Many of the agency's reports are free with a quick Google search. | John Shinkle/POLITICO The let-me-Google-that-for-you act

Twelve miles past the Capitol on three floors of a nondescript office building, an arcane federal agency collects and sells government reports. Only many show up free with a quick Google search.

The National Technical Information Service, a longtime branch of the Commerce Department, serves as a clearinghouse for government-funded scientific and technical research. The agency subsists on fees it charges the public and federal agencies for access to its trove of documents. But a number of these reports are accessible through the Internet, a point that has prompted lawmakers to call for the agency’s elimination — the Let Me Google That For You Act — and landed it in the center of a debate over open data, online accessibility and wasted taxpayer dollars.


This tension started percolating more than a decade ago, when the Commerce secretary warned that the advent of the Internet rendered the agency obsolete. A 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office also spotted structural problems. And while NTIS has expanded its services and now provides electronic documents, some of its core functions contradict priorities of an administration that has vowed to push government into the 21st century.

( Also on POLITICO: GOP dares W.H. to ignore Lerner vote)

“This is a no-brainer,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who co-sponsored the bipartisan bill in April. He insists agencies pay millions each year to retrieve reports they could get for free from other department websites. Coburn’s most recent Wastebook, an annual tally of what he considers federal mismanagement, estimates the agency’s eradication would spare taxpayers $50 million. “The fact is if people won’t vote for this, our country is sunk,” he said. “This one’s easy. They don’t do anything of value.”

NTIS, whose Alexandria, Virginia, visitors center displays photos of downtown Washington, disputes claims of its irrelevance.

The agency “provides a unique set of essential services not available from Google and other private search engines,” an NTIS representative said. This includes standardizing metadata that makes it possible for Google to find any of the 3 million or so publications. NTIS ensures “permanent public access” to reports that would otherwise disappear, the agency contends, and helps federal science and technology researchers who need quick, comprehensive information.

( Also on POLITICO: Report calls for death penalty fixes)

The 150-person agency is working to implement a plan that would free up more materials, the representative said, and “expanding its abilities in enterprise data management, data analytics, data dissemination and data delivery business models.”

Such additional revenue streams may help the agency survive, even if they stray from its original intent.

The GAO report two years ago explored NTIS’s revenue structure and raised concerns about the shift. NTIS, which receives no direct appropriations, stays afloat through services that include Web-hosting and e-training. Revenues hit $53.5 million in 2011, while costs reached $52 million. But over the previous 11 years, GAO noticed its costs for products, such as government reports, exceeded revenues by about $1.3 million. The agency might have unique access to older documents, but for those within the past two decades, about 74 percent could be accessed from other public sources.

“What we saw was that it couldn’t financially sustain itself through [requests] anymore,” said Valerie Melvin, who authored the GAO report. “We suggested they look at the agency from the standpoint of what they were statutorily required to do, look at the fee-based model and whether the organization should be doing that. … I don’t think we have seen a tremendous difference in what they are doing. ”

The agency contains information on more than 350 subjects, from a $16 Health and Human Services media guide on terrorism and public health emergencies to a $79 CD-ROM featuring the Armed Forces Recipe Service. Both have versions available for free online, although the agency notes that does not happen with many of its goods published before 1989.

This collection has drawn the admiration of at least one fan — libraries. “Librarians are a hundred percent behind [NTIS],” said Barbara Stripling, the president of the American Library Association. “The advantage of a database of information is you know it comes from an authoritative source, there’s credibility and accuracy. So much of what is available on the Internet does not have that.”

The NTIS issue hits at a fundamental tension in the open-access debate: whether removing a fee-based distribution service gives the public a greater opportunity to obtain content or limits its proliferation. And it comes as the Obama administration vows to make more government information available to the public.

“How do we get more stuff out there that is useful to folks and make sure that it is available and can be curated, kept alive and vibrant and useful?” said Elliot Maxwell, who served as the Commerce secretary’s special adviser for the digital economy from 1998 to 2001. “That is the larger picture.”

NTIS has fought off skeptics before. Former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, who served during the Clinton administration, recommended closing the service in 1999 and transferring its archives to the Library of Congress. His reason: the Internet.

Daley’s suggestion followed the decision to nix a partnership between the Commerce Department and an Internet database company that would have charged people to better search NTIS’s stash. Administrators asked the agency to modernize its processes and create a viable business plan but ultimately considered its functions worthwhile.

“We cut a deal with NTIS in order for them to continue their operations they needed to be self-sustaining, because we recognized some value they had,” said Benjamin Wu, who served as the Commerce Department’s deputy undersecretary for technology during the George W. Bush administration. “As long as documents by congressional mandate have to be printed out in hardcover, there needs to be a form of distribution. There’s still a segment of the American population that wants to have eyeballs on ink and paper.”

Eliminating NTIS won’t solve the larger problem of e-government permeation, Wu said. “Ultimately, the burden should rest on [the Office of Management and Budget] to take a holistic approach to the dissemination of government information.”

Others see the agency’s closure as a place to start.

“At that point, there was a strong argument for its existence given the Internet was 5 or 6 years old,” said Maxwell, the former Commerce special adviser. “And now the question really is should it be transitioned out, given the predominance of Internet access.”

He suggested allowing the agency to sunset rather than shutter immediately so that it could have a “graceful end, recognizing what it has done in the pre-Internet age, recognizing we need to make the back stuff available.”

NTIS argues it continues to play a vital societal role. “Our mission is to promote innovation and economic growth by collecting scientific, technical and engineering research information in a central database and then disseminating it to the public and industry,” the NTIS representative said.

The beleaguered agency may not need to worry. It would take a significant push to move the bill in a preoccupied Congress that struggles to pass anything. But that hasn’t silenced detractors.

“It’s anachronistic and a vestige of a bygone era,” said Dan Caprio, a former Commerce Department deputy assistant secretary for technology policy. “When’s the last time anyone thought of using NTIS?”