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current production, but must also convert and verify the existing data for the publication of the more than 50,000 pages of the existing Code.

This past summer the Office completed work on Supplement IV (1998) to the 1994 edition of the United States Code, consisting of seven volumes. The Office has also recently completed Supplement V (1999) to the 1994 edition of the Code consisting of eight volumes, which is the final supplement to the 1994 edition of the Code. Work has commenced on the next main edition of the Code, the 2000 edition, which will consist of about 42 volumes. Because of the enormous amount of work involved for the Office and the Government Printing Office to publish a new edition, our goal was to start the first volumes in January. However, this schedule has been slowed by several factors. The most significant factors are that Congress did not adjourn until December 15, 2000, and that about one-third of the pages of laws enacted in the second session involved bills that were enacted into law by incorporation by reference in other bills. As a result reliable copy for many acts did not become readily available and the final classification of all the laws enacted during the second session of the 106th Congress was not completed until after the start of this year.

The ninth annual updated version of the Code on CD-ROM (updated to January 5, 1999) has just been released. The tenth annual version of the Code on CD-ROM (updated to Jan. 23, 2000) should be released later this year. Upon the completion of a supplement or main edition, HIR and GPO use the Code database that is prepared for publishing the Code to produce the CD-ROM. This Code database is available on the Internet at a much earlier date than the CD-ROM, because the Code database on the Internet is updated when individual titles of the Code are approved for printing. In addition, the Code classification tables update the Code database available on the Internet. Thus users have available the current text of any section of the Code, or the latest available text of that section plus a citation to any later laws that affect the section.

A draft of a bill to codify Title 40, Public Buildings, Property, and Works, has been completed, and should be introduced in the next few days. This project was delayed because of the assignment of codification attorneys to more pressing Code projects, and the development of a new format for the tables appearing in the report that will accompany the introduction of the bill. These tables will hopefully prove to be easier and more informative for users. The Office continues to review other titles of the Code to see how best to proceed with enactment of other titles into positive law, and has identified several titles as candidates for enactment. The Office also continues to assist any committee or executive department that wishes to undertake a project to enact a title of the Code into positive law or to prepare revisions to update titles of the Code previously enacted into positive law.

This completes my prepared statement. I will be pleased to respond to any

Office of the Legislative Counsel

U.S. House of Representatives

Statement of M. Pope Barrow, Legislative Counsel

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to present the fiscal year 2002 appropriation request for the Office of the Legislative Counsel.

For fiscal year 2002 I am requesting an appropriation of $5,454,000. This is an increase of $369,000 over our fiscal year 2001 and fiscal year 2000 appropriations, which were each in the amount of $5,085,000. Personnel funding increases of $278,000 are attributable to the following: $173,000 for FY02 cost-of-living increases, $51,000 to annualize the FY01 cost-ofliving increases, $40,000 for merit increases, $10,000 for consultant contracts, and $4,000 for overtime pay. The increase of $91,000 in nonpersonnel funding will be used to replace 20 personal computers, 2 copiers, and associated software.

Functions of the Office

Under our statutory charter, the purpose of the Office of the Legislative Counsel is to advise and assist the House, its committees, and Members in the achievement of a "clear, faithful, and coherent expression of legislative policies". Our goal is to prepare drafts that accurately reflect the legislative objectives of the Member or committee concerned, that are legally sufficient to carry out that policy, and that are as clear and well organized as possible under the circumstances.

The Office is neutral as to issues of legislative policy. Since our inception, we have assisted proponents of all political viewpoints while maintaining confidentiality with each client.

To carry out our statutory charter, we have assembled a staff of attorneys with extensive experience in virtually every area of Federal law. We strive to provide drafting assistance, often on short notice, in the most complex subject areas. During the past year, the Office of the Legislative Counsel provided drafting assistance in connection with most of the major legislation under consideration by the House and its various committees. Most recently, for example, three attorneys from our office assisted in the preparation of the tax bill that was sent to the President on May 26 (the "Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act"). Just prior to that, four attorneys in our office worked on drafting the education bill that passed the House on May 23 (H.R. 1, the "Leave No Child Behind Act of 2001").

Management of the Office Workload

Attorneys in our Office must specialize in order to efficiently handle the complexity and volume of legislation in many areas of Federal law such as tax, immigration, health care, pensions, welfare, housing, and environmental law. Our workload is very heavy, particularly at peak periods, and (except for one vacancy which we will fill within the next month) we are at our maximum personnel ceiling of 51. Even if our personnel ceiling were increased, we do not have the physical space at this time for an additional employee. In some cases we now have only a single expert in a particular area. This means that our ability to handle the legislative workload can deteriorate if that attorney unexpectedly resigns or become ill for a prolonged period.

One way we have tried to address this problem has been to have attorneys strive to develop expertise in multiple areas of Federal law, and to work in each of those areas with one or more partners. Under this system, attorneys can share the burden when a particular legislative area is extremely active, and we do not suffer as debilitating a loss of expertise if we temporarily or permanently lose the services of the attorney who is most experienced in a given area. This had been partially successful, but we are still short-handed at times.

Another tactic that we have resorted to in the past several years is to briefly bring back on short-term contract an experienced former employee who has retired. In situations where the newer employees assigned to an area have not yet had time to learn the ropes, the temporary return of an experienced person can assure us of the ability to meet urgent drafting requests until the newer employees become more familiar with the legal area concerned. We expect to continue this practice on a modest basis in fiscal year 2002 and have requested a budget of $10,000 for that purpose.

Office Infrastructure

In order to provide a quick and efficient response to drafting requests, our Office relies heavily on modem and sophisticated computer hardware and software. We have an excellent systems administrator to help us manage this complex and constantly changing system. We need to have instant access to electronic versions of bills, amendments, conference reports, committee reports, and compilations of existing law from the current session and from earlier sessions of Congress. Our computer files must be 100% compatible with those of the Clerk of the House and the Senate Legislative Counsel, and with legislative documents prepared by GPO. This greatly enhances the efficiency of our operations and allows us to meet very tight deadlines without having to retype drafts or parts of drafts of legislation from earlier sessions of Congress or from Senate bills.

We are moving forward with improvements in our equipment in order to better serve the House. To maintain currency of hardware, we are continuing to systematically replace and update

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STATEMENT OF

JOHN R. MILLER

LAW REVISION COUNSEL OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

to the

Subcommittee on Legislative Appropriations

of the House Committee on Appropriations

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, it is a pleasure to appear before you to present the budget request of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel for fiscal year 2002.

I am requesting $2,104,000 for the Office for fiscal year 2002. This is an increase of $59,000 over funding for fiscal year 2001. This increase represents an increase in personnel expenses of $82,000 for cost of living adjustments and $18,000 for meritorious pay increases and a decrease of $41,000 for non-personnel expenses. Funds for nonpersonnel expenses decreased because of complete payoff of 3-year plan amounts, less need for technical support, and decreased equipment and computer software purchases.

For the next several years, the Office will be devoting additional resources to the integration and use of new computer technology in the production of the Code and the redesign and upgrading of our web site. Last year the Office implemented a new electronic text editing system which will be used to produce copy for the 2000 edition. The new system will achieve numerous economies and efficiencies in the future, but improvements in Office production have not yet been realized because the process is in its initial stages and will require refinement and enhancement over the next few years. In addition, it will take time for the staff to become proficient and productive in its use. Another major project this year is to redesign our web site to make it independent of the House Information Resources mainframe computer and then upgrade it. Over the past three years, HIR has had several proposals for migration of the web site from the mainframe computer, but they have not developed or implemented any of the proposals. Last September HIR informed the Office that the web site had to be migrated off of the mainframe computer by September 2001. Finally, as other congressional Offices and the Government Printing Office convert their publishing formats to XML, it becomes imperative that our Office also converts to XML. This is a particularly difficult and time

current production, but must also convert and verify the existing data for the publication of the more than 50,000 pages of the existing Code.

This past summer the Office completed work on Supplement IV (1998) to the 1994 edition of the United States Code, consisting of seven volumes. The Office has also recently completed Supplement V (1999) to the 1994 edition of the Code consisting of eight volumes, which is the final supplement to the 1994 edition of the Code. Work has commenced on the next main edition of the Code, the 2000 edition, which will consist of about 42 volumes. Because of the enormous amount of work involved for the Office and the Government Printing Office to publish a new edition, our goal was to start the first volumes in January. However, this schedule has been slowed by several factors. The most significant factors are that Congress did not adjourn until December 15, 2000, and that about one-third of the pages of laws enacted in the second session involved bills that were enacted into law by incorporation by reference in other bills. As a result reliable copy for many acts did not become readily available and the final classification of all the laws enacted during the second session of the 106th Congress was not completed until after the start of this year.

The ninth annual updated version of the Code on CD-ROM (updated to January 5, 1999) has just been released. The tenth annual version of the Code on CD-ROM (updated to Jan. 23, 2000) should be released later this year. Upon the completion of a supplement or main edition, HIR and GPO use the Code database that is prepared for publishing the Code to produce the CD-ROM. This Code database is available on the Internet at a much earlier date than the CD-ROM, because the Code database on the Internet is updated when individual titles of the Code are approved for printing. In addition, the Code classification tables update the Code database available on the Internet. Thus users have available the current text of any section of the Code, or the latest available text of that section plus a citation to any later laws that affect the section.

A draft of a bill to codify Title 40, Public Buildings, Property, and Works, has been completed, and should be introduced in the next few days. This project was delayed because of the assignment of codification attorneys to more pressing Code projects, and the development of a new format for the tables appearing in the report that will accompany the introduction of the bill. These tables will hopefully prove to be easier and more informative for users. The Office continues to review other titles of the Code to see how best to proceed with enactment of other titles into positive law, and has identified several titles as candidates for enactment. The Office also continues to assist any committee or executive department that wishes to undertake a project to enact a title of the Code into positive law or to prepare revisions to update titles of the Code previously enacted into positive law.

This completes my prepared statement. I will be pleased to respond to any

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