legislative data to a non-public task force with no set reporting date. Unless corrected, this draft report represents a tremendous step backward for transparency, and fails to seriously grapple with the history of efforts to free legislative information for widespread public use.

Legislative Information Should Be Widely Disseminated

The purpose of THOMAS is to bring legislative information to as many people as possible; preservation and authentication is best handled through other long-established methods that THOMAS was never intended to address. The lack of authenticity to THOMAS data does not present a problem for most users. Rather, the largest problem with THOMAS is that the data is not provided so that it can be easily copied, placing a significant burden on citizens who wish to make sophisticated use of the information. The THOMAS website directly provides nearly a million users each month with an "inauthentic" version of information about legislative activities, a practice that will continue unabated under the draft committee report. While THOMAS often links to a GPO document that is "authenticated," its display of bill text, legislative summaries, cosponsor data, and other information is not certified as being correct, and often changes because of the Library's errors in how it publishes the data.

To the extent to which THOMAS information should be authentic, the report does not engage with best practices around authenticity of data on the Internet. Verifying the authenticity of data can be performed securely and reliably with the use of metadata external to the data itself. In fact, this is precisely how GPO's FDSys currently authenticates XML documents of the US government, including its legislation, regulations, and laws. GPO accompanies each document it publishes with a "PREMIS" metadata file that includes information needed to cryptographically verify the authenticity of documents. For example, here's the PREMIS file accompanying HR 6289. Worries about authenticity are a red herring.

Bulk Access is a Separate Question from Authenticity 

Bulk access to THOMAS data is a simpler and less controversial step than this draft report contemplates. The underlying information is already publicly available on the THOMAS website, and third parties already are scraping the data from the site to make it available in bulk. It simply makes sense for the Library to meet the needs of the public directly through providing the data in bulk itself. This merely opens up another avenue to access info that's already being released. It would also eliminate any errors created through the scraping process.

The Draft Report Creates a Secret, Never-Ending Process

The draft report would require the establishment of a task force to examine and report back on a number of issues raised in the report regarding bulk access to legislative data. This is seriously flawed in several major ways.

First, bulk access is about granting the public better access to legislative information. It stands to reason that the public should be included in all discussions. However, the proposed task force does not include any non-governmental participants. A number of individuals and organizations are expert in these matters, and should be full participants.

Second, the draft report imposes no deadline for a report from the task force. The last time Appropriators required a task force on a similar matter, four year ago, it never reached any conclusions or reported back. Without a deadline, the same will happen here.

Third, the task force's report should be provided to the public as well as to the committee at the time it is completed. Draft reports should also be made available for public comment.

Fourth, the report language is terribly overbroad: it prohibits the establishment of bulk data downloads of legislative information prior to the reporting back of the task force. Making use of modern technology to provide information in better ways should be something that is encouraged, not prohibited. Information is already being provided to the public in bulk regarding certain legislative activity. Would this report language stop the GPO from providing bulk access to the Congressional Record, as it does now? Would it prohibit the House of Representatives from providing bulk access through its innovative docs.house.gov portal? If so, that would be a disaster for transparency.

Finally, the idea of a task force to assess these questions ignores that these issues were already addressed by the Library of Congress in a 2008 memo.The memo explained that the XML database containing bill metadata was expected to be able to be released in bulk by May 2008. It also stated that "CRS... will continue to identify and analyze ... the following policy matters for the Committee's consideration," including "data accuracy" and "data permanence and authentication." Where are the results of CRS's analysis? What is the strategic plan for THOMAS referenced in the memo? Where is the study promised that would engage in "an examination of permanence and authentication of legislative data, along with any attendant issues, risks and workload?"

Simply put, the draft committee report's establishment of a task force is another recipe for delay. We saw this four years ago, the last time the Library was pressed to make improvements on this issue. The time is long past for action, and the Appropriations Committee will be judged on whether it makes another plan to make a plan, or whether it establishes real deadlines for progress. THOMAS itself was created in a matter of months when the Speaker of the House decided it was a priority. Bulk access to legislative data will also come about when legislators decide that being transparent is more important than establishing a task force to talk about it.

In the last 18 months, the House of Representatives has made significant strides towards greater openness and transparency in congressional deliberations, but significant work remains. The Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill for 2013, which was marked-up by a subcommittee last week, presents a major vehicle for the House leadership to make good on its promise to implement common-sense transparency measures this session.

While there are many issues that can be addressed a number of different ways, Sunlight will be looking at  the full committee markup to see if the bill:

-- Provides bulk access to THOMAS data

-- Fully funds the Office of Congressional Ethics

-- Requires Publication of  CRS Reports online

-- Publishes the Constitution Annotated online as it's updated in XML

-- Reinstates the Office of Technology Assessment

-- Makes reports to Congress available online

-- Publishes House spending information in an appropriate format for the data

Improve Public Access to THOMAS Data

THOMAS was created by Congress to make legislative information freely available to the public, but the Library of Congress has not kept up with best practices. One such practice -- "bulk access" -- would ease the development of new tools and technologies by publishing THOMAS data files online, promoting accurate and timely information dissemination. Congress has expressed its support for bulk data as have many organizations, but the Library continues to stall despite a 2008 memo describing how easy it would be to implement.

At the recent legislative subcommittee hearing, Rep. Honda mentioned that text has been inserted into the committee's report that would in some way address the bulk data question. The last time this happened, the language was watered down sufficiently so that the Library of Congress successfully evaded its obligations over the last half a decade. We hope the bill will contain these two provisions:

(1) Congress directs the Library of Congress to implement bulk access to THOMAS within 120 days of passage

(2) Congress directs the Library of Congress to immediately create an advisory committee on improving public access to legislative information that is composed of people inside and outside of government.

Fully Fund the Office of Congressional Ethics

The Office of Congressional Ethics is the House of Representatives' independent ethics watchdog. It came into existence in March 2008 after a series of corruption scandals prompted congressional leaders to explore creating a transparent, outside enforcement entity. While OCE is not as robust as originally contemplated, it plays a crucial role in ethics oversight. Last year, the office survived a counterproductive effort by nearly 100 members of Congress to significantly reduce its funding. This year's appropriations bill maintains OCE's funding at $1,548,000, which is the same level as last year. We believe that OCE should be strengthened, but at a minimum, its funding should be sustained at least at this level.

Publish CRS Reports Online

Congressional Research Service reports undergird the public's understanding of Congress, but CRS no longer directly releases the reports to the public. As a consequence, while many reports used by citizens, courts, and government employees are on the internet, they are often out-of-date, and a fair number are available only for a fee or not at all. By comparison, sister agencies like CBO and GAO regularly publish reports online. For more than a decade, organizations and members of Congress have urged that CRS reports be publicly available, and CRS concerns have been refuted by a former counsel to the House of Representatives. The reports are already digitized and available on Congress's intranet; it would take a trivial effort to publish them online.

During the markup of the 2012 Appropriations Bill, Rep. Leonard Lance introduced an amendment that would have required the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate to maintain a website containing CRS Reports and Appropriation products while protecting confidential advice from CRS. Similar legislation has been introduced by Rep. Quigley. We hope that House Appropriators will move to make these reports more readily available to the public.

Release the Constitution Annotated Online

The Constitution Annotated (or CONAN) is a continuously-updated 100-year-old legal treatise that explains the Constitution as it has been interpreted by Supreme Court. Maintained by CRS and printed by GPO, a hard copy is published (and put online) only once a decade, with printed updates every two years. However, CONAN is updated frequently, with those updates available on Congress' internal website. In November 2010 (18 months ago), the Joint Committee on Printing directed that the continuously-updated version of CONAN be made available online as a searchable PDF, but it still is not. Many organizations have asked that the underlying document be published online in its original (XML) format, which is more user friendly than a PDF, and would take minimal effort to release.

This upcoming year, the Constitution Annotated will be up for its once-a-decade print edition. With at least 4,870 statutorily mandated copies, at an estimated cost of $226, the House and Senate will pay over $1.1 million for a document that will go out of date almost immediately. We suggest that some of these costs may be recouped by asking House offices if they wish to receive a print copy, as a continuously updated web version is already made available to all congressional offices. Regardless, we urge that the web version that is already made available to congressional offices also be made available to the American people in its web friendly format. While publishing the document as a PDF would be a small step forward, the best use of taxpayer dollars to maximize usability would be to publish it in XML, the format in which it is prepared.

Other Provisions

Sunlight support additional measures in the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. Those provisions include:

The reinstatement of the Office of Technology Assessment, as proposed by Rep. Rush Holt last year. OTA provided Congress http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/taxonomy/term/Office-of-Technology-Assessment/ with the “means for securing competent, unbiased information concerning the physical, biological, economic, social, and political effects” of technology.

Inclusion of the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act, which would would gather together all reports to Congress from federal agencies in one place. It requires that they be published online by GPO in bulk, in open formats, and in a timely fashion, so that people can easily learn about the work of the federal government. The legislation would not require any additional appropriation, and would bring much needed transparency and coordination. It has already passed the Committee on Oversight and Government reform, was introduced in the Senate, and is awaiting action by the House.

Avoiding decreasing funding levels for the House of Representatives and certain legislative support agencies below the subcommittee proposal. Funding for the House has already diminished by at least 10% over the last two years. This raises the concern that congressional staff may become more susceptible to influence from lobbyists, and that support entities (like GPO, the Clerk, and the Library of Congress) that have transparency roles will be less able to fulfill their missions.

Publishing the House Expenditure Reports in a data-friendly format such as CSV. The quarterly reports contain all spending by the House of Representatives, and are currently published online as a PDF. Starting in 2009, then Speaker-Pelosi began publishing House Expenditure Reports online, which was a significant step forward in making them available, as they had only been published in giant books. Unfortunately, publishing columns of data in a PDF does not allow for the data to be analyzed. Simply put, we're only halfway to House spending transparency. The Sunlight Foundation goes through significant effort to scrape the data from the PDFs and put them into spreadsheets, but this should really be done by the House. It would increase accuracy and timeliness -- and so long as the House releases the information, it should do so in the most useful way possible.

by Daniel Schuman and Cassandra LaRussa

Despite significant strides towards improving public access to legislative proceedings, nearly a quarter of House hearings cannot be watched online despite recently instituted House rules – with the Appropriations Committee as the biggest offender, with 70 percent of its hearings unavailable on the Internet.

The Sunlight Foundation tracked 200 House hearings over 20 days to determine whether they were webcast live, plus 407 hearings from January 17 to April 2 to determine whether video from the proceedings were archived online. Twenty-five percent (489 of 200) of the hearings were not live-streamed, and 22 percent (91 of 407) were not archived on committee websites.

While these numbers, at first glance, indicate broad non-compliance with House rules, in reality, nearly all committees did a good or excellent job of live-streaming and archiving their videos online. The major offender was the House Appropriations Committee, which is at the heart of today's debate about the budget and is responsible for writing the chamber's spending bills.

Of the 489 hearings that were not live-streamed, 47 were Appropriations Committee hearings (Armed Services was the other one*and Foreign Affairs were the other two). Similarly, of the 91 hearings that did not have video archived on the committee website, 74 were Appropriations Committee hearings.

In short, the House Appropriations Committee is keeping the public in the dark.

The House's Online Video Rule

In January 2011, the House of Representatives adopted new rules requiring that video coverage of hearings be available online. "To the maximum extent practicable, each committee shall --- (a) provide audio and video coverage of each hearing ... in a manner that allows the public to easily listen to and view the proceedings; and (b) maintain the recordings of such coverage in a manner that is easily accessible to the public."

This was part of Speaker Boehner's commitment to open up the legislative process to the public. He explained that "the internet offers new opportunities to open the halls of Congress to Americans in every corner of our nation."

Live webstreams and video archives are a way to bring Congress closer to the people. The privately-run cable network C-SPAN cannot cover every hearing, and it's unreasonable to expect people to travel to DC to be in attendance. Combined with cutbacks in newsroom staffs around the country, less prominent issues are unlikely to be covered by local media.

Appropriations in the Dark

Unfortunately, the Appropriations Committee has often declined to video-record its proceedings. Last year, I described a hearing on the House's budget that was not televised and was held in a room so small few people could attend. This February, I took photos at another hearing to show the public what they were missing (and that making a recording would be relatively painless).

When we spoke with the Appropriations Committee's press office last year about recording its proceedings, we received the following response:

Whenever logistically possible, the main committee room - which is equipped with webcast and video capabilities - is used for hearings and mark-ups.

The Committee schedules rooms for hearings and mark ups based upon many factors, including but not limited to: space availability, accessibility for members and the public, physical proximity to the house floor to accommodate voting schedules, and room size. Committee hearing rooms are also used for a variety of other purposes such as meetings and briefings. In addition, we allow any credentialed media organization to tape and/or record our open hearings and mark-ups, no matter which room is being used.

With 70 percent of its hearings offline, the Committee's practice appears to diverge from the House's requirement of publishing video online to "the maximum extent practicable." Nearly all other committees manage to put their proceedings online. Appropriators have a large hearing room that has cameras pre-installed. Were the committee to choose to meet in the Capitol building, it could request coverage from the House Recording Studio or meet in one of the new hearing rooms in the Capitol Visitor's Center.

Survey of House Video Sources

We looked at both individual committee websites and the Library of Congress THOMAS website to determine video availability.

We found that committee websites were generally easy to navigate. Specific pages devoted to hearings included a chronological list with links to the archived webcasts, as well as testimony from witnesses and a live-streaming function. This demonstrates a significant improvement based on our past evaluation of committee websites and a serious attempt to address Sunlight’s past suggestions.

The Library of Congress recently began publishing hearing videos on THOMAS at the urging of the House. Unfortunately, the website is very difficult to use and navigate. While recordings are sensibly organized by committee, they are given impenetrable names like "USHR07 Armed Services Committee." Is that a full committee or subcommittee hearing? What is the name of the hearing? Occasionally recordings are titled by the date and time of the hearing, but this is not done consistently. Generally, they are only labeled by "date created," which may or may not be the date the hearing took place. And if multiple hearings took place on the same day, it's difficult to tell them apart.

In reviewing the committee websites against what's available on THOMAS, we found 9 of the 91 videos that were missing from the committees’ websites. The Ways and Means Committee has failed to post 5 videos on its website that are available on THOMAS; the Small Business Committee has missed 2; and the Appropriations Committee and the Budget Committee have each missed one. That still leaves 83 hearing that are not archived online from the time we monitored.

There have been important efforts to fill in the gaps. Carl Malamud and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have together published online over 1,100 committee hearing videos from 1993 to the present.

The American people have a right to see what their government is doing. In the upcoming months, appropriators in particular will make important decisions about how trillions of dollars are spent. It's time to allow everyone to watch this online in real-time, as promised in the House rules.

Methodology: We undertook a best effort to monitor live webcasts of committee hearings between February 27 and March 9 and March 26 to April 2, but we couldn't catch them all. For any webcast that we did not watch as it took place, we called the committee to determine whether one took place.

Because there is no official and complete source for all committee hearings, it's likely that we missed some of the archival hearings. In addition, we only monitored hearings during the first quarter of 2012. Some committees may not have met during that time period. Others may have been particularly active. This research was intended as a snapshot of committee compliance with House rules on making livestreams and video archives available.

Finally, our list of archival video on committee websites is accurate as of the date of review. It’s possible additional video was posted after we completed our survey.

Update: We have been assured by Foreign Affairs Committee that the hearing we identified as not having been webcast was in fact streamed live. The hearing was delayed by a half an hour, so it was not webstreamed at the announced start time, but apparently was available at the delayed start time.

Photo Credit: the test pattern is from Gak on Flickr.

Written by Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey

The House of Representatives'  internal operations budget was the subject of a Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee hearing this morning. In the last two years, the House's budget was decreased by 10% from its FY2010 level, and it may be set for a further reduction.

Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, made clear in his opening statement that he expected the eventual budget allocation to be lower for FY 2013 than in previous years. Mike Honda (D-CA), the subcommittee's ranking member, called cuts to the House budget "misguided" and questioned the effect they would have on staff compensation, office operations, and the legislative process. The effect of budget cuts on Congress's ability to do its job was the subject of a 2010 Sunlight Foundation report.

A number of department heads submitted testimony for the hearing. Of particular interest were statements by the Clerk of the House and the Office of Law Revision Counsel that discussed ongoing transparency measures, many of which are crucial for how the public learns about the House's operations.

Karen Haas, Clerk of the House of Representatives, highlighted the Clerk's transparency efforts in her opening statement and written testimony. The Clerk's proposed budget, a 14% decrease from FY 2012, includes funding to continue "deploying new technology as part of a continuing effort to improve the efficiency and transparency of House floor proceedings." Haas touted the launch of docs.house.gov, improvements to HouseLive.gov, and an upgraded interface to track House floor activities on the Clerk's website as successful initiatives. We agree.

The Clerk's transparency plans for FY 2013 include the addition of committee documents to docs.house.gov, improved video streaming services, and an update to the Legislative Information Management System that will complete its modernization. We welcome the further improvements to docs.house.gov, and hope that along with an improved LIS will be better access to legislative information. The Clerk's office is also working with the Senate to develop a web-based filing system for lobbying disclosure information, an improvement which is long overdue.

Haas also cited CBO estimates that the electronic filing and disclosure system mandated by the recently passed STOCK Act would cost $4 million to implement and $1 million every year to manage. This cost was not factored in to the Clerk's budget request. Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) expressed disdain for the legislation and concern over the cost. To be effective, the STOCK Act must be fully funded and enforced.

Ralph Seep, the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives, submitted a budget request equal to his offices' FY2012 appropriation. His statement highlighted recent upgrades to the US Code's online presence and stressed efforts to update the code in a more efficient manner. The FY 2013 request would make it possible for LRC to continue converting to an XML based production system and maintain and make further upgrades to their website. We agree that these improvements are important, as the public deserves timely access to laws as they are codified. More on LRC here.

It is also worth noting that this hearing was not webcast.

Additional Resources:

• Statement of the House Sergeant-At-Arms Paul Irving
• Statement of Chief Administrator Officer Daniel Strodel
• Statement of Kerry Kircher, General Counsel
• Statement of Inspector General Theresa Grafenstine

Image credit to RambergMediaImages.

The future of the House of Representatives' independent ethics watchdog is subject to speculation now that we're again in appropriations season. Last year, despite the calls of transparency advocates and good government experts, Representative Mel Watt led a 100-member strong effort to cut the Office of Congressional Ethics' budget by 40%. There's likely to be a fight again this year. We believe the OCE should be strengthened, not hamstrung.

The Office of Congressional Ethics came into existence in March 2008 after a series of corruption scandals prompted House leaders to explore creating a transparent, outside enforcement entity. While OCE is not as robust as originally contemplated, it plays a crucial role in ethics oversight. OCE reviews allegations of misconduct against Representatives, House staff, and officers, and refers matters to the House Committee on Ethics for further review when it finds there's a substantial reason to believe a violation may have occurred.

OCE's teeth come from the public release of its reports and findings (except in circumstances when neither OCE nor the Ethics Committee find wrongdoing). American Enterprise Institute scholar Norm Ornstein recommended strengthening OCE by giving it the power to issue subpoenas in those rare cases "where an important investigation is being impeded by a key witness's refusal to testify or provide relevant information." Right now, OCE must rely on witnesses voluntarily cooperating. Ornstein also suggests that OCE members or staff be able to provide evidence directly to the Ethics Committee, and not be limited to submitting written reports

We agree, and add that OCE should have the power to lengthen its investigatory window when circumstances warrant. Its existence should be formalized into law, and its funding increased. Speaker Boehner deserves credit for retaining the OCE when Republicans came to power, as does former Speaker Pelosi for its creation, and we hope members of both parties will join together to put it on a firmer footing.

Every time the OCE does its job, it risks offending individual members of Congress. Even so, the vast majority of representatives voted to keep OCE intact last year because it strengthens the House as an institution.

Hearings in the House on legislative branch appropriations are winding down, so now is the time to make ourselves heard to keep the House's independent ethics watchdog on the beat.

Photo credit to H. Michael Karshis