House Delays Web Posting Of Expenses
WASHINGTON -- Members of Congress said Thursday that details of their expense claims wouldn't be posted online before mid-November at the earliest -- two and a half months later than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they would be published in an electronic format for the first time.
Ms. Pelosi set an August 31 deadline for putting information about expenses claimed by members of the House of Representatives on the Internet, in an announcement reversing a longstanding policy of providing the information only in books totaling about 12,000 pages a year. The Senate has not announced any plans to put its expenses claims online.
The speaker's announcement last month followed a series of Wall Street Journal articles on bonus payments and expense claims for luxury cars and high-end technology made by congressional offices.
The Committee on House Administration, the panel responsible for overseeing how the lower chamber runs itself, said in a statement Thursday that "several security and support issues" had been identified that would delay the Internet publication of the claims.
The committee said that the first claims to be posted online would cover the third quarter of 2009, and would appear "as soon as possible" after that period ends Sept. 30. Compiling information about the claims usually takes about six weeks. It wasn't clear whether there would be additional delays beyond that.
Kyle Anderson, a spokesman for the committee, said that a specific date for the appearance of the claims wasn't available, but that "there's a lot of energy around fulfilling the obligation to get it done as soon as possible."
As a result of the delay, the first claims to be posted online will cover a period in which lawmakers were aware that their expenses would be made public in this way.
One of the technical requirements mentioned in the statement was server demand -- the ability of House computer systems to meet "what is expected to be an enormous online interest" in the publication of the claims. The statement said that although servers had recently been upgraded, the technology needed to be tested to ensure that the network could handle a sudden surge of traffic.
The other issue identified was support. The committee said congressional offices needed time to "refamiliarize" themselves with the way the expense-claims summaries were set out, in order to respond to emails and calls to their offices about them.
Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@dowjones.com
The Wall Street Journal
Ms. Pelosi set an August 31 deadline for putting information about expenses claimed by members of the House of Representatives on the Internet, in an announcement reversing a longstanding policy of providing the information only in books totaling about 12,000 pages a year. The Senate has not announced any plans to put its expenses claims online.
The speaker's announcement last month followed a series of Wall Street Journal articles on bonus payments and expense claims for luxury cars and high-end technology made by congressional offices.
The Committee on House Administration, the panel responsible for overseeing how the lower chamber runs itself, said in a statement Thursday that "several security and support issues" had been identified that would delay the Internet publication of the claims.
The committee said that the first claims to be posted online would cover the third quarter of 2009, and would appear "as soon as possible" after that period ends Sept. 30. Compiling information about the claims usually takes about six weeks. It wasn't clear whether there would be additional delays beyond that.
Kyle Anderson, a spokesman for the committee, said that a specific date for the appearance of the claims wasn't available, but that "there's a lot of energy around fulfilling the obligation to get it done as soon as possible."
As a result of the delay, the first claims to be posted online will cover a period in which lawmakers were aware that their expenses would be made public in this way.
One of the technical requirements mentioned in the statement was server demand -- the ability of House computer systems to meet "what is expected to be an enormous online interest" in the publication of the claims. The statement said that although servers had recently been upgraded, the technology needed to be tested to ensure that the network could handle a sudden surge of traffic.
The other issue identified was support. The committee said congressional offices needed time to "refamiliarize" themselves with the way the expense-claims summaries were set out, in order to respond to emails and calls to their offices about them.
Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@dowjones.com
The Wall Street Journal
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