Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a new bill this week called the Let Me Google That For You Act of 2014 (seriously).
The bill is meant to cut down on “the collection and distribution of government information” by prioritizing using Google over spending money to obtain information from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).
NTIS, run by the Department of Commerce, is a repository of 3 million scientific, technical, engineering, and business texts.
The bill would abolish the NTIS and move essential functions of the agency to other agencies like the National Archives. The bill’s name is a play on a snarky website that links to Google’s search engine.
“No Federal agency should use taxpayer dollars to purchase a report from the National Technical Information Service that is available through the Internet for free,” the bill reads.
The idea behind the bill is to stop federal agencies from spending, say, more than $100 to get government documents if the documents are available online for free.
(H/t: Michael Whitney)
