5 bills House lawmakers wanted to act on before summer break

House lawmakers are eager to accomplish something — anything — before they leave for the summer.

The House Oversight and Government Reform committee passed a series of bills during a July 12 markup hearing aimed at improving and reforming digital record-keeping practices and making federal agencies and oversight more efficient and accessible. The bills will now go to the House floor for a vote.

Electronic Message Preservation Act

The Electronic Message Preservation Act would direct the Archivist of the United States to create and disseminate regulations regarding the storage of any electronic messages, primarily emails, regarding the operations of the government. These records would have to be collected and organized to be accessible through an electronic search.

It would also require the Archivist to make annual reviews of the efficacy of these regulations, and report to Congress on the results.

“According to the National Archives and Records Administration, approximately 73 percent of agencies continue to print and file hard copies of email messages,” said Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who introduced the bill in 2015. “This means that these records are more likely to get lost, and are harder for the agency to retrieve during record searches under the Freedom of Information Act. This would simply codify what the agencies are already required to do under a directive issued by the archivist and director of [the Office of Management and Budget] in 2012.”

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