Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Electronic Message Preservation Act of 2017, and I want to thank Mr. Gowdy, our chairman, for getting this bill to the floor as he has today. 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 an October 2017 report from the National Archives and Records Administration, approximately 46 percent of agencies continue to print and file paper copies of email messages. These records are more likely to get lost and are harder for agencies to retrieve during record 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 2016, the National Archives issued a document for agency records officers titled: ``Why Agencies Need to Move Toward Electronic Recordkeeping.'' The document identified a number of reasons, including long-term cost savings, information security, and more efficient and effective implementation of the Freedom of Information Act.…”