[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE PATH TOWARD A MORE MODERN AND
EFFECTIVE CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MODERNIZATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 26, 2023
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on House Administration
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.govinfo.gov
www.cha.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-549 WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON HOUSE ADMINISTRATION
BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin, Chairman
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia JOSEPH MORELLE, New York,
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia Ranking Member
GREG MURPHY, North Carolina TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma NORMA TORRES, California
MIKE CAREY, Ohio DEREK KILMER, Washington
ANTHONY D'ESPOSITO, New York
LAUREL LEE, Florida
Tim Monahan, Staff Director
Jamie Fleet, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MODERNIZATION
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma, Chair
MIKE CAREY, Ohio DEREK KILMER, Washington,
Ranking Member
JOSEPH MORELLE, New York
Derek Harley, Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Opening Statements
Chairwoman Stephanie Bice, Representative from the State of
Oklahoma....................................................... 1
Prepared statement of Chairwoman Stephanie Bice.............. 2
Ranking Member Derek Kilmer, Representative from the State of
Washington..................................................... 3
Prepared statement of Ranking Member Derek Kilmer............ 4
Witnesses
Mary B. Mazanec, M.D., Director, Congressional Research Service.. 6
Prepared statement of Mary B. Mazanec........................ 8
Joseph Dunne, Director, European Parliament Liaison Office,
Washington, D.C., and formerly a Director in the Directorate
General for the European Parliamentary Research Service........ 32
Prepared statement of Joseph Dunne........................... 34
Richard Coffin, Chief of Research and Advocacy, USAFacts......... 40
Prepared statement of Richard Coffin......................... 43
Kevin Kosar, Senior Fellow of Legal and Constitutional Studies,
American Enterprise Institute.................................. 47
Prepared statement of Kevin Kosar............................ 49
Questions for the Record
Mary B. Mazanec answers to submitted questions................... 62
Richard Coffin answers to submitted questions.................... 243
Kevin Kosar answers to submitted questions....................... 245
THE PATH TOWARD A MORE MODERN AND EFFECTIVE CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH
SERVICE
----------
April 26, 2023
Subcommittee on Modernization,
Committee on House Administration,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:07 p.m., in
room 1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Stephanie Bice
[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Bice, Carey, and Kilmer.
Staff present: Hillary Lassiter, Clerk; Alex Deise,
Assistant Parliamentarian and Counsel; Derek Harley,
Subcommittee Staff Director; Tim Monahan, Republican Full
Committee Staff Director; Eddie Flaherty, Minority Chief Clerk;
Khalil Abboud, Minority Chief Counsel; Jamie Fleet, Minority
Staff Director; and Enumale Agada, Minority Oversight Counsel.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHANIE BICE, CHAIRWOMAN OF THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MODERNIZATION, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
OKLAHOMA
Chairwoman Bice. The Subcommittee on Modernization will
come to order. A quorum is present.
Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any
time.
The meeting record will remain open for 5 legislative days
so that Members can submit any materials they wish to be
included herein.
How is that? Excellent.
Again, I want to say thank you all for being here today.
Thank you to Ranking Member Kilmer, Subcommittee Members, and
our witnesses for taking the time to be with us.
In the half a century since the Congressional Research
Service's renaming and reauthorization in 1970, Congress has
changed and evolved dramatically. The creation of the internet,
the evolution of think tanks, and the advancement of analytical
and technological tools have significantly increased the
availability of policy research and data. This has changed the
way data and information are accessed, while also increasing
the need for speed and accuracy.
CRS has repeatedly acknowledged the need to adapt to these
changes and evolve the types of products and services it
delivers. However, more can be done to implement these changes
in an adequate and timely manner and in a way that recognizes
the unique and constantly evolving needs of staff, Members, and
Committees.
Our concern is that the inability to make these changes has
diminished the value of the organization to its sole customer:
Congress.
In addition, persistent concerns about the culture and
morale among CRS staff are of serious concern to this
Committee. There are many dedicated and talented staffers
within CRS who do incredible work for Congress, and Members and
staff would suffer without their work.
What concerns me when we hear about persistent culture and
morale issues that appear to be unaddressed is that they risk
undermining CRS's ability to retain their most valuable asset--
the hundreds of analysts, attorneys, and research librarians
that support Congress's work.
The organization as a whole must learn to perform with the
speed and efficiency Congress requires in order to meet the
realities of today's world. A modern and effective CRS goes
hand-in-hand with a modern and effective Congress. Much-needed
updates to this organization would lead to enhanced
congressional capacity and provide staff, Members, and
Committees key tools in their efforts to serve the American
people.
With a budget of $133,600,000 a year, or nearly $250,000
per congressional office, CRS has the resources to provide the
services that Congress requires. Unfortunately, over the past
several years, we have heard from offices that this level of
investment has not been up to par with the types of services
offered or the way in which they were provided.
It is important this Subcommittee understand why CRS is
struggling to meet the moment and take the necessary steps to
ensure the organization's long-term success.
Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Bice follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHANIE BICE, CHAIRWOMAN OF THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MODERNIZATION
In the half a century since the Congressional Research
Service's renaming and reauthorization in 1970, Congress has
changed and evolved dramatically. The creation of the internet,
the evolution of think tanks, and the advancement of analytical
and technological tools have significantly increased the
availability of policy research and data. This has changed the
way data and information are accessed, while also increasing
the need for speed and accuracy.
CRS has repeatedly acknowledged the need to adapt to these
changes and evolve the types of products and services it
delivers. However, more can be done to implement these changes
in an adequate and timely manner and in a way that recognizes
the unique and constantly evolving needs of staff, Members, and
Committees.
Our concern is that the inability to make these changes has
diminished the value of the organization to its sole customer:
Congress.
In addition, persistent concerns about the culture and
morale among CRS staff are of serious concern to this
Committee. There are many dedicated and talented staffers
within CRS who do incredible work for Congress, and Members and
staff would suffer without their work.
What concerns me when we hear about persistent culture and
morale issues that appear to be unaddressed is that they risk
undermining CRS's ability to retain their most valuable asset--
the hundreds of analysts, attorneys, and research librarians
that support Congress's work.
The organization as a whole must learn to perform with the
speed and efficiency Congress requires in order to meet the
realities of today's world. A modern and effective CRS goes
hand-in-hand with a modern and effective Congress. Much-needed
updates to this organization would lead to enhanced
congressional capacity and provide staff, Members, and
Committees key tools in their efforts to serve the American
people.
With a budget of $133,600,000 a year, or nearly $250,000
per congressional office, CRS has the resources to provide the
services that Congress requires. Unfortunately, over the past
several years, we have heard from offices that this level of
investment has not been up to par with the types of services
offered or the way in which they were provided.
It is important this Subcommittee understand why CRS is
struggling to meet the moment and take the necessary steps to
ensure the organization's long-term success.
Our first panel--I am going to pause and let--at this time,
I am going to recognize Representative Kilmer to give an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DEREK KILMER, RANKING MEMBER OF THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MODERNIZATION, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WASHINGTON
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. Excited to be here. I
appreciate the work of this Subcommittee.
You know, one of the things that is special about this
Subcommittee is that, as we look at these institutional issues,
they are really bipartisan. They affect the ability of each of
us, Democrat or Republican, to serve our constituents, to solve
tough problems, regardless of where we sit on the political
spectrum. It is part of the reason that the Modernization
Committee and its former iteration looked at issues related to
the Congressional Research Service.
Both my team and I are regular users of CRS. Their analysts
have weighed in on how to protect Tribal treaty rights, how to
navigate the complex Federal landscape of disaster prevention
and response programs for seismic issues and tsunamis and
flooding. They have provided technical assistance for designing
economic development legislation to help communities that have
faced persistent economic distress. They have done a whole lot
more throughout the little more than 10 years I have been here.
Their staff has picked up the phone in response to same-day
questions, even during some of the busiest times of the year.
Members and staff know it: We depend on CRS to be effective in
our work for the American people. We rely on them.
CRS has played a really critical role within this
institution for over a century. However, as is the case with
any organization, CRS has had its fair share of challenges.
Primary among them is some of the challenges, as you mentioned,
Madam Chair, with regard to providing information and resources
to an ever-evolving Congress, one that operates in a
dramatically different landscape than it faced during its 1970
reorganization and certainly far more than when it was
established in 1914.
Technology, as we know, is a major tool of modernization.
CRS has been working on modernizing its legacy IT systems via
the Integrated Research and Information System, or IRIS.
However, despite the 5 years and millions of dollars spent
developing that system, no product from IRIS has been rolled
out for use by CRS employees to date.
That, in addition to regular problems with the CRS share
drive and email systems, pose a challenge to CRS's dedicated
employees, who pride themselves on providing timely assistance
to Members of Congress and to their staff.
In addition to those technology issues, CRS has faced a
number of personnel issues, from high attrition and low morale
among employees to issues related to diversity. We have heard
directly from CRS employees who love their work and love
working with the congressional community but who feel
frustrated. We have heard from employees who, despite subject
matter expertise and the relationships with Members and staff
here on the Hill, feel replaceable. We have heard from
employees who feel unable to provide the constructive criticism
that they feel is required to make sure that the institution
functions better.
That is part of the reason that the Select Committee on
Modernization, over the past two Congresses, looked broadly at
issues related to turnover within the institution, not just
within CRS but within personal offices, within Committees, to
try to make each of these organizations places that people want
to work and stay and do good work on behalf of the American
people.
Every part of Congress needs to function well. The
institution is only as good as the many parts that allow us to
work on behalf of the American people, and that includes our
support agencies like CRS.
I appreciate that the Chairwoman has organized this hearing
to talk about CRS, to look at best practices, to hear from some
external organizations about how we might be able to raise our
game, and even to hear from leaders abroad. Hopefully their
insights can help us improve CRS and, by extension, help us
improve Congress and strengthen our country.
With that, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ranking Member Kilmer follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON
MODERNIZATION DEREK KILMER
I appreciate the work of this Subcommittee.
You know, one of the things that is special about this
Subcommittee is that, as we look at these institutional issues,
they are really bipartisan. They affect the ability of each of
us, Democrat or Republican, to serve our constituents, to solve
tough problems, regardless of where we sit on the political
spectrum. It is part of the reason that the Modernization
Committee and its former iteration looked at issues related to
the Congressional Research Service.
Both my team and I are regular users of CRS. Their analysts
have weighed in on how to protect Tribal treaty rights, how to
navigate the complex Federal landscape of disaster prevention
and response programs for seismic issues and tsunamis and
flooding. They have provided technical assistance for designing
economic development legislation to help communities that have
faced persistent economic distress. They have done a whole lot
more throughout the little more than 10 years I have been here.
Their staff has picked up the phone in response to same-day
questions, even during some of the busiest times of the year.
Members and staff know it: We depend on CRS to be effective in
our work for the American people. We rely on them.
CRS has played a really critical role within this
institution for over a century. However, as is the case with
any organization, CRS has had its fair share of challenges.
Primary among them is some of the challenges, as you mentioned,
Madam Chair, with regard to providing information and resources
to an ever-evolving Congress, one that operates in a
dramatically different landscape than it faced during its 1970
reorganization and certainly far more than when it was
established in 1914.
Technology, as we know, is a major tool of modernization.
CRS has been working on modernizing its legacy IT systems via
the Integrated Research and Information System, or IRIS.
However, despite the 5 years and millions of dollars spent
developing that system, no product from IRIS has been rolled
out for use by CRS employees to date.
That, in addition to regular problems with the CRS share
drive and email systems, pose a challenge to CRS's dedicated
employees, who pride themselves on providing timely assistance
to Members of Congress and to their staff.
In addition to those technology issues, CRS has faced a
number of personnel issues, from high attrition and low morale
among employees to issues related to diversity. We have heard
directly from CRS employees who love their work and love
working with the congressional community but who feel
frustrated. We have heard from employees who, despite subject
matter expertise and the relationships with Members and staff
here on the Hill, feel replaceable. We have heard from
employees who feel unable to provide the constructive criticism
that they feel is required to make sure that the institution
functions better.
That is part of the reason that the Select Committee on
Modernization, over the past two Congresses, looked broadly at
issues related to turnover within the institution, not just
within CRS but within personal offices, within Committees, to
try to make each of these organizations places that people want
to work and stay and do good work on behalf of the American
people.
Every part of Congress needs to function well. The
institution is only as good as the many parts that allow us to
work on behalf of the American people, and that includes our
support agencies like CRS.
I appreciate that the Chairwoman has organized this hearing
to talk about CRS, to look at best practices, to hear from some
external organizations about how we might be able to raise our
game, and even to hear from leaders abroad. Hopefully their
insights can help us improve CRS and, by extension, help us
improve Congress and strengthen our country.
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Ranking Member Kilmer.
I want to first say, we will be hearing from our CRS
Director, Dr. Mary Mazanec, as she explains the current
situation at CRS and what steps leadership has taken to address
internal challenges and meet Congress's changing needs.
Additionally, we will examine what role CRS should have in
relation to Congress in today's modern age and how CRS can
better meet Congress's legislative and research needs.
For the second panel, we will have an opportunity to hear
from leaders in the think-tank and research fields as well as a
representative from the European Parliament, all of whom are
expert in adopting modern methods in policy research and data
analysis. I look forward to the insightful testimonies to help
inform this Committee's work and to pave a modern and effective
path for the Congressional Research Service.
Last, let me say, this hearing is the first step in a
longer process. We intend to use what we have learned here
today to take action to strengthen the agency for the long
term. That is critical for ensuring a more modern, effective,
and resilient CRS that supports Congress and our work for the
American people.
Our first panel will consist of, as I mentioned, Dr. Mary
Mazanec, Director of the Congressional Research Service. She
has served as Director of CRS since December 2011.
Before joining CRS, Dr. Mazanec served as the Deputy
Assistant Secretary and Director of the Office of Medicine,
Science, and Public Health in the Office of the Assistant
Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of
Health and Human Services.
That is quite a title.
Dr. Mazanec, thank you for being with us today.
Under Committee Rule 9, we ask witnesses to limit their
presentation to a brief summary of their written statement.
Please remember to press the button, unlike I did, on the
microphone in front of you so that the green light is on.
When you begin to speak, the timer in front of you will
turn green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When
the red light comes on, your 5 minutes have expired and we
would ask that you wrap up.
At this time, I recognize Dr. Mazanec for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARY B. MAZANEC, M.D., DIRECTOR, CONGRESSIONAL
RESEARCH SERVICE
Dr. Mazanec. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Bice, Ranking
Member Kilmer, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to discussing
our work for Congress and the efforts to meet your evolving
needs.
Our vision is to be your premier source of research and
analysis. Last year, we supported over 99 percent of Members
and Committees; we handled over 73,000 confidential requests;
hosted more than 10,000 congressional participants at our
seminars; and created or updated over 3,000 products.
We cover the full range of issues before Congress and
support your legislative, oversight, and representational
duties. We are taking major initiatives to position CRS to
support the ever-evolving Congress. I will briefly touch on
initiatives in three key areas that are necessary to
effectively serve Congress in the coming years: first, products
and services; second, the workforce and operations; and,
finally, information technology.
First, we have closely followed the Modernization
Committee's efforts and are committed to ensuring that our
products and services meet the needs of Congress. During my
tenure as CRS Director, we have undertaken a variety of
initiatives to expand and enhance our product line.
In response to congressional demand for shorter products,
we launched the In Focus. This is a two-page, executive-level
report with custom maps and charts, and it has quickly become
one of our most popular products.
We also know that Congress still relies on our longer-form
analytical reports. I have another example here. We added a
pull-out, one-page summary, which is a standalone, that details
the key findings in one page.
We also have significantly increased our multimedia work,
such as infographics, videos, and podcasts. The Service
expanded virtual and hybrid seminar offerings, increasing
access, including for staff in district offices.
Of course, we also need to ensure Congress knows about our
products and services. We regularly conduct in-person and
digital outreach to increase awareness of the Service's full
spectrum of products, services, and support. All new
congressional staff are invited to a CRS services briefing.
We intensified digital outreach efforts, including through
email campaigns, and are experimenting with new outreach
formats. For example, we just launched a science and technology
coffee series that features a brief conversation on timely S&T
policy topics followed by networking and discussion.
Our work is informed by a broad range of congressional
feedback, including that from program and seminar evaluations,
direct interaction with congressional staff through over 73,000
requests a year, surveys, and my own conversations with Members
and staff.
Second, we are focused on our workforce and operations.
Foremost and most importantly, the most important aspect of CRS
is our professional workforce. It is the professional honor of
my lifetime to work with such a talented and dedicated group of
colleagues, from our analysts to those who support our
operations.
We have expanded efforts to recruit, retain, and
professionally develop a diverse and highly skilled workforce.
To enhance the pool of qualified candidates for positions, we
increased outreach to potential applicants, including those
from underrepresented groups, and we participated in over 30
recruitment events last year.
We are optimizing resources by modernizing administrative
operations, including moving paper-based efforts to automated
systems. As a result, CRS is able to operate more effectively,
identify and resolve problems sooner, and manage records more
efficiently.
Finally, we are completely modernizing our information
technology systems, working closely with the Library's Office
of the Chief Information Officer. I am joined today by the CIO,
Judith Conklin, of the Library. This effort will innovate our
product line and improve distribution of our work.
IT projects include a content management system and
authoring and publishing tool to facilitate collaboration and
enable products innovation; a new congressional relationship
management system to better support your requests; enhanced
search to increase findability of our products on CRS.gov; and
a redesigned CRS.gov website based on congressional feedback
that leverages a user-centered design, works well on a range of
devices including the desktop to the mobile, and is more
accessible.
We are also carefully evaluating how we can leverage data
science and emerging technologies such as AI. CRS faces growing
congressional demand to perform quantitative data analysis and
policy simulation to provide congressional requesters with a
more granular perspective of the impact of legislative
proposals.
In closing, I want to thank you again for your continued
partnership and guidance as we seek to ensure that CRS is best
positioned to meet the evolving needs of Congress. I look
forward to discussing these and other topics in greater detail.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Mazanec follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY B. MAZANEC
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Dr. Mazanec.
We will now question the witness, beginning with myself,
followed by the Ranking Member. We will then alternate between
the parties. Any Member wishing to be recognized should signal
to the chair.
I now recognize myself for the purpose of questioning the
witness.
Thank you for your opening statement.
I firmly believe--and, given your written testimony today
and previous testimony you have provided to the Committee, you
would agree--that CRS's greatest asset in supporting Congress
is the group of dedicated staff professionals across the
agency--the analysts, lawyers, research staff, and librarians
who carry out the mission.
The recent attrition rates inside the agency are of
concern. I understand in the most recent fiscal year--I am
sorry, Fiscal Year 2022--non-retirement attrition was double
the annual average from 2009 to 2021.
To what do you attribute this sudden rise in attrition?
Dr. Mazanec. Thank you.
Just to put this in context, our historical attrition rate
ranges from 8 to 10 percent. At the beginning of the pandemic
and the first 2 years, it dropped to 6 percent and below, as
people delayed retirement or just stopped looking for other
opportunities. As expected, when the Library resumed onsite
operation, the attrition rate increased. It ticked up to 13-
plus percent, as a result of people retiring. Also, there was a
number of people that moved outside of the District and
separated because they did not want to move back into the
District.
Right now, our projected attrition rate is back to our
historical average of about 9--8, 9 percent for the year.
People separate from CRS for a variety of reasons. As you
already pointed out, usually retirements account for about 40
to 50 percent in any given year----
Chairwoman Bice. The numbers that I suggested were actually
removing those retirement attrition numbers. I think the number
that is being submitted to us is significantly higher.
What I would also add is, when you look at other agencies,
whether it is CAO or GAO or others, they do not have the
similar types of numbers that we are seeing from an attrition
perspective that we have seen within your organization, which
is why I asked the question.
I would also follow up with: Are you seeing those same
trends this fiscal year?
Dr. Mazanec. As I stated, we are back to our regular
attrition historical average of between 8 and 10 percent----
Chairwoman Bice. We are about 8 months through the year,
fiscal year, correct?
Dr. Mazanec. Right, but this is a projected attrition rate
that we think we will maintain throughout the year. It is
unpredictable.
People leave for a variety of reasons: They are pursuing
other opportunities. They are moving outside of the District.
We do do exit interviews with departing employees to try to
gather some sense of why they are leaving, and they pretty much
fall into the buckets that I have identified.
The jobs at CRS are very demanding. The people at CRS work
very hard, and sometimes it is difficult to juggle their home
responsibilities with their work responsibilities.
Chairwoman Bice. I would argue that that actually is
probably applicable to most jobs across Congress currently, but
we have not seen the attrition numbers in other agencies that
we have seen.
We continue to hear concerns about low morale within, and
were provided with a summary of the Fiscal Year 2022 Federal
Employee Management Viewpoint Survey, the FEVS, conducted by
the Office of Personnel Management.
My understanding is the FEVS survey is designed to measure
employees' perceptions across Government of whether conditions
characterizing successful organizations are present within the
agency.
While we should stipulate that the surveys are snapshots in
time and not a perfect measure, the 22 results that we have
seen do raise concerns, showing a decline in employees' trust
and confidence in senior leadership and with communication.
What do you attribute the FEVS results to?
Dr. Mazanec. As you stated, the FEVS measures employee
perceptions at a given point in time----
Chairwoman Bice. Perception is reality for many people,
though, correct?
Dr. Mazanec. Whether or not it is the actual reality of the
situation is unclear. It is a start of a dialog.
I have studied the results. I have compared them to 2018
and to the initial year that the Library started to collect
FEVS data, in 2016. We are basically back to our 2016 levels.
We went up in 2018, and now we have declined.
The 2022 FEVS is a mixed picture. We significantly
decreased in certain areas, but we went up in others.
Chairwoman Bice. Can you identify what other areas you
increased?
Dr. Mazanec. Yes, I can. We went up in work experience,
work unit, and supervision, supervisors. We went down in
leadership, the Library, ``my satisfaction.'' Then there were
some specific questions on the pandemic and the transition back
to the worksite.
As you know, the 2022 FEVS was done in July and August of
last year. The Library resumed onsite operations in April 2022.
I think there was a lot of anxiety, a lot of concern, as
employees retransitioned back to the worksite.
Moving forward--because I really want to get to the why, to
why are employees answering the questions in this manner--we
have contracted with Marcia Byrd, who is a senior advisor right
now on contract with the Librarian's Office, to do focus
groups, to do a deeper probe into specifics as to why employees
are answering the questions this way.
Marcia Byrd is also doing our barrier analysis. CRS is the
first service unit--I actually volunteered CRS to be the first
service unit to do a barrier analysis.
She has already looked at the FEVS, and these focus groups
are scheduled to begin in the end-of-May timeframe.
Chairwoman Bice. OK. Thank you.
At this time, I yield 5 minutes to Ranking Member Kilmer.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks again for being with us.
During the work of the Modernization Committee, we looked
both at recruitment and retention, which I think the chair hit
on really well. The other issue we looked at was diversity of
workforce.
I know the last time you visited with House Administration
I was not on it, but I know part of the discussion was around
how to diversify the workforce. I am just curious about some of
the steps that you have taken and what sort of impact they have
had.
Dr. Mazanec. Thank you for that question.
Diversity is a priority of mine; it is a priority of the
Service. It was actually flagged as an area that we needed to
focus on in the 2016 FEVS. At that point, we set up a diversity
and inclusion working group to make recommendations back to me
as to how we could best diversify the workforce.
To that extent, we have increased our outreach efforts in
advertising our jobs and also in making people just aware of
CRS and employment opportunities. Last calendar year, we
participated in 30 recruitment events.
We also have provided quarterly diversity and inclusion
trainings to increase awareness among staff and managers. We
have created a diversity and inclusion website to provide
additional information.
We contracted with Texas A&M to do a capstone project for
us, to write a report on best practices.
Mr. Kilmer. How is it coming?
Dr. Mazanec. We have the report. We are looking at the----
Mr. Kilmer. I guess I--let me rephrase. Have these
initiatives led to outcomes?
Dr. Mazanec. We have had an impact at the most senior
levels. I have 11 direct reports. They are part of my senior-
level management team. We have four individuals that identify
themselves as minorities, for 36 percent. Five are women, for
46 percent.
In order to really move the needle significantly, you have
to have turnover of staff, you have to have the opportunities
to hire. We just do not have an exceedingly high attrition rate
to move the needle that quickly.
Mr. Kilmer. At the management level.
Dr. Mazanec. No, at the general staff level. We are still
approximately 75 percent Caucasian, 25 percent minority, if you
look at the entire CRS staff.
Mr. Kilmer. The other area I wanted to follow up on was,
you know, in the last Congress, the Select Committee made a
number of recommendations related to your organization.
Dr. Mazanec. Uh-huh.
Mr. Kilmer. I am happy to run through them if you want. You
know, one was around making available nonpartisan summaries so
that, when we take up particularly priority bills, that there
is a nonpartisan summary available.
There was one related to making sure that the products and
services are designed to adapt to meet the needs of an evolving
Congress, with a sub-recommendation related to the
functionality of CRS.gov, improving access to agency reports
and other information, tailoring products to staffs' knowledge
level, taking steps to build a more diverse workforce, as we
just discussed.
Then another one regarding regularly updating and providing
complete information on agency contacts and casework contacts
for our district offices.
Any status update you can give us on those recommendations?
Dr. Mazanec. Yes, of course.
Let me start with the bill summaries. As you know--as you
stated, Congress has expressed concern about the timeliness of
bill summaries, and I am concerned too.
If you look at the number of measures introduced between
the 115th and the 117th Congress, there has been a 30-percent
increase. There are more measures being introduced, more
measures that need to be summarized, and they are more complex.
This team, the bill digest team that do the summaries, has
stayed pretty much at the same numbers.
In order to address this, we do have a pending programmatic
increase that would increase that team by 12 FTEs. We are
projecting that it would improve the timeliness of bill
summaries by 40 percent.
In the--just in the most recent----
Mr. Kilmer. It feels like the--sorry to interrupt you. I
mean, it seems like the priority needs to be at least summaries
for stuff that is going to hit the floor, right?
Dr. Mazanec. Absolutely, and that is a priority. We
summarize the bill when we get the official bill language. To
the extent that we have the bill language and we can summarize
it before floor action, we do so.
Mr. Kilmer. OK.
Dr. Mazanec. We have a report that is due, I believe, in
June that is currently under review--and this was in last
year's appropriations language--to report on that and also
indicate the resources that are needed----
Mr. Kilmer. Uh-huh.
Dr. Mazanec [continuing]. to improve that situation.
Mr. Kilmer. Right. That is why you are asking for the----
Dr. Mazanec. That is coming out.
Mr. Kilmer. Gotcha.
Dr. Mazanec. That is coming out.
You had a question on--another question on----
Mr. Kilmer. Agency contacts for casework.
Dr. Mazanec. Oh, agency contacts for casework. I saw the
recommendation. It is open. It is a deceptively difficult task
that we are not----
Mr. Kilmer. For our staff too.
Dr. Mazanec. For your staff, for our staff. We are not
currently resourced to do it. I would have to shift resources
to create it and maintain it. It does require resources if you
want contacts at the Federal, State, and district level.
Mr. Kilmer. Uh-huh.
Dr. Mazanec. I would like to discuss that in more detail. I
just think it is a very difficult task for us to do.
Then you had another on----
Mr. Kilmer. CRS.gov, improving the functionality of the----
Dr. Mazanec. CRS.gov is actually part of our IT
modernization. We are making progress. We have input from
congressional staff. The modernized CRS.gov will be more
client-friendly. We are enhancing the search function, so there
will be more accessibility, more ease of finding what you are
looking for.
Some of the improvements will be launched in 2023. The
search function is scheduled to be completed in 2024. We are
making significant progress on that IT project.
Mr. Kilmer. OK.
I am probably over time, so I will----
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Ranking Member Kilmer.
At this time, I recognize Mr. Carey for 5 minutes.
Mr. Carey. Thank you.
Doctor, thank you for your testimony and coming and talking
with us today.
I noticed from your resume you went to Case Western
Reserve----
Dr. Mazanec. Yes.
Mr. Carey [continuing]. which is just a couple blocks away
from my great-grandparents in Little Italy, so----
Dr. Mazanec. Oh, great. Two of my degrees, actually.
Mr. Carey. I noticed that. Then you did a little time in
Michigan. I will not focus on the Michigan time, but glad you
spent some time in Ohio.
I was a former staffer here for many, many years and had
the opportunity to use the Service. I read through your
testimony, and since Mr. Kilmer actually asked some of the
questions I was going to ask, let me focus on a couple things.
In your testimony--and you, actually, in your verbal
testimony, as well as your written, you said that you regularly
receive feedback through the agency's direct interaction with
congressional staff, including through programs and seminars.
You indicated that you personally receive feedback from your
own conversations with Members, like myself, and our staff.
How do those interactions help you measure the
effectiveness of your service and products?
Dr. Mazanec. The first question out of my mouth when I run
into a Member of Congress is: How are we doing for you? What
can we do better? Most times, I get very positive feedback.
We have tried to capture feedback in a more formal manner
by doing Gallup surveys. The response rate is only 10 percent
in general, and it is even lower for Members.
Mr. Carey. OK.
Dr. Mazanec. Every interaction we have with congressional
staff is an opportunity to get feedback. When we are responding
to a targeted research request, the analysts will contact the
requester, clarify the request, make sure we understand the
deadline----
Mr. Carey. Yes.
Dr. Mazanec [continuing]. the timeframe that we have, but
will also have an iterative conversation throughout the process
to make sure that we are meeting your needs.
Mr. Carey. Let me ask you this just as a follow up. Are you
tracking all of these conversations that you have with Members
of Congress and our staff?
Dr. Mazanec. Not in a formal way, because they are very
informal, and a lot of times, like----
Mr. Carey. Let me--and not to interrupt you, but, I mean,
do you see any certain trends over the last couple years within
the organization?
Dr. Mazanec. As long as I have been at CRS, the feedback
that I get at my level is mostly uniformly positive. Now, that
is not to say that occasionally there is a product----
Mr. Carey. I wish we had that same in Congress.
Dr. Mazanec [continuing]. that I hear about.
Mr. Carey. Uh-huh.
Dr. Mazanec. We have tried a few things recently. The
American Law Division has put a one-question survey on the
bottom of their newsletter that they send out to 600 people,
600 subscribers every 2 weeks.
Mr. Carey. Let me jump in here real quick----
Dr. Mazanec. OK.
Mr. Carey [continuing]. because, kind of in a related vein,
you have contracted, if I am not mistaken, with Gallup a couple
times----
Dr. Mazanec. A couple of times.
Mr. Carey [continuing]. to survey your staff on the
effectiveness of your products and your services.
How are those results from those two surveys incorporated
in the work? You know, what have you done as a follow up to
that? I only have a minute and a half, so----
Dr. Mazanec. A quick answer. One of the things that was
commented upon, and I have already spoken to it, is bill
summaries. That is one of our most used products. There was the
issue raised about timeliness, and so we are taking efforts to
improve that.
If we get suggestions, specific suggestions, about the
product line, we move them forward. I set up a new product
advisory committee that vets suggestions, new ideas for
products.
Mr. Carey. OK.
Is customer service effectiveness a part of the performance
review process for all of your employees?
Dr. Mazanec. Yes, I do believe so, that employees--that
analysts will be evaluated, to some extent, on how well they
serve you.
I am incredibly proud of the work that my staff does. They
put in overtime, they work in the evenings, on the weekends, to
make sure that you get what you need.
Mr. Carey. Yes.
Dr. Mazanec. In the very rare instance where we do not meet
a deadline, we try to get detailed specifics and we try to
improve our performance.
Realistically, sometimes the deadlines that you want are
not achievable in the timeframe you give us. To do a 50-State
survey on a complex legal issue cannot be done in a few hours.
Mr. Carey. Well--and I appreciate your testimony,
appreciate the time. I have run out of mine, so I----
Dr. Mazanec. OK.
Mr. Carey [continuing]. yield back, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Mr. Carey.
We will move forward with a second round of questioning or
if anyone wants to chime in here. I have structured this
particular Subcommittee to be a little more collaborative and
more of a roundtable discussion. To any of my colleagues
sitting here with me, you are welcome to chime in.
I want to pivot back to the conversation around IRIS.
Dr. Mazanec. Uh-huh.
Chairwoman Bice. In 2018, you know, there was a multiyear
effort announced; there was $20 million that was dedicated to
improving technology within the organization.
We have heard that there have been some frustrations with
moving forward with technology. Certainly, you and I had a
conversation around the platform that you were looking at
launching. It did not go as planned.
How much of that $20 million has been spent so far? What is
the plan moving forward to try to improve CRS?
By the way, I should also note, I tried to pull CRS up on
my iPad and it would not load, and I am not really sure why.
So----
Dr. Mazanec. The CRS.gov website?
Chairwoman Bice. Correct. Yes.
Dr. Mazanec. On your----
Chairwoman Bice. iPad.
Dr. Mazanec. That is strictly for congressional users and
the intranet that you have. You can get our products on
Congress.gov, which you should be able to pull up on your
iPhone.
Chairwoman Bice. Perfect.
I have noticed that there has been a lot of discussion in
your--I believe, in your statement about Congress.gov, or it
might have been in the directional statement that was provided
to us. It seems like there is more of a focus on Congress.gov
than there is on CRS.gov.
I would love to hear your perspective on IRIS and where we
are with the initiatives to try to improve technology across
the entity.
Dr. Mazanec. IRIS was initially conceptualized in 2015. We
got funding in 2018. It was a 5-year, multiproject effort.
Initially, we were restricted to an on-premise solution. As
I mentioned to you when we met previously, we had two vendors
that were unable to deliver a minimally viable product.
Chairwoman Bice. What were the projects that you had
contracted upon receiving the authorization, the appropriations
for $20 million? You said you had five----
Dr. Mazanec. What were the specific initiatives?
Chairwoman Bice. Right. You said there were five that you
were looking at?
Dr. Mazanec. Well, no, no. It was a 5-year initiative.
Chairwoman Bice. What were you looking at doing with that?
Dr. Mazanec. Authoring and publishing, content management,
our customer service record, the text analysis program, and
then some of the infrastructure work--and, again, I apologize,
I am not an IT expert. That is why I brought my colleague with
me. It is a complicated project. It was to modernize all of our
mission-critical systems.
Chairwoman Bice. Which one of those would you say you have
actually been able to accomplish?
Dr. Mazanec. I think we are moving forward on all of them.
Chairwoman Bice. What is----
Dr. Mazanec. The text analysis----
Chairwoman Bice. Just let us be clear: We are 5 years in
now. We----
Dr. Mazanec. Right.
Chairwoman Bice.--appropriated the dollars in 2018, and
here we are in 2023, and I do not--I am asking, what are the
deliverables?
Dr. Mazanec. Two of those major products had to be
recompeted because we had to terminate the contract. We were
able to build on the first 2 years of the vendors' efforts.
They helped to define requirements, et cetera.
In 2023, the publishing system is going to be launched. We
have a solution for that to be put into place. The customer
management service will be launched. The content management
system will be launched. The Text Analysis Program, TAP, is due
to be released this year.
We are making quite a bit of progress on these systems. It
is an iterative process. The Library uses an agile approach.
Once these systems are put in place, there will be ongoing,
continuous development of the systems so that we will be able
to adapt the systems as your needs evolve, to better meet you
and what you need from us.
Chairwoman Bice. As far as the $20 million that was
appropriated, how much of that has been spent to date?
Dr. Mazanec. I will have to get back to you on that.
I do think--you had asked me before, the contractor, the
vendor that was not able to deliver the product, how much we
were able to de-obligate. The initial amount that was awarded
was $7.8 million. We were able to de-obligate $3.5 million.
$4.3 million was already expended on work that they did for us.
Chairwoman Bice. OK. All right.
Ranking Member Kilmer, you are recognized.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Maybe I will sort of do a speed round.
Dr. Mazanec. OK.
Mr. Kilmer. On the attrition side, is there anything that
the organization needs to better hold on to talented analysts?
You said things have settled down this year in terms of
turnover, but, you know, this----
Dr. Mazanec. Well, I think there are three things, three
factors that make employees satisfied with their job. One is,
they have professional development opportunities. They are
engaged. We are working on those two aspects. They are
acknowledged and rewarded for their contributions.
To the extent possible, we try to provide developmental
opportunities in terms of training. We have a budget that
allows them to attend professional conferences. There are
programs that the Library has, like the Leadership Development
Program, that they can participate in--apply and participate
in.
There are other development opportunities that I would like
my staff to be able to have, but, again, it comes down to
capacity.
I think details provide a great opportunity for our
subject-matter experts to expand their knowledge in their area.
That is something I would like to do more of.
We do have regular performance awards for their
contributions.
To the extent practicable, we do try to engage them. In my
written testimony, you see that we have a strategic planning
process that we kicked off. We have, on some of the working
groups in Committees, we have staff participating. We also have
them participating on some of our standing Committees. We have
staff participating on the TAG, the technical working groups
that we have set up to inform our IT modernization effort.
Mr. Kilmer. Let me ask a couple things on the technology
modernization front.
You mentioned the investment required for the bill
summaries. Has there been any contemplation of using a
technical solution, using AI, for example?
Dr. Mazanec. Using AI? Absolutely. In fact, we are planning
to pilot an on-premise AI solution to see if it can assist us
in bill summaries.
Mr. Kilmer. OK.
Dr. Mazanec. My understanding of AI is, it is a rapidly
evolving field. We do have a team that is doing market analysis
of the various solutions. The market analysis, thus far--so
far, as I understand it, the AI solutions have not been
security certified for Federal Government use. So----
Mr. Kilmer. These are public bills, though, right? I mean--
--
Dr. Mazanec. That is--we are going to pilot that, and that
is an on-premise solution.
Mr. Kilmer. OK.
Dr. Mazanec. I think it is a different thing. We are
planning to do that.
Mr. Kilmer. You spoke to this briefly, but the issues
around, sort of, maximizing findability and usability of CRS
products----
Dr. Mazanec. Uh-huh.
Mr. Kilmer [continuing]. that was one of the
recommendations that the Modernization Committee made. Has
there been any progress on that yet? You mentioned that the
search function was going to be updated----
Dr. Mazanec. The search function on CRS.gov is scheduled to
be completed in 2024.
Mr. Kilmer. How about pushing out product to the public,
making some of the past products available to, you know,
Members, staff, and making them more available to the general
public?
Dr. Mazanec. Are you talking--public release? We were
mandated in 2018 to----
Mr. Kilmer. Those things that are not classified at least,
making them more available--findable and available.
Dr. Mazanec. Findable and available.
Congress.gov is where we push out our nonconfidential
written products.
Mr. Kilmer. Yes.
Dr. Mazanec. That also is a partnership with OCIO. It is
also a partnership with the Clerk of the House and the
Secretary of the Senate, CBO, and GPO.
There are constantly being updates and new product
offerings on Congress.gov. I think the searchability or the
ability to find the CRS products is in the queue.
Mr. Kilmer. If I could, Madam Chair.
When you look at developing technology products, is there
any attempt to tag-team either with civil society organizations
or with sister organizations like CBO, GAO?
Dr. Mazanec. Do you mean co-develop them?
Mr. Kilmer. Yes.
Dr. Mazanec. Not to my knowledge, but, again, I would defer
to the CAO. I am sure we tap into the expertise, and we do look
and do our research to see what other agencies have put in
place. To actually work together to develop a system--I mean,
we do have--for Congress.gov, we do have our data partners in a
working group that we meet with regularly.
Mr. Kilmer. OK. Thanks.
I yield back.
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Ranking Member Kilmer.
I recognize Mr. Carey for his questioning.
Mr. Carey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be quick with
this.
I think we have, like, 15,000 staffers here on the Hill, in
and around. Yet, I think, if I am not mistaken, if the number--
I could be off by a couple hundred, but I think you only have
about 1,200 followers on Twitter.
I guess my question is, what are you guys doing for social
media for our staffs? Do you plan to expand upon that in the
future?
Dr. Mazanec. Twitter--congressional staff can sign up with
us to receive our tweets. Our tweets are used mostly to push
out information about products and seminars that we are
planning to put on. We do not have a broad social media
presence. That is really not something that we engage in.
We also have other vehicles to make staff aware of programs
and new products or different things that we are doing. Every
division usually has a newsletter that they push out. I
mentioned the American Law Division newsletter that they push
out every 2 weeks. I know we have a specific newsletter just
focused on science and technology, since that has been a
concern of Congress, making sure that they have additional
support on science and technology.
Mr. Carey. I can appreciate that. You know, just looking at
those numbers, my hope is that you guys will--because we want
you guys to be successful. I mean, that is why we are having
these hearings, that is why we are talking about the issues
that we are talking about.
I just think that, when you have a captive audience of
15,000 people that work here on the Hill, to only be followed
by 1,200 or some of those--and you are right, there are other
venues that they can go and get the information--my hope is
that you can grow that, whether it is that or other social
media.
With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Mr. Carey.
I want to sort of piggyback off of that. I have a different
perspective. I am not sure that that is maybe the best
utilization of resources, quite frankly. My friend and
colleague from Ohio may disagree.
I first want to ask the question--you mentioned seminars,
that you are holding seminars that congressional staff, I
believe, is invited to attend. Is that correct? Or is it for
your own staff?
Dr. Mazanec. No. Actually, we have a whole series of
seminars throughout the session. Last year, we did 250
seminars.
Chairwoman Bice. How many congressional staffers are
participating in these events?
Dr. Mazanec. Totally, it is over 10,000 congressional
staffers at all of those seminars.
Chairwoman Bice. That have attended?
Dr. Mazanec. That have attended.
Chairwoman Bice. OK.
Dr. Mazanec. We offer our programming in both a virtual
venue, a virtual medium, so we are able to offer seminars to
district staff. Many of our programs are hybrid. We will have
both an in-person audience but also make it available to a
virtual audience.
Chairwoman Bice. The reason I ask the question is, I feel
like there are so many entities that are providing seminars,
whether it is specific to topics--you mentioned ALU or
science--either outside think-tank groups or even internal
organizations that are providing updates on policy areas or
specific initiatives. I think of, within the Republican
Conference, the, you know, Western Caucus talks a lot about
farming issues or conservation issues.
I am just curious if you feel like the information that you
are sharing in those particular seminars provides a different
level of engagement or insight that they may not get from
somewhere else.
Dr. Mazanec. I think so. I think our seminars are focused
through a congressional lens. They are targeted to the work
that you are currently undertaking. It is tied very tightly to
the congressional schedule.
For example, we may use proposed legislation as a topic for
a seminar. We will walk through maybe some of the policy
considerations. It is different than a seminar that is put on
by a think tank or an academic institution.
Chairwoman Bice. There is a currently a Member briefing on
AI from MIT. I am sure that would be a fascinating discussion.
Dr. Mazanec. It would be. I am sure it would be.
Chairwoman Bice. You mentioned, to a question from Ranking
Member Kilmer, that you have quite a few individuals serving on
the Committees that are, I think, looking into different areas
of CRS. Is that correct?
Dr. Mazanec. Uh-huh.
Chairwoman Bice. Specifically, what staff do you have
serving on these Committees? Is it every level? Is it only
leadership? Who is actually participating in these focus
groups?
Dr. Mazanec. For the focus groups? The focus group is
open--this is in follow up to the FEVS. The focus groups----
Chairwoman Bice. I am sorry. This is in follow up to
Ranking Member Kilmer's----
Dr. Mazanec. It depends on the subgroup or working group.
We include analysts on the diversity and inclusion working
group. We have representatives from across the Service in all
different positions, from people that work on the upside to
analysts and people that work on the research side. The new
products working group, again, has people from the research
side, mostly, primarily, because that is the vehicle for our
work product. It varies. It varies.
There are other ways we engage staff, whether it is brown-
bag discussions or other ways to get their input, where we will
put something out in our weekly newsletter and ask them to
provide comments or feedback.
I recently conducted a series of all-hands meetings
division by research division just to answer all their
questions. I spent an hour-and-a-half in each division just
answering all their questions----
Chairwoman Bice. If I may, in regards to what,
specifically?
Dr. Mazanec. It was about a lot of different things, about
some of the policies that are in place, particularly our new
hybrid work environment, telework. There was one or two
questions about artificial intelligence and how is that going
to impact what we do, our work, since there are some solutions
or some programs that can now generate content and text.
Sometimes they have questions about hiring.
It is really what----
Chairwoman Bice. More of a townhall-type format.
Dr. Mazanec. It is a townhall-type format. A lot of
questions were related to the recent experience that they had
coming through a global public health emergency, the transition
back into onsite work, how that was working.
It is really a mix, whatever is percolating at that moment.
Chairwoman Bice. Great. Thank you.
Ranking Member Kilmer, you are recognized.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair.
There are members of your team that I would like to erect
statues of because they have----
Dr. Mazanec. I would too.
Mr. Kilmer [continuing]. done such great work for us.
I am struck by the fact that, you know, a lot of the works
that is done is--there can be projects that take a long time,
right, where there is a highly technical issue, where we ask a
member of your team to engage with constituents, and it can get
really murky, and they help us walk through the wilderness.
With that in mind, I want to ask about something, because I
want to understand it better.
As we understand it, the American Law Division is in the
process of implementing across-the-board numerical quotas for
congressional requests and for written products as part of
their performance appraisal.
I want to understand that better, because it seems like,
depending upon the content area or the legislative activity,
something could take--I mean, I know for a fact that our office
has worked with folks where, you know, it has been really,
really challenging. I would feel guilty asking for that level
of qualitative work if they are being measured based on
quantitative quota.
Maybe help me understand, what was the motivation behind
that? Where do you see it headed?
Dr. Mazanec. Thank you for that question, but I think it is
not an accurate assessment of what the leadership in the
American Law Division is actually trying to do.
Mr. Kilmer. OK.
Dr. Mazanec. We are not setting quotas. It is not about the
numbers.
What the leadership in ALD is trying to do is clarify
expectations, performance expectations, provide more guidance
and transparency to legislative attorneys in the GS-13 to -15
series as to what they need to do in order to meet
expectations. The numbers that are mentioned set the floor.
Virtually every attorney will easily get over them.
It is not the controlling factor. The controlling factor is
really the quality of the work. If someone is working on a
project that takes a lot of their time, that is very complex,
that is going to be evaluated very highly.
There may be other considerations. If they are detailed
into a management position or in a position where they are not
writing as much or responding to requests because they are
doing other things to support the American Law Division, that
will be taken into consideration.
Chairwoman Bice. If I could maybe follow up on that.
Dr. Mazanec. Yes.
Chairwoman Bice. If I am hearing you correctly, you are
suggesting that you are not going to be putting some sort of
quantitative number across the board for every individual. Is
that right?
Because I think, to Ranking Member Kilmer's point, somebody
that is in tax policy may have a lot more due diligence to be
able to put out a product versus somebody that is maybe doing,
I do not know, science-based initiatives.
I think that is where I would concur that maybe that is a
concern that we have, if you are, in fact, trying to put some
sort of benchmarks or floor in place, how that is going to be--
--
Dr. Mazanec. Actually, what the numbers are, the average
legislative attorney will answer so many requests a year, but
the range is this.
It is not a quota or a benchmark that someone has to get
over. It is really to provide guidance to attorneys and in this
one specific position. I have had staff say to me that they
wish they had a better understanding of what the job
expectations are.
Performance evaluation is a process, an annual process. At
the beginning of the rating period, the analysts, the attorney,
the staff member, will develop a performance plan with their
manager. There will be check-ins throughout the rating period.
There is a formal midyear evaluation and then a final
evaluation.
You do not want to get to the final evaluation and not have
a better understanding of what the job responsibilities are and
what the expectations are to be fully successful, or
commendable, or outstanding.
Chairwoman Bice. Do you yield.
OK. Ranking Member Kilmer yields back, and I think at this
time that is the conclusion of the questions from our Committee
here.
I want to say thank you to Dr. Mazanec and certainly her
team that has joined her this afternoon.
We will take a short recess to reset and start our second
panel here shortly.
Dr. Mazanec. Thank you very much, and I look forward to
continuing our dialog.
[Recess.]
Chairwoman Bice. The Subcommittee on Modernization will
come to order. I note that a quorum is present.
Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I will now introduce our second panel of witnesses.
Our first witness, Mr. Joseph Dunne, is the director of the
European Parliament Liaison Office in Washington, D.C., and is
tasked with fostering and deepening relations between the
European Parliament and the U.S. Congress.
From 2016 to 2018, Mr. Dunne worked as a director in the
Directorate General for the European Parliamentary Research
Services and was responsible for the European Parliament
Library. Mr. Dunne served as a senior resident fellow at the
German Marshall Fund of the United States and as a visiting
fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George
Mason University.
Our next witness, Mr. Richard Coffin, is the chief of
research and advocacy at USAFacts, a nonprofit, nonpartisan
civic initiative aimed at empowering Americans with facts by
making Government data more accessible, understandable, and
usable.
Prior to his current role, Mr. Coffin spent several years
as the organization's chief product officer, where he led
product vision and strategy, data acquisition, content
production, and the building out of the customer-facing website
and platform.
Our final witness, Dr. Kevin Kosar, is a resident scholar
at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., think
tank, where he studies U.S. Congress, American politics, and
the U.S. Postal Service. Between 2003 and 2014, Dr. Kosar
served as an analyst and an acting research manager at the
Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service.
Thank you to our second panel of witnesses for being here
today.
Under Committee Rule 9, we ask witnesses to limit their
presentation to a brief summary of their written statement.
Please remember to press the button on the microphone in front
of you so that the green light is on.
When you begin to speak, the timer will begin and turn
green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the
red light comes on, your 5 minutes have expired and we would
ask that you please wrap up.
At this time, I would like to recognize Mr. Joseph Dunne
for 5 minutes for an opening statement.
STATEMENTS OF JOSEPH DUNNE, DIRECTOR, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
LIAISON OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C., AND FORMERLY A DIRECTOR IN
THE DIRECTORATE GENERAL FOR THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARY RESEARCH
SERVICE; RICHARD COFFIN, CHIEF OF RESEARCH AND ADVOCACY,
USAFACTS; AND KEVIN KOSAR, SENIOR FELLOW OF LEGAL AND
CONSTITUTIONAL STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH DUNNE
Mr. Dunne. Thank you, Chairwoman Bice, Ranking Member
Kilmer, Member Carey. It is a great honor and privilege for me
to be here today.
As you have just said, I am the director of the European
Parliament Liaison Office, which was establish by the
Parliament to deepen relations for the Congress. Before I came
here, my last two positions were in the European Parliament
Research Service, and I was involved in the small team which
set up the Service in 2013, 10 years ago.
If I could explain briefly to you about the Service--the
first point I would like to say, though, is the context of this
reform. In 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon made the European
Parliament a fully fledged co-legislature, a co-equal branch of
the EU legislature, as you would perhaps say here. The
challenge, then, was how the EP would equip itself to play its
full role as a co-legislature.
On the resources front, the Parliament did three things: It
boosted its professional Committee staff; it created a whole
new scrutiny and oversight capacity; and, third, it created a
whole new research capacity, the EPRS.
In doing this, the EP looked to the United States and
especially to the nonpartisan legislative institutions--the
CRS, GAO, CBO--who we look upon as world leaders, and note that
they are designed to safeguard Congress's legislative powers
using knowledge and expertise.
This was a template for us, and our motto became,
``Empowering Members and Committees Through Knowledge.'' We had
a vision, inspired by the CRS, of being independent,
nonpartisan, objective, and authoritative, to be specialists in
all policy fields, be client-oriented, responsive to the needs
of Members, and to ensure clear and simple branding of our
products, and to maximize readability and visualization
techniques using visual media as much as possible, especially
infographics and data.
Of course, from the very outset, we tried to develop and
did develop a productive and professional relationship with the
CRS, tried to learn from their experience. We admire, and still
admire very much, the authoritativeness of CRS publications and
strive to meet that high benchmark.
The EPRS was built up around three pillars. The part that
most resembles the CRS is called the Members' Research Service.
This has two main tasks: first, to respond to individual
requests from Members. These are always handled on a strictly
confidential basis. By now, in the middle of this legislative
term, we have reached 86 percent of all of the Members of
Parliament.
A second main task is generating publications for all
Members. The guiding principle here was that the briefing
should be content-rich but, nevertheless, clear, accessible,
easy to read.
In this term, the 1,500 publications that we have published
are all publicly accessible. They can all be accessed on our
catalog, on our think-tank internet website, around the EPRS
app, which you can download from Google Play or from the App
Store.
We have put a strong emphasis on the use of infographics,
data, statistics in all our publications. Most of these
infographics are available to Members and their offices. We
have a graphics warehouse on our intranet site. We have a map
warehouse, also available to Members and their offices, and a
statistics warehouse, giving easy access to a very wide range
of EU and international data.
We continue to try to innovate new products. We have
developed a podcast. We have projects like what we call the EU
``Legislative Train Schedule'' website. We have done short
notes on the practical benefits of the EU for people, known as
``What Europe Does for Me.''
The second pillar of the EPRS is inspired, in part, by the
GAO, and this deals with tools for ex ante and retrospective
impact assessment and evaluation. This is partly because, in
our system, in the EU system, impact assessment is dealt with
more upstream than is the case here. This created a need for a
special support for parliamentary Committees.
The EPRS also supports the STOA panel, the Scientific and
Technological Options Assessment panel, which is made up of 27
Members of Parliament. It was created in 1984 on the model
which existed in the U.S. Congress. This body increasing looks
to issues related to scientific foresight.
In addition to that, we have a complementary but separate
unit dealing with global trends, which we call the Strategic
Foresight and Capabilities Unit. The idea here is to instill
forward thinking in legislation, how we can future-proof
legislation and create resilience in the face of future shocks
and try to extrapolate how that can be anticipated as much as
possible in legislation.
I am actually a little bit ahead of myself. I thought I was
going to go over the 5 minutes. I was going to say that, in
conclusion, that the EPRS has been successful in its own terms,
in terms of the goals we set for ourselves 10 years ago, as we
now reach almost 90 percent of all of the Members of the
European Parliament. Our public reports are more and more
frequently cited in academic literature, so we feel we have
reached a certain level of authoritativeness.
I would be very happy to answer any of your questions. I am
delighted to be here, and thank you very much for inviting me.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dunne follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOSEPH DUNNE
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you for your statement.
Unfortunately, the timer actually starts going up
whenever----
Mr. Dunne. I misread the timer.
Chairwoman Bice. That is OK.
Mr. Dunne. We have the same system, but I misread it.
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Mr. Dunne.
Mr. Dunne. Thank you.
Chairwoman Bice. At this time, I recognize Mr. Coffin.
You are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD COFFIN
Mr. Coffin. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chairwoman
Bice, Ranking Member Kilmer, and Members of the Subcommittee on
Modernization.
My name is Richard Coffin, and I am the chief of research
and advocacy at USAFacts. I am honored to participate in
today's hearing to discuss modernizing the Congressional
Research Service.
As our Nation faces increasingly complex challenges, our
elected leaders need access to undisputed, trusted data to
craft legislation and make informed policy decisions. USAFacts
was created, in part, to help fulfill this need by aggregating
and standardizing Government data and presenting it in a clear
manner on our website.
USAFacts began when former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
recognized the need for Government data to be as accessible and
as comprehensive as the metrics and data reported by businesses
that corporate leaders use to make sound, evidence-based
decisions and that shareholders use to make investment choices.
Steve believed in a world where decisions are based in
undisputed numbers and fact. He invested his personal assets
and effort to take on the time-consuming and challenging
process of compiling and organizing Government data.
Congress needs strong research and a foundation of facts
and data to make informed decisions on behalf of the American
people. As James Madison once said, ``A popular Government
without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but
a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.''
Over its more than 100-year history, the Congressional
Research Service has done an admirable job of fulfilling its
mission. It has been more than 50 years since the agency's role
was last scrutinized, and this is why we are here today: to
project a future that could be if the agency reimagined itself
for the 21st century, one that better serves Congress, better
serves everyone in this room, and better serves the American
people.
We suggest the following improvements.
First, CRS should publish reports as web documents with
machine-readable data tables and text, enabling easier access
and usability. By making both the text and data more available
in formats like CSV files that are easy to use, search engines
can more easily index and find these reports and individuals
can better use the data for analysis. This expands the reach of
these reports and empowers readers to put these reports into
action.
Second, CRS should provide more summarized findings, high-
impact charts, and onboarding materials for Members of Congress
and staff. We saw some examples of some of these earlier, but,
consistently--and, really, I mean consistently--creating
shorter-format reports and infographics will provide a more
accessible and comprehensible overview of the issues at hand.
Products such as a broad overview of Government or primers on
key policy issues and reports could help reduce the time it
takes for new Members and staff or just any individual with
limited time to ramp up in their work.
Third, CRS should create more online interactive tools,
such as congressional dashboards that continuously provide
relevant metrics on key issues. While PDF reports are
comprehensive, they can become quickly outdated almost
immediately, and Congress instead needs access to real-time
data and insights to aid in decision making, similar to the
executive dashboards used by heads of companies. At minimum,
outdated materials should be clearly marked or archived to
prevent inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated information from
being used in decision making.
Fourth, CRS should publish overviews of broad questions
Congress is asking to help Members understand and build on the
knowledge of their peers, while respecting confidentiality of
course. This insight could be invaluable for Members of
Congress and staff who are looking for a starting point in
understanding an issue and could learn from the thoughts and
inquiries of their colleagues.
Fifth, CRS should create resources to assist in finding,
interpreting, and using data to empower evidence-based
policymaking. Congress faces the same challenges that we at
USAFacts have encountered in making data easier to use for the
general public, and resources that help Congress find data and
use it effectively would be a significant step toward
empowering evidence-based policymaking.
Sixth, CRS should support lawmakers in defining intended
outcomes of legislation and ensuring the data for measuring
these outcomes is available. Numeric outcomes are rarely
defined within legislation, and, as a result, data to track
them is sometimes unavailable or incomplete. CRS should work
with Members to understand outcomes of legislation while
staying nonpartisan, identify data that would help measure
these outcomes, and define how it should be reported to assist
in tracking implementation of legislation.
Seventh, CRS should adopt best practices for building
customer-facing products that serve Members of Congress and
their staff. Instead of attending solely to individual Member
requests, CRS should surface common themes, proactively conduct
outreach to understand the needs of Congress, and develop tools
for use across many offices in decision making.
Finally, CRS should make as much as possible publicly
available to help all Americans understand what information is
used in decision making, help them follow legislation more
closely, and create more trust in Congress.
Our polling shows that nearly half of Americans believe
that relying on different sets of facts about major issues
causes more political division today than differing political
beliefs. Making more of CRS's research publicly available,
while maintaining nonpartisanship, could help Members and the
public access that common source of information to ground the
debate that is so needed in today's world.
The Congressional Research Service has a vital role to play
in providing accurate, reliable, and comprehensive data to
inform policy decisions made by our elected officials. By
modernizing the CRS and adopting the recommendations outlined
here, we believe that Congress will be better equipped to
address the challenges facing our Nation today and in the
future.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I look
forward to answering any question you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Coffin follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD COFFIN
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Mr. Coffin.
Finally, I recognize Dr. Kevin Kosar for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF KEVIN KOSAR
Mr. Kosar. All right. Well, thank you, Chairwoman Bice,
Ranking Member Kilmer, and Members of the Subcommittee, for
holding this hearing. I am honored to be before you all again
to testify about Congress and--or to testify before Congress
about CRS.
As mentioned, I spent 11 years at the agency as an analyst
and an acting manager. I got to oversee a terrific group of
researchers. Since that time, I have spent 10 years in the
think-tank world. Although I no longer work at CRS, I do stay
in contact with my former colleagues and do speak to CRS staff
who arrived at the agency more recently. I have also spoken to
staff who have arrived recently and departed recently.
I have spent a good deal of time writing about the agency
and doing my best to keep an eye on its operation and its work.
You might ask, you know, is this some sort of monomania? Well,
sort of, yes. I really like the agency, a lot. I think very
highly of CRS's analysts and its reference librarians, and its
well-being is important to me, and I think it is important to
Congress.
Yet it is also the case that CRS desperately needs
modernization. The agency's organic statute has been little
altered since 1970, and the agency's internal structures look a
lot like they did after the reorganization of the late 1990's.
CRS's operating context, as the Chairwoman noted at the
beginning, has clearly changed.
Back in the 1970's, Committees dominated the policymaking
process and one party had what appeared to be a permanent
majority in both chambers. Interest groups were far fewer, and
parties were less ideologically sorted. Back then, Congress
possessed ample capacity to carry out its legislative,
oversight, and constituent service duties. On all these points,
the Congress of today is very different.
Additionally, I should note, today, CRS no longer exists,
as we have heard, as a quasi-monopolist in the provision of
information and expertise on in-the-weeds legislative and
governmental matters. Today, there are an enormous number of
think tanks and other entities who are putting out content that
is aimed at audiences on Capitol Hill.
As you all know all too well, how legislators and staff
consume information, analysis, and data has changed. Moreover,
the time available for thinking and studying has contracted,
and the quantity of information has swollen to a glut.
Times clearly have greatly changed, and CRS also must
change.
As I note in my written testimony, I think that modernizing
CRS means evolving the agency so to bolster its core identity
and its core strengths. At its essence, CRS is a governmental
publishing and consulting firm that serves Congress.
Legislators and Committees are CRS's customers. The media and
the public are beneficiaries of CRS's provision of bill
summaries and reports on Congress.gov.
When you look at CRS, it has about six core strengths that
I have identified: No. 1, it is nonpartisan; No. 2, it
possesses institutional memory; No. 3, it possesses deep
expertise; No. 4, it offers rapid responses to congressional
needs; No. 5, it produces customized responses to congressional
requesters; and, No. 6, it has the capacity to create ad hoc
teams of experts to respond to cross-cutting issues. What other
firm out there can do that for Congress? None that I know of.
To effect modernization, however, will require, I think,
changes at three levels: first, amending CRS's statute; second,
improving CRS's regulatory environment, seeing as it is
ensconced inside the Library of Congress and has to jump
through a lot of LOC hoops; third, reworking CRS's internal
structures and policies. These are the things that have been
issued by CRS's leadership and are firmly in control of them.
Most certainly, modernizing CRS is going to necessitate
fixing the troubles that have plagued the agency for the past
decade, including excessive staff turnover.
As a bullet point here, by my read of the data that was
supplied by the Committee, something like a third of the staff,
excluding retirements, a third of the staff has parted from the
agency in the past dozen years or so. That is bad. This leads
to the erosion of institutional memory. That is a problem.
We have flagging staff morale, as has been cited before,
and, of course, buggy technology, all of which negatively
effects CRS analysts' and reference librarians' ability to
serve Congress.
Again, these are issues that are not new. They were there
in 2014 and, in part, led to my decision--they were a factor in
my decision to leave. They have to be fixed for the agency to
be able to keep people, inspire people, and to, you know, let
CRS become all it can be.
I thank you for listening to my statement, and I am happy
to answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kosar follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF KEVIN KOSAR
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Dr. Kosar.
At this time, we will begin questioning the witnesses,
beginning with myself, followed by the Ranking Member, and then
I will alternate between parties. Any Member wishing to be
recognized should signal to the chair.
I will now recognize myself for the purpose of questioning
the witnesses.
I will start, Mr. Dunne, with you, if I may. You mentioned
that EPRS has produced an app for staff and Members to easily
access reports, podcasts, and other products.
How often would you say that the app is used? What
advantages does the app provide for disseminating information
quickly?
Mr. Dunne. I downloaded the app yesterday. I just checked
before I came here to see if the app was available on the
American web store. I was able to download EPRS and see all the
recent publications.
Because I am no longer involved directly in management of
the EPRS, I do not have those kind of statistics, but I did get
some recent management documents from the management meetings.
I see, for example, there is a weekly social media report where
they track the blog statistics, so the views, views on Twitter,
views on LinkedIn. Because every time we make a publication, a
public publication, we push it out on Twitter and other things.
Then, of course, on the other side, you have inquiry
statistics for the confidential briefings, which are kind of
treated in a totally separate way.
That does not fully answer your question, but I am sure
that my colleagues in Brussels could give me more precise
details if you are interested.
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Mr. Dunne.
Mr. Dunne. I personally think the app is less used than--or
before I left, I think it was less used than the intranet by
the Members' offices. It is there, so it allows people to use
it when they are mobile, when they are moving.
Chairwoman Bice. Excellent. We will follow up.
I am going to ask Committee staff to queue up a couple of
slides that demonstrate some of the innovative work that EPRS
is doing with interactive infographics. They say that a picture
is worth a thousand words, and I would imagine an interactive
picture is worth even more.
You mentioned in your testimony that one of the key areas
of emphasis in standing up the organization was to maximize
readability and use visualization techniques and visual media
as much as possible. Given the world we live in, I think that
actually makes a lot of sense.
With these slides as a backdrop, can you walk us through
why visualization is such an important part of how you deliver
your products to Members of Parliament and Committees?
Mr. Dunne. I think the visualization idea was there from
the beginning. We said 10 years ago--or, there was someone who
had a statistic that a picture tells you eight times--or is 80
times more powerful than text. We tried from the very beginning
to make our documents attractive and short, so we put a lot of
emphasis on infographics. Of course, we moved from that, then,
to animated infographics.
These slides--I provided for the record a presentation,
which is actually a couple of years old, but it shows--if you
go through it, it basically explains the philosophy behind it
and how we had different types of slides.
This was intended to illustrate an animated infographic.
This is a presentation of a 200-page study where, you know,
clicking three clicks will bring you to the part you are
looking for.
We had a multitude of approaches. I am not, probably--I
feel like you asked me to walk you through it. I would have to
walk you through the presentation, and I think this
presentation has 57 slides. Perhaps leave it on the record as
something to read.
Chairwoman Bice. Time might be a challenge there. Well,
thank you, Mr. Dunne. I appreciate that.
I would just add that I think that the conversation around
infographics and a graphics warehouse is actually really
helpful. You see that with Members of Congress putting out
either their own infographic information that they have
collaborated and created with their comms teams or utilizing
something that comes from conferences, on both sides.
I think that we live in a day and age where that visual
piece of this is incredibly important. Not diminishing the
importance of maybe some of these more detailed, lengthy
reports, but the public's attention span has waned drastically,
and so short bill summaries like were mentioned earlier, I
think, tend to be a lot more interesting and of use to
Committees and staff and Members, unless it is a more technical
type of issue.
At this time, I will yield to Ranking Member Kilmer for
questions.
Mr. Kilmer. Thanks to each of you for being with us.
I wanted to start with Mr. Coffin.
I really feel like your organization is doing an
extraordinary job. The effort to get information out to the
public and to policymakers is really vital. The work you are
doing to help congressional staff understand how to use data
better I think is really valuable. I think part of the problem
in this place is when we make policy based on what we think
rather than on data and evidence, that that is where we run
into some trouble.
That was some of the thinking behind the Evidence-Based
Policymaking Act that applied to Federal agencies a few years
back. One of the recommendations, in part because of testimony
from Padraig McDonnell, from your crew, was to basically
replicate that for the legislative branch. We made that
recommendation from the Modernization Committee. We are hoping
to reintroduce legislation in that regard. I know your
organization has endorsed it.
I was hoping you would just say a word or two about the
value of, you know, taking that approach and trying to ensure
that, you know, we convene experts to think about how Congress,
how the legislative branch can do a better job of using
evidence, to review and analyze and incorporate evidence into
the policymaking process.
Mr. Coffin. Thank you so much for the question and for the
support. We love the work that we do and are just really
thrilled that you all find it useful.
Yes, evidence in decision making is really the thing that
drives us and is our reason for existence. You know, data is
what we really view as the key evidence that people need to
make these decisions, in that, you know, numbers, they really
do not lie. They are what they are. Especially if you look at
historical numbers and do not really focus on projections,
which can change depending on who you talk to, that those
historical numbers can at least be a grounding point for where
we are today. Then everyone, from there, can decide what they
want the future to look like.
That is really the world that we envision and that we think
needs to happen, and that evidence needs to fall within the
bounds of data that can be collected. The Government is the
steward of the number-one data source in the world, really. I
mean, billions and billions of dollars are spent on this data.
Anything, whether the work that we do, the work that CRS
does and could do, is something that we think--and the work
that you all do in terms of promoting evidence as a basis for
decision making is something that we care passionately about.
Thank you for the question. We are happy to support those
recommendations going forward, for sure.
Mr. Kilmer. You bet. I will be sure to share that with my
colleagues on the Subcommittee, because we are hoping to get
that bill reintroduced, and, to me, it is a no-brainer.
Dr. Kosar, I have a really specific question for you, but I
want to start more generally.
You know, we talked about how the statute that established
CRS is, you know, old, that we have not, as an institution,
sort of looked at that.
If we were to think about reauthorizing the agency, you
know, if I airdropped you into Congress, what would you have
that look like? Are there specific changes you would make? Are
there guardrails that would you lay? How would you think about
that if you were a Member of this Subcommittee, for example?
Mr. Kosar. Sure. Well, I think the first thing I would----
Mr. Kilmer. Is that the right place to focus? I mean, is
that something we should be thinking about? Or is it, you
know----
Mr. Kosar. Oh, I think so, I think so. Because there is--I
mean, if you read the statute and you kind of compare what CRS
does today, there is a delta there.
Mr. Kilmer. Uh-huh.
Mr. Kosar. When the statute was created, that was the time
of, as I mentioned, very strong Committees. Much of what is in
the statute is, ``upon request of the Committee''; ``You should
maintain continuous liaison with the Committee''; ``You should
have a corps of senior specialists who can work directly with
Committees.'' I mean, this was a thing set up first and
foremost for Committees. That is why they were allowed to have
senior specialists paid above the GS-15 level, et cetera, et
cetera.
These days, you know, Congress evolved, and CRS is much
more slammed by demand from individual legislators. I think,
quite frankly, it is possible that some Committee chairs just
do not know that CRS was built first and foremost for them.
The policy question becomes, OK, taking Congress as it is
today, do you want to reorient CRS to doing more Committee,
long-term-focused work, or do you want it to keep sliding into
kind of the helpdesk stuff? Or do you want to bifurcate the
workforce in some way and kind of divide the labor? I mean,
part of that was contemplated in the original statute, but it
is just we have gotten away from that.
The other thing I flag in my testimony is that, among
legislative branch support agencies, CRS is anomalous insofar
as it is ensconced inside a different agency. CBO is
freestanding. GAO is freestanding. CRS is tucked in the Library
of Congress.
With that comes the peculiar appointments process. Congress
appoints the head of CBO to ensure accountability. Congress
appoints the head of GAO to ensure accountability. Congress
does not appoint the head of the Congressional Research
Service. That is appointed by the Library of Congress.
Moreover, unlike CBO or GAO, CRS's Director does not have a
limit in term. People can just stay and stay and stay. The
whole question of removal, et cetera, like, that gets very,
very dicey, because then you are relying upon a librarian to do
something for you.
I would say those are two places to consider. You know,
otherwise, there are lot of anachronisms in there: the ability
to contract to bring in stenographers--eh, I am not thinking
the agency needs that anymore. Stuff like that could be scraped
away.
Mr. Kilmer. I have a minute more; is that right?
Let me ask you just one more specific issue. Back in 2018,
you published an article talking specifically about CRS's
atrophying role in support of Committee oversight. I wanted to
get your sense as to whether that is still the case.
You know, when you came in front of the Modernization
Committee in the last Congress, it helped inform our
recommendation focused on ensuring the House offers and support
programming for Members and staff to learn best practices for
conducting bipartisan, fact-based oversight, as well as getting
staff access to document review software to improve the
oversight process by Committees.
Just curious how you feel like the organization is doing
with regard to support of Committee oversight.
Mr. Kosar. Well, I mean, I believe it is continuing to
atrophy. I mean, the agency is down to three senior specialists
who serve Congress. That is a great diminishment.
You know, a key thing about these specialists is that they
largely, by design, were supposed to be free from managerial
control. They are supposed to be there kind of at the beck and
call of Committee chairs.
When you talk to people who served in the agency in the
1970's and the 1980's and even a little bit into the 1990's, I
mean, these folks would come to work; these were the top, top,
top experts, the best of the best. If a Congressman who ran a
Committee called them up and said, ``We need you over here for
the next 6 months; we want you to be de-facto research
director,'' the person just told the boss at CRS, ``I am going
over there for 6 months,'' and that was it.
It was an incredible asset to draw upon. It was a neutral,
bipartisan, you know, trustworthy person that they could rely
upon. You do not have those folks anymore.
I think, more generally, what I have detected is that the
agency's leadership is anxious about polarization. By lending
staff to Committees, what if there is the perception the
staffer is helping the majority a bit too much? Is this going
to somehow negatively redound upon CRS and their appropriation
will get cut or something?
I actually view, you know, polarization exists, but this is
an opportunity. This is an opportunity to prove your value
proposition, which is: Send your people over there, let them
stay a long time, and show just how darn good they can serve.
Members may come away thinking, ``Wow, there is nothing to
worry about here.''
Mr. Kilmer. Yes.
It is funny--I will yield back, but--I came out of the
Washington State legislature, and we had basically the CRS
equivalent; it was called OPR, Office of Program Research. Some
of them were kind of stationed at the mothership, but most of
them were stationed at Committees. You know, they were the
folks staffed to lend their expertise to Committees.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Kosar. I will just add that details also provide a
wonderful opportunity for staff to increase their depth of
knowledge on the inner workings of a Committee. That is an
investment in a human being that will pay back to Congress.
Mr. Kilmer. Uh-huh.
Chairwoman Bice. If I may, before I recognize Mr. Carey, if
I may, Dr. Kosar, just kind of follow up on that line of
questioning.
You know, if I might put you on the spot, if there is one
thing that this Committee could do to make the agency the best
it could be to serve Congress in the most efficient, effective
way possible, what would you suggest that that would be?
Mr. Kosar. Well, that is putting me on the spot, but I am
here to testify truthfully. By my assessment, most policies
that affect the service of CRS to the Congress come from the
front office of the agency. If you want to effect the most
change in the most immediate way, you change leadership.
Moreover, if you change the statute and you change the
regulations, you know, maybe you move the needle a bit, but,
ultimately, anybody who studies organizational theory knows the
importance of leadership.
Quite frankly, I think based upon the FEVs result and based
upon the kind of longstanding concerns that I have heard voiced
about the agency leadership itself and the high levels of
turnover, which are kind of a truth serum of sorts or, you
know, an indicator--you know, those of you who follow sports
are probably familiar with the phrase, you know, ``The coach
has lost the locker room.'' I mean, I think that is where we
are at.
A 5-year technology product, $20 million. Staff are still
laboring with Word 2016, which is buggy. Video calls dropping
off. Laptops conking out. None of this is new. This was
happening when I was there. Again, it is part of the reason I
left, because it was frustrating, because I am trying to help
Congress and be as fast as I can, and the stuff was not
working, and people were not fixing it. Yet money was being
spent.
Yes, I say it with a heavy heart, I do not say it with any
malice, but I think that is just--the facts are what they are.
Chairwoman Bice. I recognize Mr. Carey for 5 minutes.
Mr. Carey. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Dr. Kosar, you went to--you got your master's and doctorate
degree from New York University. Can you tell the Committee
where you received your bachelor's degree?
Mr. Kosar. The Ohio State University.
Mr. Carey. Yes. I just wanted everybody in the room to hear
that. My alma mater.
A lot of the questions that I was going to focus on have
already been asked, but do you think there is, for lack of a
better term, a disconnect between the congressional needs and
the work of CRS and the products and the expertise that they
have currently?
I mean, you kind of touched on it, but can you go in maybe
a little more detail on that?
Mr. Kosar. Yes. Yes. You know, I will give the agency
credit that, over the last 15 years, there were some new
alterations to the paper products, those standard publications,
that were made to make them a little more accessible,
particularly for an audience that is increasingly on mobile.
I confess, you know, when I was looking through the slides
that Mr. Dunne had up on there and comparing that innovation
with the innovation of a one-page summary being added to a CRS
report, ahh, that kind of pales.
Yes, I mean, I think, you know--and this riffs off your
stuff. Like, in many cases, staff have questions that--their
skills, tech skills, are pretty good. They grew up on Excel and
all that sort of stuff. They know how to use that sort of
stuff. Like, if CRS was able to have more of that stuff online,
then staff could do a little self-serving of, like, ``Well, let
us take these data and these data.''
Mr. Carey. Let me kind of follow up on that. Because what
you are saying--I mean, do you think the CRS staff actually
have a good understanding of what our congressional staff
actually do on the Hill?
Mr. Kosar. I think they have a pretty good understanding,
because, you know, most requests that pour into CRS come into
the analysts directly. The more you just get these requests,
the more you learn about, like, what do people want? What do
people want?
I think where the trouble comes is when, you know,
congressional staff are asking for stuff and then CRS analysts
and reference librarians are saying, oh, I have to ask my boss
if we can do that, and then the answer is no, no, you are not
allowed to provide that in that format, you have to give them a
standard report, you have to give them a this or a that. That
is a problem.
Mr. Carey. Dr. Kosar and the rest of the panel, thank you
for your testimony today.
I think, as we look at modernization--you know, I first
came to the Hill in 1995. This is back in a time when everybody
still had a refrigerator in their office yet they received two
buckets of ice every single day.
Modernizing is not a new concept, but it is one that we
must do, and we must do it in a bipartisan way.
I thank you gentlemen for your testimony.
I yield back, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Bice. Thank you, Mr. Carey.
I do want to give Mr. Coffin an opportunity--I believe that
you also have an infographic that we have available. I wanted
to maybe see if our staff could pull that up. If you could talk
a little bit about the interactive graphic that you also have
available.
Mr. Coffin. Yes. Absolutely. This is one of the products on
our website that we put out a couple years ago.
I mentioned a congressional dashboard--our hopes and dreams
for having live data at people's disposal instead of just PDF
reports.
This is something we put out during the COVID pandemic to
try to allow people to track how COVID was affecting the world
and the United States. You know, what was happening with the
economy? What was happening with people's standard of living?
What, you know, was happening, actually, with the Government?
Was the Government spending more money?
We put this kind of thing out. It live-updates. It is still
up-to-date today. We have not actually put much into it over
the past couple years because the pipelines are built and
continue----
Chairwoman Bice. If I may, where are you pulling the data.
Mr. Coffin. The data comes entirely from Government
sources, Federal Government sources. Well, with the exception
of the COVID data, which comes from the States themselves.
Chairwoman Bice. Right.
Mr. Coffin. We pull mostly from the Census Bureau, the
Bureau of Economic Analysis for this particular product.
I think we have the inflation graphic pulled up. We also--
you know, you can explore further and click in and see, for
example, you know, this is the housing and gas part of
inflation, things like that.
For places where there is local data, we actually can offer
your State view, as well, through this tool.
This is something that, you know, the investment was there.
We cannot answer people's one-off questions. There are 330
million Americans. We could not do it. If we can create
products like this that can answer a broad swath of questions,
we really think we can have impact. We think you all deserve
this same kind of resource.
Chairwoman Bice. I think this is fantastic. I love
dashboards. I also love infographics, because I think it is
just quick snapshots of information that you can share with
individuals. Really, a fantastic resource.
I think that is the end of questioning.
I want to thank the witnesses for being with us today and
remind--the Subcommittee may have additional questions for you,
and we will ask that you please respond to those questions in
writing.
[The questions for the record follow:]
QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Bice. If there is no further business, I thank
the Members for their participation today, and, without
objection, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]