The ways of Congress are very opaque to the average person. Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet that’ll fix that any time soon. (Recall that I found it unusual for a Google Blog post to say that “everyone should be able to become an informed participant instantly.” That’s far-fetched.) But let’s say you’re trying to follow what’s happening in Congress. WashingtonWatch.com can get you started.

Let’s say you’re interested in zero-emissions construction. Subject categories might point the right direction for you. Low in the left column, click on “Subjects” to see all the subject groups. Click on a subject group to see all the subjects within it. For your green construction focus, here’s the listing of bills that have “green products” as one of their subjects.

Another way to hone in your subject is to take a look at any bill that’s close to what you’re interested in. How about S. 1165, The American Green Building Act of 2007. Scroll down to “See Bills on the Same Subject.” (Subjects are added within the first couple of weeks after a bill is introduced.) That list will point you to the subjects that you’re interested in. “Energy conservation in buildings” is one of the subjects assigned to that bill.

(If you don’t have an RSS reader, you’re gonna need one to go the next mile. Here’s the page that will help get you started. I use Bloglines, which is pretty simple and Web-based - nothing to download.)

Scanning subjects only tells you which bills are relevant, of course. To try to get a handle on which bills are active, you might set an RSS feed on all the bills that are interesting to you (”bill status” for sure, maybe “wiki edits” or “combined” to get everything that happens with these bills). Set a feed on the subjects that interest you, too, so you can see new bills as they come in.

With feeds set on your key bills and subjects, you’ll get a notice when bills have updates, and you can apply the rule of thumb that most bills don’t get out of committee. When you see a bill come out of committee or get any floor action, that’s a bill to look over carefully and follow closely.

Now we’ve gotten somewhere. WashingtonWatch.com scans in summaries of bills that are produced by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). The wiki-editable article on each bill will usually include the most recent summary. (Click on “read more” just below the bill name, or click the “article” tab, to see the full article, including the summary.)

If the summary doesn’t answer your question, post a question in the comments section and either check back or set on RSS feed on the comments for that bill. You just might get an answer. An active bill is going to have more visitors - ordinary citizens, lobbyists, people on Capitol Hill, and people in federal agencies. In 2007, 15 of the top 100 networks bringing visitors to WashingtonWatch.com were government networks, including the U.S. House and Senate, the Veterans Administration, the Department of Defense, USDA, DHS, Pentagon, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of State, and FEMA.

Another option is to give the bill your own reading (click on “read the bill” just below the article) and report what you think it means in the wiki article. It’s daunting, trying to read legislation, of course, but with a little focus you can get a handle on what’s going on, particularly if you’re already a little familiar with legislation and regulation in the area.

Post your take on the bill in the wiki article, set a “watch,” and wait to see if anyone corrects you. (Information on editing the wiki is here.) If you’re not positive about what a bill says, go ahead and say so in the article. You’ll get credit from all the other curious folks just for stepping up to the plate. And remember, congressional staff and lobbyists working on these bills are lurking out there. They will feel obligated to correct you if you’re too far off.

All this is a fair amount of work, and, again, it’s no magic bullet. But the things going on in Congress don’t have to be a perfect mystery. You just have to spend some time learning how to use the site and studying the bills that are out there.