I 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 4613 
To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish and maintain a 
website of the Department that allows the public to obtain electronic 
copies of certain legislatively requested reports of the Department of 
Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
OCTOBER 4, 2019 
Mr. ROSE of New York (for himself and Mr. CISNEROS) introduced the 
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 
A BILL 
To direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish and 
maintain a website of the Department that allows the 
public to obtain electronic copies of certain legislatively 
requested reports of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 
and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘VA Reporting Trans-
parency Act’’. 
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SEC. 2. REQUIRING PUBLIC ACCESS THROUGH DEPART-
MENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS WEBSITE TO 
LEGISLATIVELY REQUESTED REPORTS OF 
THE DEPARTMENT. 
(a) REQUIREMENT TO ALLOW ACCESS ONLINE.— 
(1) IN
GENERAL.—Not later than one year 
after the date of enactment of this Act, the Sec-
retary shall establish and maintain a website of the 
Department that allows the public to obtain elec-
tronic copies of all legislatively requested reports. 
(2) EXISTING RESOURCES.—To the extent pos-
sible, the Secretary shall carry out paragraph (1) by 
using existing online resources administered by the 
Secretary. 
(b) CONTENT AND FUNCTION.—The Secretary shall 
ensure that the website includes the following: 
(1) With respect to each legislatively requested 
report, each of the following: 
(A) A citation to the statute requiring the 
report. 
(B) An electronic copy of the report, in-
cluding any transmittal letter associated with 
the report, that is platform independent and 
available to the public without restrictions, in-
cluding restrictions that would impede the reuse 
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of the information in the report. Where prac-
ticable, the report shall be in an open format. 
(C) The ability to retrieve a report, to the 
extent practicable, through searches based on 
each, and any combination, of the following: 
(i) The title of the report. 
(ii) The date of publication. 
(iii) Any congressional committee or 
subcommittee receiving the report. 
(iv) The Act of Congress or confer-
ence report that requests the report. 
(v) Subject tags. 
(vi) A unique alphanumeric identifier 
for the report that is consistent across re-
port editions. 
(vii) Any serial number, Superinten-
dent of Documents number, or other iden-
tification number for the report. 
(viii) Key words. 
(ix) Full text search. 
(x) Any other information the Sec-
retary determines appropriate. 
(D) The date on which the report was re-
quired to be submitted to the website. 
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(E) The date on which the report was sub-
mitted to the website. 
(F) To the extent practicable, a permanent 
means of accessing the report electronically. 
(2) A means for bulk download of all legisla-
tively requested reports. 
(3) A means for downloading individual reports 
as the result of a search. 
(4) In tabular form, a list of all legislatively re-
quested reports that can be searched, sorted, and 
downloaded by— 
(A) reports submitted within the required 
time; 
(B) reports submitted after the date on 
which such reports were required to be sub-
mitted; and 
(C) reports not submitted. 
(c) DEADLINE.—The Secretary shall ensure that in-
formation required to be published on the website under 
this Act with respect to a legislatively requested report 
submitted after the period under subsection (a)(1) is pub-
lished not later than three calendar days after the report 
is submitted. 
(d) NOTICE ON WEBSITE OF WITHHELD REPORTS.— 
If a report is withheld from submission to or publication 
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