Legislation

Reports and Documents are bound into the United States Congressional Serial Set. 

Congressional Reports (FDSys) 1995-

Congressional reports originate from congressional committees and deal with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. There are three types of reports:

House and Senate Reports: Reports of congressional committees concerning proposed legislation and/or contain findings on matters under investigation. Numbered consecutively for each Congress and chamber, e.g., "H.Rpt. 105-1," "S.Rpt. 105-1."

Senate Executive Reports: Reports of the Committee on Foreign Relations relating to treaties between the United States and foreign nations which have been submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification, or are reports of various Senate committees regarding nomination of individuals.  Numbered consecutively for each Congress, e.g., "Exec. Rept. 105-1." First included in the Serial Set in 1979.

Conference Reports: Reports of agreement on legislation that is negotiated between the House and Senate via conference committees. It is printed and submitted to each chamber for its consideration, such as approval or disapproval. For recent report see U.S Congress Conference Reports from GPO. 

Congressional Documents (FDSys) 1895-

House and Senate Documents: Contain various materials ordered printed by both chambers of Congress. Documents can include reports of executive departments and agencies, some of which are submitted in accordance with Federal law, then later are ordered printed as documents. Sometimes committee prints are ordered printed as documents also, if the information they contain is in demand. Documents have a larger distribution than committee prints.

Senate Executive Documents: Contain the text of a Treaty as it is submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification by the President of the United States. Beginning with the 97th Congress in 1981, Executive Documents became known as Treaty Documents, and they are now numbered instead of lettered alphabetically.

Senate Treaty Documents: Contain the text of a Treaty as it is submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification by the President of the United States. Numbered consecutively from the 1st Session through the 2d Session of a Congress. Prior to the 97th Congress known as Executive (Lettered) Documents, and identified by letters of the alphabet.

SuDoc numbers for Reports and Documents

Reports and documents are found by their call number (SuDoc stem): 

Y 1.1/3: (Senate Documents)
Y 1.1/4: (Senate Treaty Documents)
Y 1.1/5: (Senate Reports)
Y 1.1/6: (Senate Executive Reports)
Y 1.1/7: (House Documents)
Y 1.1/8: (House Reports)

Online sources for Reports and Documents

Note: Retrieving reports from the web sites below is easiest if you have the Report or Document number. If the Libraries has cataloged the item you are looking for, you can find the report number in the Series field of the catalog record.

• ProQuest Congressional
  Full text of Reports and Documents from the beginning through 2003. Coverage various 2003. See coverage chart.

• FDSys
  Most Reports and Documents since 1995.

• Committee Reports, 1995 - (Congress.gov)
  Can browse or search reports by a variety of criteria. Does not include Executive Reports.

Using the Library Catalog:

Try limiting the catalog to just Government Documents and then do a search for:

keyword AND house/ report ( e.g. health AND house/ report)

keyword AND senate/ executive/ report (e.g. defense AND senate/ executive/ report)

keyword AND house / document (e.g. agriculture AND house / document)

keyword AND treaty / document) (e.g. Russia AND treaty / document)

If the document is available online, the URL will be given in the display.

• Popular names of US government reports: A catalog. (Gov Docs Ref Z 1223 .A199 A5 1984) can be useful when seeking the exact title of a report.

These sources will provide guidance to locating treaties:

• Treaty Documents, 1975 - (Thomas)
  Provides indexing of all treaties dating back through the 94th Congress

• Treaties and other international agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949 (Bartle Ref JX 236 1968)

• Chronological index to multilateral treaties in force for the United States ( as on January 1, 1972) (Bartle JX 236 1972)
   
• Also see Treaties and International Laws (Political Science Guide: Binghamton University Libraries) for more tools and for full-text sources.

Treaties are published as Congressional Documents. See above.