Congress.gov New, Tip, and Top for September 2018

Andrew recently brought us the second set of enhancements to Congress.gov for August, which included improving the search form by labeling the Words & Phrases search and making it larger.

In this release, we are excited to bring you enhanced saved search email alerts that are available for searches performed from the legislation homepage search form and the advanced search form. Initially, saved search alerts provided you with a link to a list of new items and items that had changed that matched your search. The enhanced saved search email alerts will not only indicate new items that match your search, they will also allow you to choose specific changes you want to track and receive an email that identifies those changes.

You can choose to track specific changes to saved search alerts in Congress.gov when you perform a search from the legislation homepage search form or the advanced search form. — You can choose to track specific changes to your saved search alerts in Congress.gov when you perform a search from the legislation homepage search form or the advanced search form.

This photo illustrates the progress on saved search results on Congress.gov. On the left, you see how saved search results used to appear. On the right, you see how saved search results now appear on Congress.gov. — This photo illustrates the improvements made to saved search results on Congress.gov. On the left, you see how saved search results used to appear. On the right, you see the enhanced saved search results that are available for searches performed using the legislation homepage search form and the advanced search form.

New Enhancements for September 2018

For this release the Congress.gov Enhancements include:

Enhancement – Legislation Saved Search Alerts – Choose which changes to track

Alert emails list new search results and show changed results for bills and resolutions.
When setting up an alert for searches from the legislation search form or advanced search form, users can choose which changes to track for inclusion in alerts.
Saved Searches and Alerts management pages display Edit Alert links for legislation alerts to update track changes preferences.
Options for tracking changes to bills and resolutions include cosponsors, actions, related bills, amendments, committees, titles, summaries, subjects and CBO cost estimates.

Search Tip

Adrienne‘s tip concerns “Appropriations Resources” on Congress.gov:

If you click on “Appropriations” under Bill Searches and Lists, you will find a link to the Congress.gov Appropriations and Budget Research Guide.

The Guide includes links to current fiscal year appropriations legislation, roll call votes, and related committee prints and reports.

There are also links to prior fiscal year legislative histories per year from the present-1983, government resources on the federal budget and appropriations processes, current and archived federal budget documents, and more.

Top 10

Below are the Most-Viewed Bills for September 9, 2018. All are from the 115th Congress.

1.	H.R.5428	Stand with UK against Russia Violations Act
2.	H.R.392	Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2017
3.	H.R.5515	John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019
4.	H.R.6691	Community Safety and Security Act of 2018
5.	H.R.1	An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018.
6.	H.R.6157	Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019
7.	H.R.38	Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017
8.	H.R.4318	Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act of 2018
9.	S.2155	Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act
10.	H.R.2	Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018

Please let us know if you have any feedback on Congress.gov or leave a comment below.

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