A pending Senate bill that would make the federal judiciary’s online court records system free would not add to the federal deficit, according to a Democratic senator who obtained a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.
The Open Court Act, which would make the pay-per-document federal court database system known as PACER into a free service, could even cut the federal deficit by $14 million after 10 years. The plan would generate $175 million after 10 years and would offset the $161 million in required spending the bill would prompt, according to estimates by the nonpartisan congressional office released Wednesday by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a sponsor of the legislation.
In September, the CBO estimated that the bill would add $77 million to the deficit by 2033 after calculating the costs of rolling out a new PACER service that was not financially backed by charges and fees to download court records.
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The reason for the CBO’s estimate change was not clear because the CBO has yet to release a new report through its webpage. When the initial report came out, Wyden said the estimates were “vastly higher” than what other agencies had thought the PACER changes would cost.
Anyone who currently uses PACER, which is short for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, is charged $0.10 per page when downloading documents (with a $3 limit), which also doesn’t cover court transcripts. The program became available to use in 2001.
The bill, backed by Wyden and reintroduced by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) last November, would make digital court records free to the public and would require the judiciary to create a new website to access them. The judiciary is already in the process of creating a more up-to-date online records database.
Last December, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent the Open Courts Act to the full Senate for its consideration, though movement on the bill has slowed down after some officials cited concerns about the bill’s effect on funding.
U.S. District Judge Roslynn Mauskopf, who directs the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, wrote a letter to Congress in October and noted the CBO’s initial estimates raised concerns about funding the online court records program after fees would be eliminated.
Mauskopf cited the CBO’s prior estimates that noted the bill would result in a loss of nearly $1 billion in user fees after 10 years and would shift the burden on Congress to appropriate $496 million to maintain certain judicial services.
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A representative for Wyden’s office told the Washington Examiner the CBO emailed the new estimate to the senator’s office but did not post the score online.
The Washington Examiner contacted the CBO and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
