CONFERENCE COMMITTEE REPORTS

Remember that a bill can only be sent to the President for signature if each chamber passes it in identical form.  If different versions of a bill are passed by the House and the Senate, a conference committee consisting of members from both bodies is formed to work out the differences in the two bills and come up with a compromise bill. Once completed, the compromise version of the bill is then sent to each chamber for final approval. This compromise version of the bill will be accompanied by a report from the conference committee.

Conference committee reports are similar in scope and substance to a committee report, except that their function is to explain how and why the Conference Committee harmonized the different houses' versions of the bill.   Conference committee reports are especially influential in determining legislative intent, because it is during this process that a committee made up of members of both houses (rather than a single committee from one house) compromise on differing language and state their rationales for settling on one version over others.

Conference committee reports can be found in full text in the following sources:

• Congressional Record, KF 35.C65, 9^th Floor, contains some conference committee reports.  Congressional Record can also be found on GPO Access, Lexis and Westlaw.
• U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News ("USCCAN"), KF 48.W45, 9th Floor reprints selected conference committee reports.
• CIS/Index, KF 49.C62, 6^th floor - indexes conference committee reports.  The full texts of reports can then be found in microfiche format (also on the 6th floor).
• Thomas - full texts of conference committee reports from the 104^th Congress forward (1995 - present)
• LexisNexis Congressional, (formerly Congressional Universe) from the Library's Electronic Resources page (accessible on campus, or off campus with valid network ID and password) - full texts for conference committee reports from the 101^st Congress forward (1989 - present)
• Lexis - Carries conference committee reports from 1990 forward.  From the Legal tab, choose Federal Legal, U.S., then Legislative Histories and Materials, then Committee Reports
• Westlaw - Carries conference committee reports in its USCCAN database (ID USCCAN-REP) from 1948 - present (including all committee reports from 1990 forward) as well as committee reports on many bills which did not become law

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