A proposed bill to grant free public access to searches of federal court filings could add $77 million to the federal deficit and would require more cash for the federal judiciary but could save money in the long term, the Congressional Budget Office said in a release.

The CBO analyzed the fiscal impacts of lawmakers' plans to offer free public access to the federal court records system for noncommercial users as the Open Courts Act makes its way through Congress. The Open Courts Act would require the judiciary to overhaul the national federal filing database and its public portal, known as PACER, which stands for Public Access to Court Electronic Records.

The CBO report found that updates to the online court database could make up for the initial upfront expenses.

"CBO expects that core modernization work would be completed by 2029 when the new system would begin operating at an annual cost of $15 million — about one-fifth of the annual projected cost to operate the current system in that year," the CBO said. "Over the 2022-2032 period, CBO estimates, the phaseout of the old system would generate savings of $343 million."

Of the $77 million projected to be added to the deficit from the changes, $73 million would come before 2027 while the system undergoes the modernization process, the CBO said.

The judiciary generally charges users 10 cents for every search and another 10 cents per page to download filings. The legislation's sponsors said PACER users spend some $145 million a year to access public records.

The idea of making the court record system free has been under discussion for years, but it now appears to have bipartisan traction. A House version of the bill passed in late 2020 but stalled in the Senate. It was reintroduced last year.

In December 2021, the Senate Judiciary Committee also voted to move forward its bipartisan version of the "free PACER bill," with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the top Republican on the committee, adding himself as a co-sponsor.

In a January letter to the House Judiciary Committee, U.S. District Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf said that, if passed, the Open Courts Act would bring major changes to a "backbone system" of court funding and called for discussions before lawmakers take further action.

If passed in its current form, the law "would not only put at serious risk litigants' access to justice, but also potentially disrupt the funding needed for modernizing, operating, and maintaining the very systems the bill seeks to improve," said Judge Mauskopf, who heads the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

The CBO report summarized a funding plan.

"Over the first three years, fees would increase for high-volume users of the PACER service — those users that now pay more than $25,000 per quarter in fees," it said. "Starting in 2026, PACER user fees would be eliminated, providing access to legal documents to the general public at no charge. The costs of the judiciary's case management system would instead be funded by higher filing fees for civil and bankruptcy cases."

--Additional reporting by Andrew Strickler, Craig Clough and Christopher Cole. Editing by Kristen Becker.