Electronic Message Preservation Act

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1582) to amend title 44, United States Code, to require preservation of certain electronic records by Federal agencies, to require a certification and reports relating to Presidential records, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Electronic Message Preservation Act. This bill would update the Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act to ensure that agencies save records created through electronic messages, including emails. This bill would require the Archivist of the United States to issue regulations

mandating that all Federal agencies manage and preserve their email records electronically.

Agencies are already supposed to be saving emails electronically. In 2012, the Archivist and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget issued a directive that required agencies to do so. This bill would help ensure that email records from Federal agencies and the White House are all preserved.

According to a September 2018 report from the National Archives and Records Administration, approximately 35 percent of agencies continue to print and file hard copies of email messages. This means that these records are more likely to get lost, and they are harder for the agency to retrieve during records searches under the Freedom of Information Act.

This bill would put into statute what agencies are already required to do under a directive issued by the Archivist and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2012. Agencies are required, under the directive, to save all permanent electronic records electronically by the end of 2019. Putting this requirement to save email records electronically into statute would show agencies to take this issue seriously.

This bill would also require the Archivist to establish standards for the preservation and management of Presidential email records and to certify, annually, that the White House has records management controls in place that meet those standards. The Archivist would be required, under this legislation, to report 1 year after the President leaves office on whether the controls used by the President met the required standards.

This bill has been introduced and passed by the House under multiple administrations. This is not a partisan bill for sure. It is a good government bill.

Madam Speaker, I urge all Members to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

If anything, I am surprised, perhaps shocked, that we have had to put the matter of electronic recordkeeping into statutory form to make sure it has happened.

We are deep into the electronic era, and perhaps, when you put a matter into statutory form, it finally is a matter of law and it gets people's attention. I certainly hope so.

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to yield back unless the gentleman has something more to say.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1582, the Electronic Message Preservation Act.

The American people, Madam Speaker, as you know, have the right to know what is going on in their government. Preservation of Federal records is essential to that right. The Federal Government must preserve Federal records, regardless of the form or technology used to create those records in order to remain accountable to the American people.

Over the last two decades, technology has advanced. Electronic communication has permeated all parts of the Federal Government. The Electronic Message Preservation Act requires the Federal Government to preserve those electronic records in electronic format. It just makes sense.

For decades, many Federal agencies have used what we call the print- to-file method of electronic record preservation. That is right; Federal employees were actually encouraged to print out emails to archive the paper copies instead of just archiving them electronically.

Paper-based records, as you know, Madam Speaker, really are inefficient, prone to record loss, and difficult to manage. A poorly managed, paper-based system can also increase the costs of recordkeeping for the Federal Government and the American taxpayers.

The Office of Management and Budget and my good friends over at the National Archives, under the leadership of David Ferriero, have been working to modernize Federal recordkeeping. They issued a joint directive that requires agencies to preserve emails and other electronic records in electronic format. Under that directive, all Federal agencies should be preserving electronic records in an electronic format by the end of this year.

This bill, Madam Speaker, just codifies that requirement in a joint directive and expands the scope of the electronic message preservations to include the Presidential records, as my colleague opposite has already noted.

The bill also requires agencies to report on compliance with the electronic record preservation requirements, which will allow Congress to understand the progress towards these goals.

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Cummings for working on this important issue. I encourage all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for her deliberative process and the way that she has managed that. I thank her.

I think this is one of the rare moments where you have true bipartisan support on something that is just common sense. We need to be doing that.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Electronic Message Preservation Act. I introduced this bill with the goal of modernizing the Federal and Presidential Records Acts.

This bill would require the Archivist of the United States to issue regulations mandating that all federal agencies manage and preserve their email records electronically.

This bill would help ensure that email records from federal agencies and the White House are preserved.

According to a September 2018 report from the National Archives and Records Administration, approximately 35 percent of agencies continue to print and file hard copies of email messages.

This means that these records are more likely to get lost and that they are harder for the agency to retrieve during records searches under the Freedom of Information Act.

This bill would put into statute what agencies are already required to do under a directive issued by the Archivist and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2012.

In 2016, the National Archives issued a document for agency records officers titled, ``Why Agencies Need to Move Towards Electronic Recordkeeping.'' The National Archives identified a number of reasons including long term cost savings, information security, and more efficient and effective implementation of the Freedom of Information Act.

This bill would also require the Archivist to establish standards for the preservation and management of email records that are presidential records and to certify annually that the White House has records management controls in place that meet those standards.

Under this bill, the Archivist must report one year after the president leaves office on whether the controls used by the president met the required standards.

This legislation would provide accountability to encourage every president to have the controls in place that are necessary to preserve emails and other electronic records.

This bill has passed the House with bipartisan support several times before, including last Congress. I urge my colleagues to support the bill again today and I hope the Senate will act on the bill and send it to the President's desk before the end of the year.