Some recent CRS reports

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a research branch of the Library of Congress. They write short reports at the request of Congress. Unlike most government groups the CRS does not release the reports they write. They are not classified, but the reports can only be released by a member of Congress. There is no index produced to this material, so the first step is finding out a report exists and then making a request of your representative or senator.

Fortunately this documents are not copyrighted, so there are groups that gather these reports and put them up on the web. One of these is OpenCRS, whose mission is to encourage Congress to provide access to all CRS reports.

Here are some recent reports loaded on OpenCRS:

• Spain: Current Issues and U.S. Policy
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): FY2007 Appropriations and FY2008 Budget
• Unaccompanied Alien Children: Policies and Issues
• Tracking Current Federal Legislation and Regulations: A Guide to Resources
• Election Reform: Issues and Legislative Proposals in the 109th Congress
• District of Columbia School Reform Proposals: Congress's Possible Role in the Charter Amendment Process>
• Post-Katrina Insurance Issues Surrounding Water Damage Exclusions in Homeowners' Insurance Policies
• Iraq: Elections, Constitution, and Government
• Airport Improvement Program: Issues for Congress
• U.S.-World Merchandise Trade Data: 1948-2006
• Iran's Nuclear Program: Recent Developments
• Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security
• Business Tax Issues in 2007

As you can see these reports cover everything from Katrina recovery to Iraq to trade information.

Want to see more reports? For those of you on campus, check out the LexisNexis Congressional database, which has reports back to 1916. For everyone else, check out the library's guide to find a list of additional free sources of reports.