[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 137 (Wednesday, November 12, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H7910-H7911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        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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