access to information by congressional committees

access to information by congressional committees Sec. 301. Section 17 of the Interstate Commerce Act (49 U.S.C. 17), as amended by section 303 of this Act, is further amended by inserting therein a new paragraph (15) as follows: “(15) Whenever the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce of the House of Representatives or the Committee on Commerce of the Senate makes a written request for documents which are in the possession or under the control of the Commission and which relate to any matter involving a common carrier by railroad subject to this part, the Commission shall, within 10 days after the date of receipt of such request, submit such documents (or copies thereof) to such committee, or submit a report in writing to such committee stating the reason why such documents have not been so submitted, and the anticipated date on which they will be submitted. If the Commission transfers any document in its possession or under its control to any other agency or to any person, it shall condition such transfer on the guaranteed return by the transferee of such document to the Commission for purposes of complying with the preceding sentence. This paragraph shall not apply to documents which have been obtained by the Commission from persons subject to regulation by the Commission, and which contain trade secrets or commercial or financial information of a privileged or confidential nature. This paragraph shall not be deemed to restrict any other authority of either House of Congress, or any committee or subcommittee thereof, to obtain documents. For purposes of this paragraph, the term ‘document’ means any book, paper, correspondence, memorandum, or other record, or any copy thereof.”.