[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 137 (Wednesday, November 12, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H7910-H7911]
PRESIDENTIAL AND FEDERAL RECORDS ACT AMENDMENTS OF 2014
Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the
Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 1233) to amend chapter 22 of title
44, United States Code, popularly known as the Presidential Records
Act, to establish procedures for the consideration of claims of
constitutionally based privilege against disclosure of Presidential
records, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the Senate amendment is as follows:
Senate amendment:
(1)On page 5, line 7, strike [of] and insert on.
(2)On page 10 from line 8 through page 11 line 1, strike all
and insert:
(a) In General.--The President, the Vice President, or a
covered employee may not create or send a Presidential or
Vice Presidential record using a non-official electronic
message account unless the President, Vice President, or
covered employee--
(1) copies an official electronic messaging account of the
President, Vice President, or covered employee in the
original creation or transmission of the Presidential record
or Vice Presidential record; or
(2) forwards a complete copy of the Presidential or Vice
Presidential record to an official electronic messaging
account of the President, Vice President, or covered employee
not later than 20 days after the original creation or
transmission of the Presidential or Vice Presidential record.
(b) Adverse Actions.--The intentional violation of
subsection (a) by a covered employee (including any rules,
regulations, or other implementing guidelines), as determined
by the appropriate supervisor, shall be a basis for
disciplinary action in accordance with subchapter I, II, or V
of chapter 75 of title 5, as the case may be.
(c) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Covered employee.--The term ``covered employee''
means--
(A) the immediate staff of the President;
(B) the immediate staff of the Vice President;
(C) a unit or individual of the Executive Office of the
President whose function is to advise and assist the
President; and
(D) a unit or individual of the Office of the Vice
President whose function is to advise and assist the Vice
President.
(3)On page 11, line 2, strike [1] and insert 2.
(4)On page 11, line 6, strike [2] and insert 3.
(5)On page 11, line 9 through line 11, strike everything up
to the first period.
(6)On page 31, line 8, strike [within five days] and insert
not later than 20 days.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Issa) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, we are here today to consider the Senate amendment to
H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014.
This bill was introduced by the ranking member, who I see is here
today, and was first passed by the House on January 14 of this year. It
was passed by a vote of 420-0. Let not a unanimous vote belie the fact
that the ranking member worked hard to find consensus within the House
and to make sure that this was a well-reasoned and, in fact, tailored
piece of legislation.
The Senate, as it often does, did make some changes, but ultimately
this bill, H.R. 1233, which would codify existing executive order and
allows former Presidents to appeal to incumbent Presidents to keep
certain Presidential documents privileged under the Presidential
Records Act, is the good work of Mr. Cummings.
This bill would lock into statute a process established by President
Reagan in 1989. In 2009, President Obama restored this by executive
order. However, like anything that the Congress has observed for a long
time that is being done by executive order, the question is: Should it
be on the whim of the next President, or should it, in fact, be
something which statutorily is part of the Presidential Records Act,
which was a statute created by Congress?
I think particularly important is the fact that Mr. Cummings
recognizes that past Presidents, including President Clinton and, of
course, President George W. Bush, do, in fact, have a number of things
that occurred on their watch which remain sensitive today.
{time} 1615
Allowing the standing of these individuals and the oversight of the
current President is a good middle ground, and it is one that balances
the needs of the public, something that Mr. Cummings and I feel
strongly about, that transparency and freedom of information and access
is important.
At the same time, we recognize that there are times when a secret
must remain a secret, an action must remain an action. It doesn't
change the fact that Congress may have an interest or the American
people might prevail.
This bill does, rightfully so and on a unanimous basis now in the
House and the Senate, codify historic Federal recordkeeping. We believe
it is good.
I want to take a moment to thank Mr. Cummings personally for his hard
work. He not only championed the bill, but he worked well in the Senate
to make sure it came back to us today.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
[[Page H7911]]
Mr. Speaker, I introduced the bill we are considering today, the
Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments, to give the American
people access to records Presidents create while they are in office.
I appreciate, first of all, the kind words of the chairman, and I
appreciate the support this bill has received from him, Chairman Issa,
as well as the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Chairman Tom Carper.
The House passed this legislation in January by a vote of 420-0. This
bill also passed the Senate with no opposition. There are not many
bills that make it through both House and Senate without even a hint of
opposition, but this is one of them.
When the Senate passed the House bill, it made technical changes that
require us to pass the bill again. I hope my colleagues will join me in
supporting this bill again, so that we can send it to the President for
his signature.
The bill will amend the Presidential Records Act by adding procedures
to ensure that the records of Presidents and their senior advisers are
released to the public in a timely manner.
Under current law, Presidents can restrict access to their records
for up to 12 years after they leave office. After that time, Presidents
may continue to restrict access to their records by asserting that they
are protected by executive privilege.
Under this bill, the records of current and former Presidents will
continue to be protected for 12 years after they leave office. After
that period, however, the bill would create a presumption of
disclosure, and Presidents would have up to 90 days to object or those
records would be automatically released.
In other words, when records are requested more than 12 years after a
President leaves office, this bill would place the burden on the
President to review those records and either assert executive privilege
or allow them to be publicly disclosed.
This legislation would not impact the ability of Presidents to review
their records before they are released. The legislation also would not
impact the ability of Presidents to protect records because of national
security concerns.
The bill has also been amended to address an issue raised by the
White House. In the original version of this bill, Presidents would
have had 40 days to review records. Based on bipartisan, bicameral
negotiations, the current version of the bill now extends that review
period to 90 days.
The Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments would also
require that any assertion of a privilege by a former President be
affirmed by the incumbent President or through a court order for the
record to be withheld from the public. This will provide an important
check to ensure that Presidents cannot keep their records secret
without accountability.
The bill also includes language based on an amendment that Chairman
Darrell Issa proposed during the committee markup of the bill to
address the use of personal email by Federal employees, and that
amendment makes the bill even better.
This bill would continue to allow employees to use their personal
email account for official business when necessary, but it would
require employees to copy their official email account or forward their
email to their official account.
The Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments updates the
Federal Records Act to modernize the definition of what constitutes a
record and to allow agencies to use digital reproductions when they are
required to indefinitely maintain copies of documents.
Finally, this bill is an important step forward in protecting our
historical record. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1233 and send
it on to the President's desk.
Again, I want to thank the chairman of the committee for your
cooperation working with me over a good bit of time to bring this to
the floor. I really appreciate it.
I urge all of our Members to vote in favor of this bill. I think it
is a good bill. It has been made better because we had the input of
both sides of the aisle and not only both sides of the aisle, but also
the Senate.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In closing, I just want to hit two points that I think are
noteworthy.
Historically, agencies kept their records for 30 years, the
presumption they would keep them for 30 years before turning them over
to the National Archives.
With the ranking member's assistance, this piece of legislation also
eliminates that presumption. We, as a committee, felt very strongly
that the sooner an agency turns over its records to the Archivist, the
sooner they are broadly available and the better off it is.
In an electronic era, where it is a push of one button to transfer
data, this piece of legislation not only eliminates that presumption,
but highly encourages data be transferred, rather than mountains of
paper or what is called a PDF, a print to file, if you will.
This is a significant improvement and something that minority and
majority were able to work on together, along with the Archivist who
was personally involved in this.
Lastly, I owe a debt of gratitude to the ranking member. In this
bill, the amendment he mentioned is included, but the ranking member
also signed on to a letter asking that H.R. 5170 be taken up by the
Senate, a more explicit attempt to change the recordkeeping outside of
official use within the government.
This has been an area in which multiple different Cabinet positions
under multiple Presidents have found themselves with some very
embarrassing failure to store and maintain the data.
At the end of the day, I am confident that our committee, under the
ranking member and under the chairman that will likely replace me, will
continue this effort, make sure that the American people know that if a
covered individual is required to keep a record of his or her
transactions and emails, that it will, in fact, be in the record and
available, not just for Congress, but eventually for the American
people to see. We believe that this is an important part of government
transparency.
Again, I want to thank the ranking member who personally signed on
and will continue, on behalf of the committee, to make sure that the
American people get the full benefit of all records that are, in fact,
created under any administration.
Mr. Speaker, with that, I urge support for this bill, and I yield
back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) that the House suspend the rules
and concur in the Senate amendment to the bill, H.R. 1233.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the Senate amendment was concurred in.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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