Federal e-mail preservation clears House committee

WASHINGTON - A bill that would force the White House and federal agencies to improve policies for storing e-mails is headed for the House floor after clearing the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a unanimous voice vote Thursday.

Comment on this article in The Forum.The bill (H.R. 5811) responds to concerns government records policies have not kept pace up with the information age by forcing agencies to store e-mail electronically. Laws and regulations governing e-mail retention lack language dealing with record-retention did not envision the use of e-mail, members noted, creating the danger of historians lacking access to much of the deliberation by agency officials.

"The preservation of these records must be ensured to allow historians … access to key information about federal decision-making," said House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

The measure mandates that agencies, many of which use "print and file" systems to store old emails, develop plans to store them electronically. The bill gives the National Archives 18 months to set standards for email retention, and then requires agencies to report within four years on their compliance with the standards.

The two-part bill also takes specific aim at perceived record keeping failures by the Bush White House. The bill amends the Presidential Records Act to give the National Archives and Records Administration a role overseeing the White House's records policy. Currently sitting presidents set their own policies for keeping key documents, before handing records over to the National Archive.

Giving the National Archive power over White House records policy could raise constitutional issues, Paul Wester, director of NARA's modern records program, testified at subcommittee hearing on the bill last week. But Waxman dismissed such concerns Thursday, noting the bill gives NARA, an executive branch agency, the oversight role and does not mandate delivery of documents to Congress.

Waxman criticized the Bush White House for losing hundreds of days of e-mail and allowing some senior officials to use Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for government business. But he noted the bill would likely affect only future administrations.

By unanimous voice vote, the committee passed a substitute amendment that attempts to address concerns raised by witnesses in the subcommittee hearing. While the bill previously urged preservation of "electronic communications" the bill requires electronic storage of just e-mail and successor technologies. It requires preservation of other electronic communications, such as instant messages, only "to the extent practicable."