For the third consecutive Congress, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s bipartisan website has been singled out as one of the very best on Capitol Hill, receiving a coveted a “112^th Congress Gold Mouse” award. 

In an evaluation of all 618 Congressional websites, our Committee was the only U.S. Senate Committee to be honored with a Gold Mouse.  The award is given by the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), a nonpartisan nonprofit working to improve communications between citizens and Congress and enhance operations in Capitol Hill offices.  CMF started assessing and scoring Congressional websites in 2001, and presents these awards every two years.

CMF conducted its analysis from June to September 2011 and released its new report, “112^th Congress Gold Mouse Report: Best Practices in Online Communications on Capitol Hill” today.  (Download a copy of the report here.)  Reviewers assessed 10 categories of criteria: usability of website; timeliness of content; breadth and depth of information on issues; constituent services and casework information; promoting accountability to constituents; legislative process information; district/state information; floor proceedings information; availability of diverse forms of content; and availability of diverse forms of content channels. CMF reviewers also included social media components in the criteria, which the Committee embraced this year.

The Committee is chaired by Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and the Ranking Member is Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

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