On April 24, the House passed the "Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act" (H.R. 3763) in response to the scandal surrounding the collapse of Enron. A provision of this bill requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to develop rules that require a corporation to report contributions to a nonprofit organization if any of the corporation's directors or members of their immediate family are members of that nonprofit's board.

On June 18, 2002 the Senate Finance Committee approved an amended version of the Charity Aid Recovery and Empowerment Act of 2002 (CARE Act) which contains a provision eliminating the distinction between direct and grassroots lobbying for 501(c)(3) organizations.

On 5/17/02, the U.S. House of Representatives issued a request for proposals to digitize their e-mail. Labeled the House Digital Mail Program, it calls for a pilot system to be put in place that would support the digitization of all mail that comes into the offices of up to 50 members and two committees. The anthrax mail scares on the Hill in October 2001, required the switching of Hill mail facilities to an offsite location. This also led to security measures that have increased the amount of time it takes for mail to reach House postal facilities from 3 to 10 days;

The Senate Finance Committee began consideration of the Charity Aid Recovery and Empowerment Act of 2002 (CARE, S. 1924), the faith-based compromise proposed by Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) on June 13th. Since the committee lacked a quorum for a vote the bill is now scheduled for “mark up” and vote on June 18th. Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) said he does not believe it will go to the Senate floor until after the July recess.