EPA Blames Hard-Drive Crash Just Like IRS
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Incredibly, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is using the same excuse of a hard-drive crash being used by the IRS in order not to provide emails to Congress. Congress has given a subpoena for these federal records, while EPA Administer Gina McCarthy stonewalls. This same excuse was given to Congress by the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) recently.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., asked McCarthy: “Were all of his emails preserved according to the Federal Records Act or was a law violated?”
McCarthy responded: “I think we have notified the appropriate authorities that we may have some emails that we cannot produce that we should have kept. I do not know yet whether we can recover all of these or not.” She added later: “We are not sure where the failure came from and what it is attributed to.”
The scene reminds me of Hogan’s Heroes, where McCarthy plays the role of Sargent Schultz, “I know nothing.”
Hard Drive Crash
This hard drive crash supposedly occurred around 2010, the same time the committee began expressing an interest in the emails. I have to question this scenario. A committee hearing is to provide answers to Congress. If Congress begins down the path of reviewing emails, one hard drive crash should not prevent a review of said emails.
In this day and time, any organization should have an Enterprise Wide System, containing rigorous backups. This includes a means to store emails off of individual computers to the backup system.
According to the National Archives;
“Recordkeeping requirements” are defined as all statements in statutes, regulations, and agency directives or authoritative issuances, that provide general and specific requirements for Federal agency personnel on particular records to be created and maintained by the agency (36 CFR 1220.14). Recordkeeping requirements should be outlined in procedural manuals and other issuances that specify which records need to be included in agency files or other recordkeeping systems.
The reason Meadows specified the Federal Records Act, was due to the understanding of keeping and maintaining these records.
Under the Act, each federal agency is required to make and preserve records that (1) document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency and (2) provide the information necessary to protect the legal and financial rights of the government and of persons directly affected by the agency’s activities. The Act defines a federal record without respect to format. Records include all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine-readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the government under federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the government or because of the informational value of data in them.
When the excuse of one hard-drive crash is used by McCarthy, we shouldn’t accept it.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., was incredulous:
“Two different government agencies tried to convince Congress and the American people this week that emails disappear into thin air. We didn’t believe it when we heard it from the IRS and I’m not inclined to believe the EPA’s excuses. The Federal Records Act is very clear. This is either willful ignorance on the part of the EPA or gross incompetence. I hope the EPA will follow through and turn over the relevant information it promised to the Oversight Committee months ago.”
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