The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday evening to make access to federal court records free to the public (article available here).
By a voice vote, the House passed the Open Courts Act of 2020, H.R. 8235, which aims to modernize PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records)—a database of federal court filings maintained by the Administrative Office of the United States Court—and eliminate its paywall. The Open Courts Act would stop the federal judiciary from charging most public users any fees to access court documents within five years, allowing a slight increase in filing fees, if needed.
PACER charges 10 cents a page for searches, court dockets, and documents, capped at $3.00 per document. Users who accrue less than $30 in fees every three months do not have to pay anything, which keeps casual users from being charged.