New On LLRX - The Government Domain: New & Free Regulations Trackers

Published on April 21, 2010, the new addition to the LLRX.com titled The Government Domain: New & Free Regulations Trackers, by Peggy Garvin, highlights few online resources that make the federal legislative information available in new ways. Those include the following:

• GovTrack.us
• OpenCongress.org
• RegInfo.gov
• Regulations.gov
• Federal Register
• OpenRegs.com
• FedThread.org
• Regulations Tracker from Justia
• Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative

Stay Informed About New Legislation

Via the Law Library of Congress, if you would like to stay informed about what legislation has passed Congress and is awaiting the president's signature, you can do so by subscribing to RSS feeds or via email alerts. The following are some topics for which RSS feed or email alerts are available:

• THOMAS: Bills Presented to the President (RSS or email)
• THOMAS: Daily Digest (RSS or email)
• THOMAS: House Floor Today (RSS or email)
• THOMAS: Senate Floor Today (RSS or email)

Click here to view the complete list of all RSS feeds available and all topics for which alerts can be sent via email.

iAWFUL: Internet Advocate's Watchlist For Ugly Laws

iAWFUL is a NetChoice initiative dedicated to tracking the worst [proposed or passed] Internet laws in America.

Reckless and misguided laws, often originating at the state level, threaten to undermine the foundation of the free and open Internet. Some of the most serious threats to the Internet come in the form of lawmakers trying to 'fix' it.

Through this site, the Internet Advocates' Watchlist For Ugly Laws (iAWFUL) will track dangerous legislation and mobilize citizens to defeat bills and proposals that threaten the future of e-commerce and online communication. The list will be continually updated to reflect the most immediate dangers, based on regulatory severity and likelihood of passage.

You can follow and/or subscribe to NetChoice blog. You can also follow NetChoice on Twitter. Or you can subscribe via email to receive any pertinent updates.

The Current Top 10:
1. Maine Predatory Marketing Law (10 MRSA c.1055)
2. Hotel Taxes on Online Travel Companies
3. New Jersey Social Networking Bill (A 3757)
4. New iTunes Taxes Without Legislation
5. North Carolina Digital Downloads Tax Bill (HB 558/S 487)
6. North Carolina Tickets Bill (SB 99)
7. Federal Bills on Organized Retails Crime
8. Massachusetts Online Advertising Bill
9. North Carolina Advertising Nexus Proposal
10. New York Online Employment Services Taxation Issue

Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think. We look forward to reading your comments.

New on LLRX: The Government Domain - Congressional Documents on FDSys: the Basics

On July 27, 2009 Peggy Garvin published an article on LLRx.com titled The Government Domain - Congressional Documents on FDsys: the Basics. Peggy Garvin of Garvin Information Consulting is author of The United States Government Internet Manual 2006-2007 (Bernan Press) and Real World Research Skills (TheCapitol.Net).

The U.S. federal government’s content shop, the Government Printing Office (GPO), is rolling out a new website for the government documents stream that it manages. The Federal Digital System (FDsys) is to replace GPO’s fifteen-year-old GPO Access website by the end of this year. GPO is moving content to FDsys gradually, collection by collection, with congressional documents leading the pack. GPO refers to the current system as a public beta version.

Congressional documents collections currently (as of 26 July 2009) available through FDsys are listed below. The capitalized acronym for each document collection is the “collection code” used in advanced FDsys command line searching, described later.

• Congressional Bills, 103rd Congress (1993-1994) to present; BILLS
• Congressional Calendars, 104th Congress (1995-1996) to present; CCAL
• Congressional Committee Prints, 100th Congress (1987-1988) to present; CRPT
• Congressional Documents, 103rd Congress (1993-1994) to present; CDOC
• Congressional Hearings, if available from committee, 105th Congress (1997-1998) to present; CHRG
• Congressional Record, 103rd Congress, 2nd session (1994) to present; CREC
• Congressional Committee Reports and Senate Executive Reports, 104th Congress (1995-1996) to present; CRPT

Read the full article to learn more about the search options, including tips for a Boolean search and basic syntax, about the search results and the future of the FDsys.

H.R. 2998 American Clean Energy and Security Act

CBO (Congressional Budget Office) released a review of the H.R. 2998 American Clean Energy and Security Act - Cost estimate for the bill as amended and reported by the House Committee on Rules on June 26, 2009.

2006 United States Code Available Online

The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States based on what is printed in the Statutes at Large. It is divided by broad subjects into 50 titles and published by the Office of law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The USC has been published since 1926 every six (6) years. To stay current, annual cumulative supplements are published in between the years. The GPO Access has the 1994, 2000, and now even the 2006 versions of the United States Code, including the annual supplements. Files are available in ASCII Text from the 1994 edition forward and Portable Document Format (PDF) from the 2006 edition forward.

StateScape Billfinder

StateScape Billfinder is a policy tracking and analysis website that allows you to quickly find any state or federal bills. As the creators describe themselves,

StateScape serves organizations seeking a competitive edge in government relations by providing the fastest and most accurate legislative and regulatory information and analysis service on the market.

Further,

Bill Finder helps you find any bill eligible for consideration in the current calendar year using either keywords and phrases or bill numbers.

StateScape provides:

• Legislative and regulatory monitoring
• Coverage of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, hundreds of localities and the federal government
• Issue analysis and political intelligence
• Real time updates and e-mail alerts
• Report formatting possibilities
• Links to customized reports with real time updates
• Customized web pages and direct data feeds

Among the search options is a quick search, legis track, and Bill finder. If you had an experience with this website, feel free to share your opinions.

THOMAS Launches RSS Feed and Email Subscriptions

The Library of Congress THOMAS database was launched to make federal legislative information freely available to the public. Since its launch in 1995, THOMAS has grown exponentially. It now offers RSS feed and email subscriptions.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a technology that allows organizations to deliver news to a desktop computer or other Internet device. By subscribing to RSS feeds, users can easily stay up-to-date with areas of the Library's site that are of interest. The Law Library of Congress now offers RSS feeds for use in an RSS reader or RSS-enabled Web browser. Library feeds consist of headline, brief summary, and a link that leads back to the Library's Web site for more information. Available feeds cover: THOMAS: Daily Digest, Law Library News and Events, Law Library Webcasts, Current Legal Topics, and the Global Legal Monitor.

Click here to view the list of available subscriptions, and to read more about RSS Feed as well as email subscription.