Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA) introduced H.R. 6708, the Preventing Additional Printing of Electronic Records (PAPER) Act, which eliminates the mandatory, daily printing and hand-delivery of the Congressional Record and calendars to congressional and other federal offices. U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) introduced the companion version of this legislation in the Senate earlier this year.
According to the Government Publishing Office (GPO), printing the Congressional Record will cost American taxpayers an estimated $5.9 million in Fiscal Year 2019.
Congressman Higgins issued the following statement:
“It doesn’t make sense to continue printing and distributing hundreds of hard copies of this data each day. The same data is publicly available digitally at zero cost to the American taxpayers. This is an obvious waste of money. Our bill fixes that and cuts wasteful spending, while still preserving physical documentation at the Library of Congress and the National Archives. I want to thank Senator Cassidy for leading this common-sense effort in the Senate.”
