Q. How do I find pending federal legislation?

A great source for finding legislation that has been proposed in the U.S. Congress is Congress.gov.

You can use the default "current legislation" search option to search for legislation that is at any stage of the lawmaking process in the current legislative session.

See the search tools overview for how to search with boolean operators as well as tips on conducting other searches at Congress.gov. There's also a glossary available if you need more information about any legislative terms you come across on the site.

Once you've got a pool of search results, you can refine your search using the facets on the left side of the results page. You can limit your results by bill type, status, chamber of origin, sponsors and co-sponsors, and subject--policy area, among others.

If you've found the legislation you're looking for and want to get updates when its status changes (including changes like moving along in the legislative process, text revisions, and new co-sponsors), it's easy. Under the bill number and title at the top of the page, click the "get alerts" link. If you haven't already, you'll be prompted to create a Congress.gov account, and then you'll be set.