"Let me Google that for you,' McCaskill Offers, with Bill to Abolish Federal Agency

Press Release

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today announced the reintroduction of a bipartisan bill that would abolish the federal National Technical Information Service, an outdated agency that has lost more than $1 million in taxpayer money per year over 10 years trying to sell government reports that are mostly available online for free.

With a money-losing profit model, the agency attempts to sell government reports to other federal agencies and the public, most of which are otherwise available for free and easy to find using a simple internet search.

"This agency has outlived its usefulness, and Americans might gain a little more confidence in their government if we recognized and acted on that," said McCaskill, the top-Democrat on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "This is a government office performing a function that the advent of the Internet rendered outdated, and it's past time we eliminate it."

McCaskill's legislation to abolish the agency is cosponsored by Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.

In 2013, the Government Accountability Office highlighted NTIS' operations, in its annual duplication report, finding, "Of the reports added to NTIS's repository during fiscal years 1990 through 2011 ... approximately 74 percent were readily available from other public sources." Meanwhile, from 1995 to 2000, the office sold only 8 percent of the 2.5 million reports in its repertoire. NTIS has lost on average at least $1.3 million per year over the last 11 years, running a deficit on its document production for nearly a decade.

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