As a record of a committee's legislative and oversight actions, the reports may provide valuable information for Members of Congress and their staff interested in learning more about a Member's new committee assignments or committee activities in certain subject areas. In many cases, they also provide information that is otherwise either not aggregated in one place or not available elsewhere. This CRS report will address 
the purpose and history of these reports, including their predecessors; required contents of the reports; House and Senate Rules regarding the filing of reports; a discussion of the types of information that may be included; variations in the organization of the reports among committees; provisions related to the inclusion of supplemental, minority, additional, or dissenting views; additional historical changes to House and Senate Rules regarding the reports, including recent changes to frequency of the reports in the House and the 1974 revisions to the list of committees required to prepare activity reports; and the differences between the committee activity reports and other congressional publications, including committee calendars, House and Senate calendars, the Résumé of Congressional Activity , and the House Document Repository at docs.house.gov. Table 1 provides examples of the types of information found in each publication as well as their timeframe for coverage and publication. This internal congressional examination culminated in the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. The requirement for these reports, which appears at 2 U.S.C. Pursuant to House Rule XI, clause 1(d)(1), reports are to be filed by January 2. Pursuant to Senate Rule XXVI, paragraph 8(b), reports are to be filed by March 31. The committee activity reports, compared to the other publications, may be more likely to provide discussion, analysis, or statistics. They also differ from some of the other publications since they provide a retrospective accounting of the actions taken by a particular committee, rather than information on prospective, planned, or ongoing actions. Appendix.
All House committees and most Senate committees are required to prepare reports each Congress detailing their activities.
These committee activity reports provide a historical record of a committee's legislative and oversight actions. They may serve as an introduction to the work of the individual committees, and, in many cases, they also provide information that is otherwise either not aggregated in one place or not available elsewhere.
The committee activity reports are required by the rules of the House (House Rule XI, clause 1(d)) and Senate (Senate Rule XXVI, clause 8(b)). The reporting requirement dates to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 (2 U.S.C. §190d).
Each report covers the activities for one Congress. In odd-numbered years, House reports are to be filed by January 2, while Senate reports are to be filed by March 31.
This report includes a discussion of the types of information that may be included in the activity reports, variations across reports and time, and the filing process.
A table provides a comparison of the committee activity reports and other congressional publications, including the types of information found in each as well as their timeframe for coverage and publication. For example, the activity reports may be more likely to provide discussion, analysis, or statistics than committee calendars (if published). They also provide a retrospective accounting of the actions taken by a particular committee, while House authorization and oversight plans, for example, provide information on prospective or planned actions.
The appendix lists activity reports issued by the House and Senate committees covering the 110th, 111th, 112th, 113th, and 114th Congresses.