I find it odd, however, that the Federation of American Scientists maintains that report.
Yeah. It is an odd repository. I haven't done a google or other search on "RL31171," but sometimes the Congressional Research Service stuff appears at government websites as well as at fas.
I have a great collection of CRS "articles" that relate to the process of judicial nomnimation and confirmation, with a focus on cloture abuse and other filibuster techniques used in the Senate.
RS20801 - December 11, 2002 - Cloture Attempts on Nominations
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RS20801.pdf
RL30360 - March 28, 2003 - Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate
http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL30360.pdf
RL32843 - March 28, 2005- "Entrenchment" of Senate Procedure and the "Nuclear" Option
http://www.afj.org/judicial/crsnuclear.pdf
RL31948 - March 29, 2005 - Evolution of Senate's Role in Nomination/Confirmation
http://shelby.senate.gov/legislation/JudNom-History.pdf
RL32684 - April 5, 2005 - Changing Senate Rules - The "Nuclear" Option
http://www.andrewhyman.com/crs.pdf
RL31635 - February 23, 2004 - Judicial Nomination Statistics http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RL31635.pdf
RL32149 - [ Can't find an Online Source ]