ALA Governmental Information Subcommittee Committee

I recently updated the webpage to make note of the below hearing that took place yesterday.

On March 4th the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Legislative Branch Appropriations held a budget hearing on the Government Printing Office.  Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooks’ spoke and provided her official testimony to the Committee.  

“We are requesting a total of $128,919,000 for FY 2015, an increase of $9,619,000 or 8.1% over the level of funding provided for FY 2014 in P.L. 113-76. The increase is primarily attributable to the Congressional Printing and Binding account due to the currently projected reduction in the availability of unexpended prior year funds to offset new funding requirements. The other significant component of our increased request is for support of GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) and our Composition System Replacement project as well as necessary facilities maintenance and repairs.”

As we move forward with our appropriations asks this year, we will as always, be including GPO.

Please be on the look out for that alert!

Yesterday the House voted on and passed H.R. 1211, the FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2014.

To get more information on this bill and to view the letter that ALA participated in that was sent to members of the House of Representatives, please visit our webpage.  We will keep you informed as this bill moves to the Senate.

Below is information on an article that I thought might be of interest.

Kasperowicz , P. (2014, February 25). House votes unanimously to fix foia process. The Hill. Retrieved from http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/votes/199254-house-votes-to-fix-foia-process

As we discussed at Midwinter, the World News Connection letter went out prior to the conference on January 22. 

The letter can be found here (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/govinfo/opengov) under Access to Government Information. If you prefer a direct link to the letter -- here you go. :) http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/govinfo...

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful week thus far!

Jessica

The bill below was introduced yesterday. 

See you all soon!

S.1947 
Latest Title: A bill to rename the Government Printing Office the Government Publishing Office, and for other purposes. 
Sponsor: Sen Klobuchar, Amy [MN] (introduced 1/16/2014)      Cosponsors (1) 
Latest Major Action: 1/16/2014 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.

http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/1947

Thank you to those who were able to participate in today's webinar!  If you were not able to attend the webinar but would still like to view it, you can watch it in its entirety here. 

The Committee on Legislation, FDLP Task Force is holding a discussion during Midwinter. Invitations have been sent  to division and round tables to send two representatives to the open dialogue on Saturday, January 25, 10:30a.m. - 11:30a.m., Philadelphia Convention Center, Room 107B. (Please note that there has been a room change!) The Task Force has compiled a survey that is now available, that follows the questions that will be discussed at Midwinter. 

( https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FDLPTaskForce)  The survey will remain open until February 14th.

I've attached a copy of the survey questions in case you would like to read it before going into Survey Monkey and completing the survey. 

The report can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/FDLPReport.

To learn more about the open dialogue at Midwinter 2014 and the survey, please view this webinar and / or feel free to submit questions to jmcgilvray@alawash.org.