Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say a few words about one part of the bill that I find very troubling. This is a cut that is a penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Last year, we named the GPO as the Government Publishing Office, and that is because of the range of digital services that it provides. This year, the Legislative Branch Subcommittee voted to cut those operations by eliminating the appropriated funding for the GPO's Federal digital system, which provides free digital access to more than a million congressional and other government document titles that have been downloaded by the public more than 1 billion times over the past 5 years. It does not make sense. Cutting this will severely eliminate money to upgrade the GPO's Federal digital system and the new search and retrieval system.

In recognition of the fiscal pressures we all face, the GPO came in with a flat budget request this year, asking only that we support the commitment to their digital transformation. We said ``yes'' to it last year, and I am hopeful that we can restore that funding this year. It makes no sense to cut this. There are millions of people in local libraries all across this country who depend on this digital system, and we do not need to cut it. This is penny-wise and pound-foolish.

Mr. Chair, as a former Member of the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, I wanted to say a few words about one part of this year's spending bill which I find very troubling.

A year ago, Congress and the President agreed to rename GPO as the Government Publishing Office, based on the broad range of digital services the agency now provides. The Subcommittee supported this legislative change.

This year, the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee voted to cut those operations by eliminating appropriated funding for GPO's Federal Digital System, which provides free digital access to more than 1 million congressional and other Government document titles that have been downloaded by the public more than 1 billion times over the past five years. This cut just doesn't make sense.

It will severely curtail GPO's ability to add new digital documents to its Federal Digital System. It will zero out the funding for initiatives that support the missions of congressional and legislative branch organizations such as the Clerk of the House of Representatives, the Secretary of the Senate, and the Library of Congress who rely on information from the Federal Digital System to feed websites such as Congress.gov and Docs.House.gov.

GPO's Federal Digital System, though just 5 years old, is already beginning to show its age. The rapid changes in today's digital technical environment remind us why it's essential for GPO to keep up with the times.

But this funding cut will eliminate money to upgrade GPO's Federal Digital System with a new search and retrieval system, an improved user interface, and other needed hardware and software improvements, including migrating the system to the cloud. Due to the critical role the Federal Digital System plays in making our legislative information transparent and available online, we need to make this investment.

In recognition of the fiscal pressures we all face, GPO came in with a flat budget request this year, asking only that we support their commitment to their digital transformation. We said yes to that transformation last year, and I am hopeful that we can restore this funding in the final legislation.

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