FOREWORD Title 31 U.S.C. 1112-1113, formerly the Congresssional Budget Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-344), assigned the Comptroller General the responsibility to identify congressional information needs as expressed in legislative requirements; to monitor the reporting requirements of the Congress; to obtain program evaluations conducted or commissioned by any executive agency; to identify congressional needs for fiscal, budgetary, and program-related information; and to maintain a central file or files of fiscal and budgetary information. As part of its efforts to fulfill these responsibilities, the General Accounting Office (GAO) established the Congressional Information Sources Inventories and Directories (CISID) data base. It consists of inventories of requirements for reports to the Congress, evaluation studies, and fiscal, budgetary, and program-related information sources and systems. This data base is on computer files and is transferable to other organizations, including the Library of Congress' SCORPIO information retrieval system, thus facilitating the use of the inventories by the Congress and others. For those who may not have immediate access to CISID or SCORPIO, GAO publishes the Congressional Sourcebook Series. This series of directories reflects the updating of the inventories' contents. It consists of three separate volumes. Each volume is an indexed directory, addressing the following areas: (1) Federal Evaluations--describes program and management evaluation reports produced by and for the departments and agencies of the federal government. (2) Requirements for Recurring Reports to the Congress--describes the requirements for statutory and nonstatutory recurring reports to the Congress from the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government and from independent agencies and federally chartered corporations. (3) Federal Information Sources and Systems--describes systems, major documents, and facilities maintained by federal agencies, which support agencies' missions and contain fiscal, budgetary, and program-related information. The Congressional Sourcebook Series volumes, together with the CISID computer tapes, are designed to facilitate identification, acquisition, and utilization of relevant and reliable information which is needed by the Congress in carrying out its oversight and budget control responsibilities. The Congressional Sourcebook Series will be distributed to each member of the Congress, and each congressional committee, subcommittee, and staff; the Executive Office of the President, and the head of each federal department and agency; the Chief Justice of the United States and other officials of the judicial branch; and state government officials, and libraries. CHARLES A. BOWSHER Comptroller General of the United States iii |