Ranking Member Johnson Comments on EPA Inspector General’s Report on Preservation of Text Messages
(Washington, DC) – Today, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report on the EPA’s preservation of text messages. The report, which included interviews with 70 EPA staff, concluded, “We did not find instances where the EPA used text messaging to intentionally circumvent the Federal Records Act.”
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) said, “I appreciate the work of the Inspector General and I am glad this independent oversight body continues to bring an objective voice to the mission of oversight. This report lays down some positive recommendations for the agency and helps to put to rest some of the sweeping and false allegations that have been made about EPA’s records management issues.
In November 2014, Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith asked the EPA IG to investigate the agency’s use of text messages alleging “an apparent pattern of behavior directed at subverting transparency and accountability.” These allegations were repeated in a March 2015 Science Committee hearing titled, “Destruction of Records at EPA – When Records Must Be Kept.” The Majority’s star witness at this hearing was David Schnare, a former EPA attorney and the General Counsel at the conservative conspiracy oriented group, Energy & Environment Legal Institute. At the hearing, Schnare claimed in his prepared testimony that the EPA Administrator and other senior EPA staff “blatantly violated the Federal Records Act.” That statement and the Chairman’s initial allegations are now contradicted by the EPA IG’s findings.
Over the 12-month period from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015, the EPA OIG did find that more than 3.1 million text messages were sent or received by EPA employees. It also found that only 86 of those text messages were saved as federal records. The vast majority of the text messages were work-related, but considered “transitory” records that included one-time passwords, messages regarding meetings, traffic alerts and public tweets. In general, only about 10-percent of federal records and communications are considered “non-transitory” records that must be retained under the Federal Records Act.
Although Chairman Smith’s original request letter focused on text messages sent or received by the EPA Administrator it is interesting to note that personnel in the EPA’s Office of the Administrator sent about the same number of text messages as employees in the EPA’s Office of Inspector General. The EPA OIG report also noted that the EPA had taken steps to improve its federal records management.
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