The U.S. Department of Commerce, which spent US$335,000 on the study, released a 12-page summary last fall, but rebuffed efforts by Science Committee Democrats for the full 200-page draft.

Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), the Science Committee's ranking Democrat, and Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), the committee chairman, agreed to jointly send a letter to Commerce officials requesting the documents. That makes it 'an official administrative request' from the committee, said Alisha Prather, a spokeswoman for the Democrats.

'If the agreement holds, we're getting what we wanted,' said Prather, adding that the committee's letter may be ready by the end of the week .Democrats argue that the summary, released by the Bush administration 15 months after the workforce globalization report was completed, didn't accurately reflect the findings of the analysts who worked on it (see 'Government offshore report becomes political hot potato' (http://www.computerworld.com/careertopics/careers/story/0,10801,109889,00.html)).

A Commerce Department official reached Wednesday who didn't want to be named, said the 200 pages are draft working papers and not a report. They declined to comment on the committee's agreement until officially notified of it.