Congress loves its internal “think tank” — the Congressional Research Service — and for good reason. At $100 million a year of taxpayer money, CRS produces reams of unbiased, nonpartisan reports on topics ranging from biofuels to congressional redistricting. But like an overprotective parent, Congress has actually begun to harm the very institution that it is trying to protect.

For years, a host of companies have sold the reports to those who can afford to pay. So now deep-pocketed lobbyists have unfettered access to the reports and the insights they provide into the inner workings of Congress, while the general public, which funds the reports, is left in the dark. This inequity has led to a public interest outcry from across the political spectrum to make the reports available to the public over the Internet at no cost.

Yet, rather than fix a broken system that clearly does not work in the Internet age by making this vital source of government information more readily available to the pubic, Congress has gone in the opposite direction — pushing for changes that make it even harder for ordinary citizens to obtain the reports.

CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan recently issued an internal memo aimed at preventing CRS employees from releasing reports to the sources with which they work. That memo came on the heels of an earlier decision by CRS to make it harder for its analysts to speak publicly about their research. These decisions clearly impact CRS analysts’ ability to get and share information, putting the quality of CRS reports at risk.

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In defending the policy that created these decisions, congressional staffers typically cite one of two reasons, neither of which is terribly compelling in light of the enormous open government and equity benefits of making CRS reports available to the public.

The first reason is that making CRS reports available at no cost online will change the way that CRS and Congress interacts because staff will be less likely to ask for reports if they know that they will become public.

The flaw in this argument is that the reports are becoming public anyway. In response to the growing number of pay services that offer the reports and update them daily, my organization, the Center for Democracy and Technology, created OpenCRS, a Web site that makes several thousand CRS reports available for free.

The practical reality is that the vast majority of CRS reports are already available — in some form or another — to members of the public. If the relationship between CRS and Congress hasn’t changed already, it isn’t likely to be adversely affected by a slight tweak that makes the process fair for all.

The other, perhaps more telling defense for the decrepit CRS policy came from former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who was quoted as saying: “Let’s say that I’m working on an issue and I’m trying to look for some research that helps me to get my point across and, all of a sudden, the Congressional Research Service sends me over something and I read it and I say, ‘Oh, no, that’s not going to help.’ Let someone else do the research. Why give your opposition free research?”

You have to hand it to Ney, his reasoning is at least more intellectually honest, but the notion that lawmakers should be willfully obfuscating unbiased research that contradicts their political stances should be anathema to an open society.

Public demand for these reports has never been higher. In a little more than a year, members of the public have downloaded more than 3.5 million CRS reports from OpenCRS.com. Making the full catalog of these reports readily available over the Internet will sate those demands and help produce a better-informed electorate.

The Open House Project, a working group making recommendations to Congress on easy ways to provide greater transparency through the Internet, has made greater access to CRS Reports one if its top suggestions.

Lawmakers in both houses and from both sides of the aisle — including Sens. Patrick Leahy and John McCain and Rep. Chris Shays among others — have offered reasonable and measured approaches to make reports publicly available.

If these are not the right approaches, then it is time for members of Congress to be more direct about their concerns and find other means to make this valuable, informative source of government information available to the public.

Ari Schwartz is deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology