>> that's what's being put through a little bit of processing come easily removed, but the rest of it has to be stored in tanks, okay.

so there's a couple sources of leakage here, of contamination. we have these trenches that were between the building, reactor buildings and the ocean, okay. those have contamination in them and that's one possible source. but you had some leakage of these tanks. these tanks were bolted together. they were not welded, okay. and some of them have leaked. one has a late a significant amount, and a couple others, a japanese nuclear regulation authority sent out a report last week saying that one tank leaked approximate 300 tons of water, a lot. and they were relatively high readings of radiation that came out up some of those tanks.

whether that radiation actually makes it into the sea i don't know. that was the last surface radiation. the monitoring that the japanese have been doing, the radiation monitoring that they've been doing of the sea, you know, near the outlets into this he has been actually relatively low. so they have been measuring a lot of radiation into the sea. now, but, there is still a bit, there is still radiation leaking into the sea, but relatively small amounts. certainly below our epa drinking water standards. so that's what i can tell you. and in terms of impacts to the pacific ocean, there was, you know, pretty much localized. it's like having a cup of coffee and you put a drop of cream in.

okay, first you can see where the cream is, right? but if you stir it and mix it up, which is what happens in the ocean, mixing, you won't see that green anymore, right? it will essentially be gone. and so by the time the material would reach the u.s., negligible amount. >> did i understand you right? the material, the leaks from the plant into the ocean, -- [inaudible] >> far below. what i understand. >> if i went there and drank water, i would not be violating u.s. -- >> if you remove the salt you probably -- [laughter]

as far as i understand. >> so the conditions for the rules focus mostly on the immediate aftermath. do we have a set of rules that would apply for two and a half years later? >> specifically on groundwater contamination, i don't believe so. >> okay. >> this is something that, you know, we have done a lot of learning from the fukushima accident, and this is one of the many lessons. one of the many lessons about fukushima for the nuclear regulatory regulation was first we thought you'd never more than one reactor have an accident at the same site, at the same time. okay, and you know, we didn't anticipate that you could take out some of your backup systems so easily. so you know, they lost their

diesel generators and their batteries, and then they were left with nothing. so we've been working in the industry, nuclear industry has been working pretty hard to address those issues to make sure there's enough backup and that is distributed around the site so that it is, some of it will be preserved, you know, in any kind of situation. >> what is your next step in groundwater? >> this is very preliminary. we still have to begin to look at it. we haven't really moved anywhere with that. >> steve with plants. today, 12 years after 9/11, there have been a series of tennessee orders and rules to enhance security at nuclear power plants and othr facilies in the industry has been completely billions of dollars enhancing security, yet the are some ngos and others to remain critical of security

at these facilities think it's not adequate to withstand a 9/11 scale attack. can you tell us a little bit about a couple particularly in some security? one is, i know the nrc and intelligence agencies keep an eye on specific threats, but the underlying threat, hypothetical threat that facilities are required to protect against, the so-called a signed basis threat, how often, or is that actually updated or reviewed to see if it needs an update? and what can you tell us about the status of the relatively new hostile adversary exercises that have started at some of these plans to coordinate emergency planning exercises with a possible attack of some sort? >> what i can tell you in general is that, you know, nrc takes these issues very seriously, and the plans have made significant changes since

9/11. and they've made really large investments in improving their security. they are all required to have security towers around the sites that are defensible against significant attacks. they are required to have extra fencing. they are required to have extra centers going into the facility. so they really significantly upgraded. at many other sites, a third of the workforce is security. a lot of them have brought their security forces and. they don't use contractors. some still do but many don't use contractors so they have a workforce who can move to the operation site if they like, you know, but there on the security side. so there's significant improvements. they the regular practices. hves force on force practices

-- hves force on force practices with pretty substantial adversary groups. and they are constantly updating and upgrading to meet these standards. that's just on the sort of physical practical side. there's also the cyber side, and in terms of cybersecurity we put in a new cybersecurity rule and all the reactors have met most of it. it's an eight part peace and they have all met the seven parts, and the eighth is still being worked out. but that's another real concern right now for everyone. newspapers especially, print media, yes, right? you've all been hacked. so if something that we've been very concerned about but also i think they responded to and on top of. these plants are not connected to the internet, and the arthur

street rules that have to follow to ensure that day, on the cyber side, stay secure as well. >> if i could follow-up, chairman, what about the inner cities efforts, are there any efforts to periodically review and update if necessary so-called design basis threats, which is not publicly known but that's the hypothetical number of adversaries, what kind of weapons they have, that's not public information for obvious reasons but that was a bit after 9/11 how often is that -- >> the commission is now getting briefings, security briefings every six months. and so we can update every six months on what the threat situation is and based on that we make decisions but whether to update or not.

these updates we get, these briefings that we get are from the interagency. so from, you know, the relevant agencies who track this information. >> a month or so ago, you start to say we're not going to be, -- [inaudible] but they are still going -- i believe it had been next, the new reactor next in line from nrc, just curious, is that changing anything? does that change your view of? >> no. my understanding is there still next in line. we are following through for them. we will see.

>> you mentioned -- [inaudible] do you feel the plants that are under construction in georgia, do you feel there on track? there's a lot of people saying these industries are shrinking right now and it's not going to come back. is one in which are overall thoughts of industry and where it's going? >> well, i'm not here to comment on the health of the industry or not. i'm just making sure that they operate safely. i had the opportunity to go down to the site in georgia in may, june, sometime that timeframe, and got to see the construction firsthand. and you know, this is a whole new process, the combined operating process, part 52, not part 50 the way things were done in the past.

so there have been a few pickups on the way, but i think we worked them out and we just had a commission meeting on new construction. where we met with folks from vogel, from summer, which is the south carolina and watts bar, tennessee facility that are all under, how facilities under construction. things seem to be moving forward fairly smoothly. we're the good working relationship with the licensee and things are moving forward. spanky think they're all on track? >> all, yet, to open, absolutely. you know, i predict what might happen in the future but right now i think things are in a good place.

>> [inaudible] >> could you speak to that at all in? >> no. i'm sorry. american have enough information and i can't come in, my relationship is with the nuclear regulator in japan, so i get information from them and i can't comment on that. >> i may be wrong about this but i think you mentioned you ask the staff to do a high level look at what the effect of climate change might be. is that something that's under way? can you talk about the parameters? >> yeah, staff is, you know, considering that in part of an overall look at other processes that can affect reactors.

that's part of, part of the fukushima follow one lessons. so we've been looking at, you know, updating the seismic hazard, updating the blessing -- the flooding hazard and the flooding has become of course will be affected by changes in climate. you know, hurricanes and that kind of stuff. updating the tornado missile hazard, whether it's from tornadoes or other things. so there's a number of concerns. and the other piece of that i think that affects reactors is trying to understand how water temperature, both intake and output water temperature will affect the operation of reactors. so last summer we had no -- when a director 70 shut down for a little while because i think it was the outtake water was too high. so they are -- they all our

licensee specific criteria, whether it's temperature, the maximum temperature of intake water or the maximum temperature of the output water. and they may need to adjust the license amendment, or you know, in part it will also depend on the state regulations that take precedence over some of these issues. but that's where climate comes into the whole thing. and we are aware of this, and staff is keeping and not on the. >> have any talk to you about amendmentamendment s yet the? >> not yet, that i know of. >> no more questions? >> i have one. you talked about the need for -- in the wake of these plant closures and i'm kind of trees

as a geologist -- geologist, can you talk to us about what kind of geology is most promising? can you talk about the? >> you know, i can't say, it's the perfect location. i have always refused to state anything like that. the one thing i will say is, as a geologist, it's important to focus on the environment, not a particular rock type. so one has to take the whole geologic environment and consider that instead of just focusing on a rock. too often i see immediate or and policymakers discussions there talking about salt versus granite. well, there's all sorts of grand and there's all sorts of salt and some would be appropriate and some would not. so it's more than just the type

of rock that's important. >> [inaudible] >> a lot, yeah. the conditions at the depository levels. in a, there's a whole lot, you know. are there any resources that are that would be of interest to people in the future, and stuff. >> chairman, what can you tell us, you all have a big new building at your campus, building three, and what can you tell us about the status of that and its future occupancy? and also the renewal of the lease for building two, which was of some contention about the. >> right. it's sort of an urgent situation right now because the week before building to -- the lease on building two is up in december, mid-december. and the house transportation and

infrastructure committee is not so inclined at the moment to renew the lease. and that building contains many important and unique facilities, including the atomic safety hearing them, and the advisory committee on reactor safeguards hearing room. and our one big auditorium space, our technical library, not to mention the childcare facility in the fitness center and cafeteria. but, you know, the two hearing rooms are outfitted specially for the situation, and we don't have replacements for them in building three, in the new building. so we need to work on this

pretty urgently to deal with this. the administration has, both the administration and the legislative branch have issued new guidelines for the footprint for the amount of space workers take up, basically. and we've been responsive to that with the new building. and we worked closely with gsa, there services administration, to develop our preferred plan going forward which is, it's a two-and-a-half building solution. so we have maintained the big tall building, and of the new building we have retained basically half of it. and the rest is least to another government agency and the gsa has several in mind that would

be suitable for that, that space. so we are in a waiting mode right now on this situation. but it does need to be resolved pretty quickly. spent following up. is gsa on board with nrc's preferred plan, or are you still in discussions with them about that, this solution? >> gsa is on board. >> [inaudible] >> we need the help. >> why does that particular house committee have jurisdiction over this one? wouldn't it be -- >> there's an infrastructure oversight committee, so they oversee all federal infrastructure. >> with all the talk about possibility coming up, not just

a question of the government shutdowns, what kind of plans does nrc have going forward if, in fact, there is a government shutdown? >> well, certainly we have plans to make sure that we can continue our oversight of all the reactor facilities and other facilities. we would maintain operations center, so in any kind of emergency would be able to respond just like we would a normal operating conditions. and so the tennessee, you know, the folks there are very conservative and they like to plan carefully for every contingency. so be quite assured that their thoughts about this this and they have a plan in place. to make sure that, you know, we maintain our critical mission. >> [inaudible] they would not be laid off at that point? >> yes, they would stay on the job.

>> anything else? with that, i want to thank you, chairman, for spending time with us, and to remember us. we have the gc platts 10. most certainly will not have to be put on your gift registry. [laughter] thank you all for coming, and for your excellent questions. one quick reminder, tuesday next week the 17th, congressman john shimkus will be or so please look for that invitation. thanks. >> coming up on c-span2, house oversight hearing on transparency in the executive branch. and the senate is back in and we'll work on an energy efficiency bill. live coverage at 9:30 a.m. eastern. >> yes, the world is changing. no. we can't control every event.

but america remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs and as long as i'm president, i intend to keep it that way. >> when the president in the early clip is talk about where the indispensable nation, what has wants to talk about, he wants americans to contemplate, we don't know how to win wars. we have by virtually any measure best military in the world, we certainly spend more on our military than basically the rest of the world put together. but we don't know how to win more. and he seems to me that there really ought to be a very serious national conversation to ask why is that the case, what does the fault lie? is our politicians are too stupid? are the generals in networks is it the size of the forces are too small? or is it, my belief, is it the fact that by its very nature, war is unpredictable? to go to war is to roll the

dice, and you might win, and you might not. spent more with andrew bacevich sunday night at eight on c-span's q&a. >> c-span studentcam video competition is underway. atoned on middle and high school students, high school students, issue we're doubling the number of winners and prize money. create a five to seven and i could on the most important issue you think congress should consider in 2014. need more information? visit studentcam.org. >> house oversight committee republicans this week accused former obama administration officials trying to conceal e-mails containing official government business. former epa administrator lisa jackson disputed the allegations saying she had complied with federal law.

california congressman darrell ice chairs the committee. >> -- darrell issa chairs the committee. >> the committee will come to order. the oversight committee exists to secure to fundamental principles. first, americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent. and second, americans deserve an efficient and effective government that works for them. our duty on oversight government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. it's our job to work in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts

to the american people and bring change would reform to the federal bureaucracy. today, pursuant to that mission statement, the oversight committee meets to follow up on our commitment for openness, transparency and, in fact, compliance with the rule of law. the committee is responsible for protecting the integrity of all of congress' oversight capabilities. citizens and journalists use the freedom of information act often called for a, but that statute allows no access to private e-mails. and yet, it has become habitual for high ranking, and, obviously, trickle down, low ranking individuals to simply either out of laziness or in order to circumvent later discovered, sometimes by this committee, sometimes by the

public, sometimes, quite frankly, by their own bosses, the federal records act, the presidential records act and the intent of congress. although the federal records act, presidential records act do not apply to all federal employees, nor should they, nor is it our intention to have it. communication of official activity is, in fact, a property of the agency in which people work. the computers that you do business on, if you're a federal employee, or even a contractor acting in a similar role is, in fact, a government assets. and the government has a right to know and the government has the responsibility to be able to respond to foia, of the public and shows, congress, but most importantly the inspector generals themselves. the fact is that igs

investigations are inherently less successful if they are denied access to the very material that show the history and the activity of individuals. years ago, someone might pull a carbon copy instantly destroy. at that time it was an easy and willful act. at today, simply doing it on private e-mail and then routinely deleting. most people don't feel they're doing anything wrong, but they are. this trend very clearly began, according to our investigation, in the later part of the bush administration. one of my predecessors, mr. waxman, looked deeply into the dual use by the previous administration where individuals, in order to comply with government versus political activity in the white house used

an account completely separated from the official account. additionally, during that time, they blocked the use of gmail and hotmail and someone from the white house, yet mr. waxman made a point many times in the sitting room that, in fact, there was a question about whether or not this practice was acceptable, honest, or consistent, and even sent subpoenas for the purpose of receiving republican national committee documents. i disagreed with him on that because the law clearly said that the white house had a right to political activity. they were individuals designated who had that right, and it appeared to be an appropriate firewall. that investigation, in my opinion was not conclusive. but it is a far cry from what began at the moment that ms. jackson entered the epa. the epa already had a 2008

study, repeat, 2008 study in the later years of the bush administration that showed they didn't have the control systems in place to ensure that they were capturing the information. this in no part has nothing to do with who's in the white house but it had to do with the ease and complicity of using private e-mail. most people in america today understand that almost any smartphone, and not just to a primary e-mail, but multiple e-mail, whether its blackberry, android or an ip blackberry, android or an iphone. all of this technology is the reason we're here today. the individuals that are here today all stand, at least a portion of them, as individuals who have not complied with the federal records act, who have clearly circumvented that. we are not here to indict individuals though. our witnesses today are here because we want to show a pervasive problem that began at

the dawn, or the sunset, the sunset of the bush administration or the dawn of the obama administration. but it has not been corrected and, in fact, this committee has an absolute responsibility to either change the behavior or change the law, or both. it is our commitment to do that. it is the commitment of this president, orally and in writing, to be the most transparent in history. transparency requires two things. one, that you let the sun shine in. and secondly, that the information be available in the sunlight. the fact is when private e-mails are delete it, they eliminate the ability, even when the sun shines in, to provide it. we will do today that all e-mails have been accounted for for many individuals. i have to tell you, that simply isn't true. what has happened is all e-mails that can be found through ordinary efforts have been found. it very clearly can't e-mails

have been lost. during the last two administrations ago, again under mr. waxman, we insisted in this committee that the white house spend tens of millions of dollars to replicate official e-mails that were lost during the conversion from lotus notes to microsoft office. millions and millions of dollars simply to gather a few e-mails and make sure that none were lost for future generations. to me, that says it has been important to this committee, no matter who is in the chair, and that is not going to change. particularly important to us is that, in fact, education within the federal workforce is not sufficient. and i think mr. cummings will join me in this, from the time that we sat together, and myself, we have heard the same

excuse from one part of government after another. and that is, it is too difficult to get into my official system. this committee also has primary responsibility for cybersecurity. let me assure you of one thing. we cannot have greater security of federal records if, in fact, e-mail, hotmail or host of other sites are, in fact, not even under federal control and have important information. to that end, i have offered legislation, and i believe that this committee will, in fact, this congress, legislation in support of the president and administration's efforts to make real and lasting change will be placed, will be enacted. the committee, again, has examined violations of the federal transparency under both republican and democratic

administrations. it is the new internet, the smart phone, and the ease of these that give these that have ultimately made it is pervasive. i hope that we will continue to see that h.r. 1233 and 1234 become law, but it will only be a combination of that and sincere effort by the administration, by agencies large and small, to capture information and to ensure that quote complexity or difficulty of getting into official e-mails is no longer an excuse heard by this committee or any other committed by congress, and certainly i want to say for the members of the press who will be listening and seeing this, our greatest effort is to ensure that their foia's are, in fact, in search of the federal record. with that, i want to thank my ranking member for being a partner in this effort, and i

would yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and good morning to everyone. mr. chairman, i thank you for holding this hearing this morning. one of the things that i'm hoping that each witness will do come as a listener to the chairman stephen, i'm always very careful about people's reputations. it's very important to me. we have one life to live. no dress rehearsal. this is that life, so i want to make sure that if you did not intend to circumvent the records and transparency laws, i would appreciate it if you would tell us that when you testify. because i don't want that to be out there if it's not accurate. although some may suggest that the committee's focus on federal employees using personal e-mail accounts seems trivial, especially in light of a great national secret questions congress is curly facing, i

believe government transparency is a matter that affects every policy we implement. that i agree with the chairman. for this reason i support responsible effort to ensure our government is operating in a transparent manner, and i have advocated strongly for this committee to exercise its jurisdiction to conduct robust oversight aimed at transferring to. over the past latest our nation has made great strides towards these goals, which have acknowledge those improvements. any suggestion that the obama administration is somehow less transparent or less compliance with federal records laws than previous demonstrations fails to recognize the reality. during the bush administration, as the chairman stated, the white house -- didn't say this but let me say you, for your information, join the bush administration, the white house lost hundreds of days of

official e-mails, top officials use the republican national committee e-mail accounts for official business. investigation by this committee revealed that 88 officials who used rnc e-mail accounts for official business, no e-mails were preserved for 51 of them. i would like to into the record an article from "the associated press" dated 2007 which said this, and i quote, the white house said wednesday, it had missed and republican parties e-mail accounts used by nearly two dozen presidential aides, resulting in the loss of an undetermined number of e-mails concerning official white house business to ask that article be entered. >> without ejections ordered. >> think is a much chairman. the jack abramoff scandal, and a host of other matters, and they

were lost not for a day, not for a year, but forever. these systemic deficiency prevented congress and american people from fully understand how their government was operating at the highest levels. in contrast, president obama has taken significant steps to improve records management. a white house e-mail system now automatically preserves all e-mails from white house accounts. on november 28, 2011 the president obama became the first president since truman the issue a directive to agencies on managing federal records. as we will here today, the president instructed the archivist to craft a 21st century framework to improve agency performance and begin managing e-mail records in an electronic format by 2016.

so as the obama a decision more transparent than his predecessors? in my opinion, absolutely. can we do more to increase transparency and compliance federal records laws? absolutely. and we must. i hope today's hearing focuses on how we can do that. today, we'll hear from four witnesses use personal e-mail accounts to conduct official business. to be clear, no federal law prohibits the use of personal e-mail for official business, so long as those e-mails are properly preserved. very important. in this case it appears that the majority of e-mails at issue were, in fact, properly preserved because employees copied them to the official accounts to ensure that agency servers archives them. in cases in which this did not happen, it appears that employees have gone back to recover e-mails in order to ensure that they are fully available for review.

clearly, we can always do better in terms of ensuring that federal employees know the rules and comply with them. to this end i introduced h.r. 1234. the electronic message preservation act in order to modernize the federal records act and the presidential records act for the electronic age. mr. chairman, in an image editing our committee markup is directly on point for this hearing, and i applaud you for that. it would ensure that e-mail records created using nonofficial accounts are preserved and accessible through the agency recordkeeping systems by requiring employees to forward e-mail records to the official accounts within five days. so my bill has language, since it passed, in this committee back in march. chairman, i hope you'll enjoy -- you will join me in urging to bring this as quickly as

possible. finally, i want to thank the witnesses for being here today. each of you have served or is serving this country in a critical government position. several of you rearrange your schedules to be here. some even under the threat of subpoena. of course, committee deserves answers to our questions, but you also deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. i want you to know that we appreciate your service and your cooperation. without i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. all members will have seven days in which just meant opening statements and other extremist material for the record. before introduce my witnesses, as in his consent that the senate minority report, epa's foia and federal records failures uncovered a september 9, 2013 can be entered into the record. copies will be made and distributed so that all members and witnesses would have the report. without ejections ordered. -- without objection, so ordered.

>> mr. gary gensler is chairman of the important, although numerically sometimes small u.s. commodity futures trading commission. lisa jackson is the former administrator of the epa, or environmental protection agency, and currently is the vice president of environmental initiatives for apple corporation inc. mr. jonathan silver is the former executive director of the loan program office of the u.s. department of energy, he is now a visiting distinguished senior fellow for third way. welcome. mr. andrew mclaughlin is the former deputy chief technology officer, executive office of the president. mr. mclaughlin is currently the senior vice president of beta works, chief executive

officer of instant paper. very impressive. there is life after government. and the honorable david ferriero is the archivist of the united states and the man we count on to work hand in hand with all the agencies to modernize and capture this information. pursuant to the committee rules i would ask all witnesses to please rise to take the oath before testifying. raise your right hands. [witnesses were sworn in] >> let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. please be seated. you are a large panel today. you are all skilled professionals, so suffice it to say your entire opening statement will be placed in the record i would like you to come as close to or less than the five minutes to leave plenty of time for questions. with that we recognize

mr. gensler. >> good morning chairman issa, ranking member cummings, members of this committee. promoting transparency in government is critical so that the public can have a clear window and participate in government decision-making. the federal records act and related foia are key to such transparency. i thank this committee for this hearing and the work on these matters bring in this sharper focus. i joined the commodity futures trading commission in may of 2009 in the wake of the worst financial crisis in 80 years. 8 million americans lost their jobs. the remarkably dedicated cftc staff worked around-the-clock to bring clock to bring much-needed reforms to the swaps market, which was at the center of the crisis. we also took in numerous steps since then to bring transparency to our work. we voluntarily took external meetings, notes, it was there, on a website, over 2002 in

meetings. we have increased tenfold our public meetings, and withheld nearly two dozen roundtable to facilitate public interaction. literally, we rolled up our sleeves and worked day and night. though i use my official e-mail account far more than my personal, to get the job done i did routinely engage with cftc staff and others through my personal e-mail, particularly outside of normal business hours. having come to this job after years of not working in a traditional office setting and primarily being a single, stay at home dad, frankly i was not the tune to the ways of accessing work e-mail at home. and at the cftc we did not have a robust training program, and i personally didn't receive training on either remote access or federal records. as head of the agency, i take full responsibility with regard to records management, training and promoting transparency at the cftc. and i want to thank the agency's

inspector general who highlighted this in, that it is better to avoid using personal e-mail, even though no law prohibited it. the ig said i use official gmail far more frequently than my personal as h see counted approximate 10 times more official e-mails and personal. he also said there was no indication that the chairman was attempting to hide the use of the personal e-mail from cftc employees in an attempt to conduct secret official business. in fact, many of the e-mails were with the general counsel and chief information officer and executive director. in a subsequent letter to congress he said we do not believe it violated any federal law. when this committee sought the e-mails from my persona personal account, i.e. media the past staff with gathering and living all responsive documents. we did provide approximately 11,000 e-mails that were sent to all originated or copied to personal e-mail. approximately 99% were exchanged with another government official

and were on federal systems. in fact, 97% were at the ctc already. the remaining documents that were not already there a@alread. the remaining documents that were not already there are there now, and i cast staff look at them to make sure they are files appropriate. but moving forward, let me say, i believe we can and need to do better. first, i directed staff to revise the cftc's e-mail policies, working along with archivist, mr. ferriero in distaff cam and i'm glad he's agreed in meetings with me that he will help us refine our cftc policies, ensuring a stricter and tighter guidance. second, i directed our executive director of the council to significantly enhance the agencies training on federal records, and related how to access e-mails and do it in an efficient way. we have to promote telework and a flux of the work schedule. and third, while we've already basic -- ensure that we are

flexible and tools, not only for access but importantly record-keeping. and that's why i applaud the archivist efforts to bring capstone into reality. this is a system where all the e-mails and senior officials will be captured. ensuring full compliance to the federal records act and other transparent you laws is critical to the public space in an understanding of our government and particularly of the cftc. i think you. >> thank you. ms. jackson? >> [inaudible] >> could you -- >> sorry. good morning chairman issa, ranking member cummings, and members of the committee. i appreciate having a chance to offer my statement to the committee this morning. serving as administrator of the u.s. and our meta- protection agency was a great privilege and a high point of my 25 year career in public service. i joined epa shortly after grad school, after earning a master's degree in chemical engineering. i spent 15 years on the staff at

epa, at headquarters here in washington and later in the field office in new york before joining the new jersey department of environmental protection in 2002. i believe my public service ethic came from my father, a navy vet, and mailman and then the machine is the u.s. postal service. in january 2009, i.t. administrators before me, i was assigned to unit addresses at epa.gov. one address was to be published on the website and the inboxes managed by epa staff. the second address was shared with a more limited number of people and the inbox was managed primarily by need. as you know firs firsthand, pubc officials get a lot of e-mail. the eps estimate that the administrator receives well over a million e-mails every year. that's a meeting a message almost every 30 seconds, around the clock, 365 days a year. managing an inbox that big is more than one person can handle and do the job effectively, to

say the least. that's why many members of congress as was the executive branch set up a second account. it's about time management and efficiency. i'd like to address the naming of my second account. i suggested that we label the second account adminjackson or something similar with my name or title in a. but cover staffers recommend using a full name since the e-mail address database with public available and searchable. people looking at unimpeded access or a faster way to each admission would be searching for secondary address. so i was advised against anything obvious. my husband and sons were still living in new jersey and our family dog's name is ricky. so with tongue in cheek i name my account windsor-dot-richard at epa.gov. regardless of the choice of name, the account was were a official visit and subject of the freedom of information act. there was a learning curve for me on who should have access to

the second account. i eventually decide that the account should be primary for my senior staff and white house staff. epa has released thousands of e-mails from this account. i use it every day to do my job more effectively. i did like to address personal e-mails. when i was confirmed as administrator, like most people i had a personal e-mail account. we public officials are, after all, also private citizens. i maintain a personal e-mail account for personal matters. every public official has to use our best judgment in ensuring appropriate use of personal e-mails. my practice was to forward any e-mail that i deemed pertaining to government business into an official epa.gov e-mail account so that it could be captured for record-keeping purposes. i respectfully call the committee's attention to an example of this practice. on february, 2009, i forwarded an e-mail from a home e-mail account to an official epa e-mail account. the business valley of the

e-mail was questionable but, out of an abundance of caution, i forwarded it to a staffer as an fyi with a note to ensure that it was not given undue weight in the policymaking process. this e-mail chain can be found at epa's website and i am here submitting for the record. this e-mail -- excuse me, it was released as part of a freedom of information act request, and i offer it as evidence that might action captured this e-mail for conspiracy and record-keeping purposes. i have come to accept that there are those who will second guess the judgments that i made our question the motives behind those objections. on one hand there can be certainly on this and reasoned debate over my judgment and on the other there are some who want to the right there is a hidden agenda. the principal reason i could wanted to come in today is to make a perfectly clear that it was my practice to ensure that any official business conducted by me or through my e-mail accounts with the program the captured for record-keeping purposes.

mr. cummings, to add your question and i certainly did not intend to circumvent records or transparency laws. and to the contrary, i intended for my records to be captured for purposes of record-keeping. i recognize that the issue of preserving official government correspondence is of critical importance and in the digital age of these issues are difficult ones. i commend you, mr. chairman, and the committee for tackling them. in a world that has been transform by our ever-increasing ability to connect it is my hope that you can find a path forward that encourages transparency without unduly restricting job efficiency, personal convenience and privacy. thank you. happy to answer oceans. >> thank you. mr. silver. >> good morning, mr. chairman and congressman cummings. thank you for having me today. my name is jonathan silver and i've been asked to appear today as the committee examined issues around in the record-keeping in the federal government. i previously said as the executive director of the loan programs office at the department of energy, a position

i left almost two years ago. i should note, therefore, that i'm here today in my capacity as a private citizen and i'm not in a position to speak to you or about the current retention policies and practices at the department. i testified before this committee's subcommittee on regulatory affairs, stimulus oversight and government spending in 2012, where these issues were discussed in depth. in 2011 by tesla in front of a different house committee that also address some of these issues. i've also been interviewed on several occasions by perry's committee staff. i was asking before this can more than a year ago during the committee's review of one of the 1705 program loans. during the course of that review i voluntarily provide all of the relevant documents i had for my personal e-mail account covenant on the time i was at the department of energy but also at the committee's request e-mails for an entire year before i was even in the federal government. today i will of course answer the can is questions again to the best of my ability. mike pence today, along with my

swiss compliance with your document requests a year and half ago, demonstrates my willingness to assist the committee in its work. i would note that also offered to make myself available to committee staff in an informal setting prior to this evening. as you know the 1705 loan program had a statutory sunset date of september 30, 2011. substantial funds needed to be deployed by that date. it is important to note that my office was working diligently to deploy the capital within a timeframe established by congress. we worked day and night to get the job done. working under such a tight deadline required ongoing communications during and after business hours, and that night and on weekends. this was challenging because, as anyone who has worked with the department until you, the government's i.t. systems are old and cumbersome. the overwhelming majority of e-mails produced from a personal account are copies o of e-mails from idea be account containing documents, duplicate copies, wipeout, analysis, spreadsheets and others that already existed

on the d.o.e. service but i occasionally forwarded or had forwarded to me documents from work in order to be able to work while traveling, out of the office, or at night and on weekends. i also sent and received some e-mails asking about logistics or for updates or to share and occupation. i use my personal e-mails in an effort to be as efficient and productive as possible, not in an attempt to be evasive. in 2000 when i joined the department i do not recall being provided training in what was a what was not a federal records act issue, and respond directly to you, congressman cummings, at no time did intend to try to circumvent records act. while i strongly support transparency in the federal government can the federal government can when the federal government, one of the the, two years ago i did not have a clear understand of the departments requires in training testing since i was a price of these obligations i immediately turned over all the relevant documents i had come both to department of energy and directly to this committee. it is my distinct of that

production has said is that any obligation i made that under the federal records act. thank you for the opportunity to appear today and i look for to answering any questions you may have. >> the want to answer mr. cummings question as ms. jackson did? >> i thought i did but if i didn't, let me sick and i directly respond to congressman cummings question i sang that at no time any intent to circumvent the federal records act. >> thank you. mr. mclaughlin. >> good morning, mr. chairman, mr. ranking member. members of the committee. i think this is incredibly interesting set of issues. and so what i would like to do is make an observation and then three suggestions for the committee's consideration as you move forward. my observation is something this. the world that we're moving into is one where any executive branch and click on the own for a single by the personal e-mail account but may well have dozens

of communications accounts on different servers. i've listed probably 2000 common services that of respect in 20 sunset in my written testimony. so the world wer where moving io is one where friends, contacts my former coworkers, members of the public can find you on the services and can send communications in. so i have one personal example that i think is also relevant. i think i'm sort of sitting at the table as an example of an ordinary somewhat reasonably conscientious employee who got a whole bunch of them negations into my personal account, nor awarded the bulk of them over to my official accounts but missed something when i got a foia request, went back, fountain, afforded them and that was my experience. but the world we are living in now is when the federal agency will not have an official accounts in the dedication services, there's no way to send event. so i three suggestions for the committee's consideration.

the first one is the committee might want to specify that if a communication can't easily be forwarded into an official account, there should be some kind of safe harbor practice that would count as the transmission into the federal government. for example, capturing a screenshot of an image. i've to say something negation tools that are very common among twentysomethings these days, like snape checked are building such a way to make it almost impossible to grab a screenshot and forward that. but you could imagine a safe harbor approach where you could take a screenshot, pass that along to e-mail account, and have that be a safe harbor for compliance with the federal records act, the presidential records act. number two, and i should say h.r. 1233 does a very nice job of cleaning up to problems. one is knowing where you have to send a communication order for it to count as having been has been a, in other words, into official account and the sick part is this it must be done within five days. as you know there's probably no

time limit on when a record has to be transferred over and over to be compliant with the law. i think those are positive changes. number two, it's very difficult right now for members of public to find a way to efficiently communicate with an employee. for all the usual obvious reasons, spam, privacy, security, we don't publish every federal police official e-mail address. it can be difficult to find. one thing that is very common and customer service operations or if you look at a lot of newspaper websites, they want a journalist to be accessible but we don't want them to be targets for constant spam is that the use things like a web forum where you can submit a request to be in contact with individual and it gets routed to the individual and they can then respond. it's a recently -- allows people to reach. so they don't elect had to go and meet it with you on some gnome personal account because that's the only one they have access to. ..

>> twitter that have public facing profiles. other services would make it much more difficult. but you could imagine the agencies would have to at least specify some basic language for some of the most popular communications platforms and try to -- [inaudible] communication elsewhere. just one final note which is by way of example. one of the things that happens over and over again.

sometimes you may not even read it if you don't go on vacation, you don't go back through your personal e-mails. one of the things that happened to me was a long experience involving haiti where the only way to communicate with individuals on the ground that were running isps that i happened to know that needed fuel was to use skype. and skype was a tool that the white house had not approved but was the only way to reach these people in port-au-prince that were keeping the servers running. so we used it, but it's a great example of where the most effective tool may not even be an official tool. and the emergency, you are general si exception -- urgency exception applies. and that's something that i think any responsible agency ought to address. i'll be happy to answer the committee's questions. thank you very much.

>> they've certainly teed up the fact that nobody knows, nobody knows how to deal with the new ones, that your job is impossible. [laughter] take as long as you want to respond. >> chairman issa, ranking member coupling, member -- >> i think your mic may need to be closer. >> thanks for holding this hearing on the importance of federal record keeping and the challenges we face in managing the vast and growing number of e-mail records. as background and context on our work in this area, the president issued a memorandum on managing government records which launched a multiyear executive-brand-wide effort. the president stated when records are well managed, agencies can use them to assess the impact of programs, to reduce redundant efforts and to share knowledge within and

across their experience. i join to issue a directive to all heads of executive departments and agencies and independent agencies. largely based in part on the work done by this committee in h.r. 1233 and 1234, the director describes two high-level goals and a series of actions that o to mb and the departments and agencies of the federal government must take to modernize policies and practices. the two goals are, first, require electronic recordkeeping and, secondly, demonstrate compliance with the federal records management statutes and regulations. i'm pleased to say that we are making progress toward achieving these goals. for example, in response to the directive, each agency

designated a senior official to oversee and insure compliance with records management statutes and regulations, not the records manager, a senior agency official with that responsibility. and last month nara issued guidance to assist agencies for managing e-mail records in format by the end of 2016. as a result of the office of personnel management is working to establish a formal occupational series. there is no such thing as a records manager in the federal occupational series. and by the end of 2014, agency records officers must obtain the nara certificate of federal records management and training, and all agencies must establish a method to inform all employees of their records management responsibilities and develop training for appropriate staff. i believe that the presidential memorandum and the implementing

directive have set us on the path to addressing the challenges in modernizing and reforming records management. the effective management of e-mail records is a significant part of records management reform. in that regard, the committee's concern over the use of private or unofficial e-mail accounts used to conduct federal business is also a topic of interest. the national archives discourages the use of private e-mail accounts but understands that there are situations where such use does occur. accordingly, where a private e-mail account must be used to conduct government business because, for example, the government-provided e-mail service is not available for technical reasons, the federal records must be moved to the official recordkeeping system of the agency as soon as practicable and then the freedom of information act and other legal requirements and their implementing regulations. as i just noted in our recently-released and

agency-wide bulletin introducing a new approach to managing the billions of e-mail messages, we've also issued a bulletin reminding agency heads about the needs to protect federal records. both t of these bulletins and the president's directive are attached to my written statement. there are a number of challenges. the technological landscape is constantly changing, and the volume of records is always growing. the focus of today's hearing is e-mail and the agencies covered by the federal records act, but the challenges involved from social media platforms as you just heard and other two branches of the federal government are every bit as difficult. the talented staff at the national archives and records administration looks forward to working through these issues. the long-term success of the national archives and the he historical record of our nation depends on our collective success.

thank you for the opportunity to appear today, and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you. be before i begin my questioning questioning -- [inaudible] i apologize, but this is sort of committee business that i didn't expect to have. mr. silver, you're represented by dixie, shapiro and warren? >> yes, sir. >> in your opening statement you said you wanted to be transparent. i have -- put it up on the screen. i have in my possession a disturbing e-mail that comes from an individual working at, apparently, working at dixie and shapiro that actually asks a member of this committee not to

ask questions of you. are you familiar with this? >> i'm sorry, congressman, i'm not at all familiar with what you're -- with that. and i'm told that we will look into it. >> well, i want more than look into it. i want an explanation from your counsel on why we shouldn't refer this to the american bar association. i'm informed that this is an employee who is in the lobby side of dixie and shapiro who made multiple contacts to committee members and at least one of them to committee staff specifically -- or to staff representing a member specifically asked hem not to ask you questions. we're providing your counsel with it. but from a committee standpoint be, you're not the attorney. i'm speaking, quite frankly, it's why it's not my question to you. the question of whether we refer

this to the bar association, whether, in fact, it's an interference with congress which i find it to be and the like will need to to be resolved with the ranking member and myself after this hearing. but we have had a long history, dixie and shapiro warren has represented a lot of individuals here. this one crosses the line, and i wanted to make sure it was on the record not on behalf of mr. silver, but the fact that when represented by counsel, we expect you to know more than the witness and keep the witness out of this embarrassing situation. many cummings? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for sharing this e-mail with me. as a lawyer and as an officer of the court, i think this is very, this concerns me greatly. having represented lawyers in maryland in disciplinary

matters, it does -- you're right to be questioning this. i hope that this is not what it appears to be, because i think it would be very unfortunate, and you're absolutely right. it would be clearly out of bounds. i hope it's not what it appears to be. thank you very much. and i will join you in your efforts to look into it. >> thank you. now we'll go to the line of questioning. mr. silver, this question had nothing to do with your conduct. i simply had to get into it inte record. i'm going to start, mr. gensler, the cftc.com, who owns it? >> mr. chairman, i'm not familiar with any web site cftc.com -- >> it's not a web site, it's an e-mail address that in addition to the u.s. and dot-gov is a

commercial site, and we're trying to figure out whether, in fact, we have e-mails delivered in preparation on this, whether or not that is a cftc asset and, if so, if it's being captured. >> i'm not familiar with any web address that's cftc.com. this was a question that was raised by your hard working staff late yesterday, and i know our technology staff is taking a look at what this might be, but i'm not familiar with any such site. it's not one i've ever used, sir j. but you have used it, that's part of the discovery. you may not have intended to use it, but, you know, we have e-mails now that say they're coming from you at a dot.com. >> what our senior technologist last night, and i think he'll have to work with you to rook at it, is that it may be that somebody put in a name, not an actual address but a name just as they might misspell my name

with instead of one r with two rs. >> well, we'll look into it. again, it's part of that whole question. mr. gensler, just to put it in the record, you headed an important organization, some 600 people and a tremendous amount of dollars that passed through. did you receive any training as to the federal records act? >> i'm the head of the agency, and i take full responsibility, but, no, i did not receive training on the federal records act. as i came into the agency, i've spent a lot of time on training these last three or four months. >> ms. jackson, you've spent a lifetime since graduate school. have you received training on the federal records act? >> i did receive record retention training as i recall, sir. epa would have those records, though, they're not in my possession. >> mr. silver, how about yourself? >> to the best of my recollection, congressman, i did not receive specific training on the federal records act. >> mr. mclaughlin, if people

don't get trained, is there any way that all those ideas and suggestions mean anything? >> no, sir. >> okay. particularly agent t si heads. agency heads. mr. silver, you made some very specific statements, and i'm going to call you on one of them because they don't seem to square. i have ap -- an e-mail between you and morgan wright dated august 21st, 2011. and it says, and i quote: don't ever send an e-mail on doe e-mail with private e-mail address. that makes them subpoena-able. tell me why i shouldn't consider that a deliberate circumvention since you were pervasive in using, setting up and creating and even putting other people on to nongovernment e-mail, and you

conducted business even while you were at the office from these nongovernment request e-mails? why is it i should not consider that a deliberate circumventionsome. >> can congressman, i did certainly use my private e-mail from time to time, but as i said before it was certainly never my intent to evade. that e-mail that you refer to to a is a response to an e-mail chain that precedes it is on the doe server, and somebody noted there was a personal e-mail address in the header to somebody. and mine was an admonishment and a reminder that you should not mix these two things. >> is it coincidental that when we looked for e-mails related to the need to backfill money for one of the largest bankruptcies related to the e-mail -- sorry, to the energy loans that those e-mail, the e-mails related to

that, the e-mails related to pumping in money at the end to try to stop or delay a fall were on private e-mails? that were not forwarded? >> i'm sorry, the question is are there -- do those exist? >> well, they did exist. >> that's -- >> you know, mr. gensler, you went through the 99% and the forwarding and so on. mr. silver, you didn't. you very clearly, from what my records and my memory for that matter, you created a separate account, you used it to talk to people about problems in the loan program and about, ultimately, how to hide or delay the knowledge of an impending bankruptcy at solyndra, right? >> congressman, i was communicating with longstanding confidence people i had worked with for many, many years, some who wrote to me because they had my personal e-mail. i responded in kind.

i did send some of those e-mails. it was not my intention to evade anything there, but we were in the heat of trying to make, trying to struggle with this company, and we wrote some personal e-mails, yes, we did. >> okay. we'll put some more of them in the record later. i just have one last one. ms. jackson, who is allison taylor? >> allison taylor is a friend. she's someone i've known for quite some time. >> but you work for the president, right? >> when i worked at the u.s. environmental protection agent su, i worked for the president. >> the president has a prohibition on, basically, your coordination with lobbyists. she's a lobbyist, isn't she? >> i believe she is a registered hobbyist. i don't know if she is today, but -- >> okay. well, my understanding is, you know, allison taylor at siemens.com, do you know what she did for siemens? >> i believe she ran government

affairs. i'm not sure. the way i knew her was actually in a personal manner as well. >> so you only knew her in a personal manner? >> that's not fair to say. i can't separate knowing someone in this city. they have jobs, people have jobs and lives, but i first -- >> well, i apologize, but that was what the abramoff scandal was about, people said we're friends when, in fact, he was a lobbyistment richard windson, and i'm going to get on to the ranking member, the official account, the one the public didn't have, in 2009 you did an e-mail that has a p.s.. p.s., can you use my home e-mail account rather than the one when you need to contact me directly? tx, he's saw. to me, that sounds like you were giving a lobbyist your personal e-mail account for oh communication when she wanted to reach yo directly.

>> is sir, again, if you look at the entire e-mail chain, you can see that there's a couple things gown on. she -- going on. she makes note t that a she has requested an official meeting through official channels, through my chief of staff. and she goes on, it's a chatty e-mail, and she says there's no business to be done. so what i was doing was telling a perm friend, someone i knee personally -- knew personally, hey, if you want to contact me, don't use my official account that i'm using to get business done. you've already made a request for a meeting. contact me at home. now, certainly, if anything in that e-mail when she contacted me at home was business related, then i would -- my practice would be to send that in to the official account. as the example i demonstrated. >> okay. well, we'll put the entire chain in the record, and i'm sure others are use it -- will use it, and i recognize the ranking member.

>> thank you veryuc chairman. ms. jackson, just a real quick question just kind of following up on what the chairman was just asking about. you said allison taylor was a friend? and you did, can you explain that relationship so we'll have some clarification? >> certainly. it was a pre-existing relationship. it existed before i was confirmed as administrator of the agency. i knew her. she had worked for many year, i first met her on the hill, i believe, working for mr. dingell in numbering and commerce -- in energy and commerce. she's someone in environmental circles that is thought of extraordinarily highly, and we have many mutual friends as well. if you look at the e-mail in question, it's lisa and allison, it's an e-mail that had a wiz component, but that -- business component, but that's why as though i felt there was a personal component. >> was there any effort to evade the records and transparency

laws here? >> no, sir. in fact, it's a public record that i'm saying to her feel free to use my personal account. but it was not to evade or circumvent records or transparency. >> mr. formaro. is that close enough? >> rhymes with stereo. >> you know who i'm talking to. is there anything in the federal records act that prohibits the so-called alias e-mail account? >> no, there is not. >> in fact, the nara issued guidance for agencies yesterday, is that right? >> that's that's right. >> in part addressed alias e-mails, accounts when an official uses an e-mail address with a pseudonym, and i quote:

recognized that employees may have a business meeting for more than one agency, administrative e-mail account, end of quote. one of the business needs that are identified, and i quote: using separate accounts for public and internal correspondence. can you describe nara's position on how agencies should treat secondary accounts? >> let me just clarify, yesterday's bulletin clarifies our stance on the need to insure that multiple e-mail accounts are accounted for. nara guidance before that always said regardless of after using you need to capture federal records. so this one clarifies the electronic mail situation. i think the situation that epa described in terms of a million e-mail messages coming in a day

to an address is a good example of the need for multiple addresses. and as far as nara's concerned, we don't care how many addresses you have as long as those that are doing federal business are captured in the federal system so that they're available for future use. >> now, going -- coming back to you, ms. jackson, there seems to be quite a bit of concern about your use of an alias e-mail account to conduct official business. you've said that you used the alias richard windsor fission to a standard epa e-mail address bearing your first and last name. you explained that in a letter to science committee chairman

ralph hall. epa explained the need for this alias e-mail as follows, and i want to quote, find out whether you agree with this. it says, if secondary account is an everyday, working e-mail account of the administrator to communicate with staff and other government officials. this secondary e-mail account is used for practical purposes. given the large volume of e-mails sent to the public account, more than 1.5 million in fiscal year 2012, for instance, secondary e-mail account is necessary for effective management and communication between the administrator and colleagues. is this an accurate explanation of your reason for using a secondary e-mail account? i thought you said a million. that's saying 1.5, but -- >> i estimated low. yeah, i believe that epa has used the 1.5. i took a conservative number. and, yes, it's generally the

same as the explanation which i gave which is it is not unusual in the public account for thousands of e-mails to come in overnight commenting on a rule or a concern, write the epa administrator and tell him or her this or that. so for time management purposes, for the ability to do the job using e-mail, that's why i had a secondary official e-mail account. >> and who did you communicate with using richard windsor? >> in general, i used it to communicate with my senior staff at the environmental protection agency, with white house staff, with some members of the administration. but they were senior members of the administration. i limited the use of it over time because i couldn't have too many people using it, or it would defeat the purpose of having a secondary official -- >> >> now, do you know whether this was a new practice at the epa, the practice you just talked about? >> no, sir. my predecessors before me had secondary official e-mail

accounts. >> in fact, many of your predecessors, democratic and republican administrations alike, employed e-mail aliases to conduct official business. among others, president george w. bush's first epa administrator, chris teach todd whitman, used the address, quote, to wit. marcus peacock, who was an acting administerrer under president bush used the address, tofu. ms. jackson, were the records in your primary and secondary e-mail accounts preserved as required by the federal records act? >> both of those accounts are preserved and archived. they are in the possession of epa, their custody, their control, their official accounts, and that's what they were set up -- >> now, as far as your know were the records in both your accounts searched when necessary in response to the freedom of

information act request? >> as far as i know, that's exactly what happened, and i certainly know that there were times when i would be asked do you think there are records in your accounts responsive, and i would say go ahead and search them, they were searchable. yes, sir. >> i want to come back to you, mr. gensler. the chairman rightfully had asked, i think it was mr. silver, what if you had answered my question. did you answer that question? maybe i missed it. one about transparticipant si, whether you intentionally -- >> i thank you for bringing me back to that. just as the inspector general of our agency said, i think i quoted that i hadn't violated any federal records law, it's also to your question i did not intend to circumvent federal records act. >> okay. and i understand that you've employed several different aliases during your ten your. why did you decide to use e-mail

aliases? >> though at cftc we don't have quite the volume that is over at the epa, as i came into the office, there were many concerned citizens, sometimes hundreds in a day that would e-mail in to g. gensler at cftc dot above. it's -- everyone at the cftc has that same nomenclature. so the office of data technology along with the executive directer and the lawyers set up another account that was just, it just took my initials, actually, but set up another account which was linked. the foia office had it linked. we've gone back just many preparation for this yearing to see whether over these last years they were always linked. and it was the senior staff of the agency and of government could communicate on this secondary account which, as i say, were linked in the foia office in the data technology

and is archived. >> my last question to you, ms. jackson and mr. gensler. i mean, i'm sure having had to come before this committee, you've thought about this a lot. and i'm just wondering, are there things that you think the congress ought to be doing or your agencies could be doing so as to make sure -- i'm sure you agree with what we're trying to get to here. things that we might be able too too -- to do so that future be folk in your position are within bounds of what -- >> i do. and i want to thank both you and the chairman for allowing me the time to meet with you. i really do applaud in this committee. i think that the separation between official business and personal business is important so that the public really has trust in their government, the press has exposure into it and yet we can keep our private lives private and that there's that separation. and i must say looking back i think the cftc, though, the inspector general said we didn't

violate any laws, which is good, i think we could have done better. and there's 99% of these in my case that were here in government accounts, but what about that 1%? so we've brought it in now, we've gone back and looked at foia requests, and we see there's not anything that's a problem. three things. i think we have to tighten our rules. nara's done that yesterday. i want to do that at the cftc, and if you do that through h.r. h.r.1234, while i'm not an expert be, i do support the approach to modernize our recordkeeping laws to the t 21st century. two, i think training is critical, and i've directed our general counsel to update our training both onion b boarding employees and also the current staff. and thirdly is technology. we're going to need to spend money on this capstone approach, but i think capstone is a really good thing because it captures everything, even the inadvertent

deletion can't be deleted. >> ms. jackson? thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. cummings. i would echo the idea of clarity as much as possible in a very complex situation. i thank the committee for trying to give more clarity, because i think every official with good intent is trying to follow the law as best they can, use their best judgment. and i would also urge that there be, if there are a set of rules and policies and they're followed, that second guessing by looking at official records and trying to guess whether or not somebody was complying is quite difficult because those records are all public and available. so i would just ask for fairness in judgment as well, that there be a set of requirements and that people understand them, be trained on them and then be looked to those requirements and not a moving target. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. and i just want to piggyback

what the rank member said or your line of questioning. i hope everyone seeing this today understands that members of congress be they just put daryl.issa@house.gov, it would be useless, and i think mr. cummings and i both have that situation. i know members who try having a plain, ordinary name. so i want to recognize that a common, same approaches throughout your agency often doesn't work for the head or even more some key people within an agency. having said that, ms. jackson, one of the concerns of the committee is during the can entire period before your alias was known, foia requests be they were germane did not give -- if they were germane did not give true name. and one of the challenges we're going to have in our legislation is to the make sure that if a

name, i.t..something or an absolute fake name, in your case clearly a man, when there's a foia, it has to be converted to a true name, and that may be the bigger challenge is that i could be daryl.issa, you know, mr. cummings could be cummings-- [inaudible] or i could be joe bag of doughnuts and you could be sam good neighbor. but if a document is produced, he is a good neighbor. it has to have a true name. and that will be something the committee will be working on going forward is the fact that true names have to somehow come out to the extent that they're not redacted. now, to the extempt that they redacted all of them, i guess it wouldn't actually matter what the e-mail address was. and with that, we go to the gentleman from south carolina. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. silver, what do you think the purpose of the federal

records act is? we'll get to the plain language in a minute. what's the purpose of it? >> >> i'm not a lawyer -- >> you don't have to be a lawyer to know the purpose of the federal records act. >> i think the purpose, i don't thinkman, is to make sure -- congressman, is to make sure there's as complete a record as possible. >> you would be right. now, the last time you were with us i asked you specifically whether or not you had deleted any e-mails that might fall under the jurisdiction of the federal records act. do you remember your response? >> i think i said at the time that i had certainly deleted e-mails, but it was not in an intent to evade. it was a regular cleaning out of my inpox. >> was that testimony true at time you gave it and currently true? >> yes. >> it was true at the time in. >> it was true at the time. >> now, i am informed that a third of your e-mails were not produced to the committee prior to your testimony. do you agree or disagree with

that? >> i agree with that. as you know, congressman, i had come back in the country two days before the hearing. we produced everything we could before the hearing. >> well, that's an interesting statement, because are you aware that some of the e-mails we got from your personal e-mail account we didn't get from you, we got from other sources? >> i'm sure that's true because i had deleted some -- >> well, then you would not have given us everything, and your prior testimony about not deleting anything would have also been incorrect. >> no, that's not right, congressman. i gave you everything that i had. >> mr. silver, i want to read an e-mail to you, and i want you to help me kind of walk through it, okay? don't ever send an e-mail on department of energy e-mail with private e-mail addresses. that makes them subpoena-able. we're going to overlook the fact that subpoena-able is not a word. why were you concerned about subpoenas? >> as i said before your

arrival, congressman -- >> no, i was here for it. >> that e-mail was an intent to remind and odd -- and admonish the staff who had received an earlier e-mail that somebody had included somebody's personal e-mail address on that they should try to keep those two things separate. >> why? that's my question. what were you concerned would be speak b thatted? >> i wasn't concern that any specific -- >> well, then why did you use that phraseology, mr. silver? that's not a throwaway line. that's not hope you're doing well, call me sometime. >> it is -- >> i think it was exactly what you intended to communicate. my question to you is what were you concerned would be subpoenaed? >> i was not concerned any specific thing -- >> well, then why did you say that, mr. silver? that makes then subpoena-able? >> i was trying to remind the staff, whatever -- >> don't you think that flies

direct tally in the face of the federal records act? i speak, subpoena-able is another word for discover able, right? they mean the same thing, essentially. >> yes. >> so your do to e e-mails d doe e-mails were already discoverable. you were concerned personal e-mails would be discovered, right? >> i was reminding the staff that their personal e-mails should remain personal to themself. >> where well, that's not what you said, mr. silver. that may have been what you meant, but that's certainly not what you said. what you said was that makes then subpoena-able or discover able or can be found be out. >> as i said, congressman, that is -- what i meant was that they should keep their personal and professional e-mails separate. >> i ask you specifically whether or not you were concerned that concealment might be a motive for using perm e-mails, because you told us it was all about convenience. if you only forwarded e-mails that had large attachments or

documents and that it made it difficult for you to read on your blackberry, do you recall that testimony? >> i said that was largely the case. yes, i do recall that. >> all right. did you forward any e-mails from your doe account to your personal account that did not have documents attached to it? >> i'm sure i did. >> well, the very e-mail that you and i have been discussing came from your personal e-mail account, right? >> that e-mail does originate from my personal account, yes. >> right x. that didn't have a lot of documents attached to it, and it wasn't hard to read, right? just two sentences. >> right. that's correct. >> ms. jack soften, can you use my home e-mail rather than -- jackson, can you use my home e-mail rather than this one when you need to contact me directly? why did you say that? >> because allison taylor, the author in the e-mail chain, was a friend, and i believe that a personal friend should use

personal e-mail. >> all right. is there a exception for personal friends in the federal records act? >> sir, as i've already stated, my intention was to comply with the -- >> that wasn't my question actually. is there an exemption or exception that you're aware of for perm friends? >> my -- >> it's a simple, it's not a complicated question. are you aware of an exception to the federal records act for personal friends be, yes or no? >> the intent is to make sure that official government business is captured in official government accounts. >> well, what she was e-mailing you, would you consider that to have been official government business? >> as i said earlier, sir, she had requested through official channels a meeting for her employer. >> and do you think that was a personal meeting or a meeting many your professional capacity? >> the meeting was being handled through professional channels, therefore -- >> all right. so it was a professional e-mail that she sent to you, and your response was contact me on my

personal e-mail. >> no, no. the response included saying that we would work to set opportunity meeting, and what i say is if you need to contact me directly -- this is a friend talking to another friend -- >> is it possible that a friend could contact you about official business? is that possible in --? >> it's certainly possible -- >> it's clearly possible. >> i'm happy to answer the question, sir. i would say, yes. >> okay. so why would there be an exception for friends to use your perm e-mail -- >> sir, friends use personal e-mail if there's official government work involved, then under epa policy we would, i would then have to forward it in to an official account so that it could be captured for recordkeeping and archiving purposes. >> well, ms. jackson, i'm sure you could see how a skeptical reader of that e-mail might reach another conclusion, wouldn't you? >> i think that if someone has intent to see something more there, that's fine. but the e-mail talks about a

meeting being scheduled through official channels. >> right. and she used the richard windsor e-mail, and she didn't have any trouble getting to you through that e-mail. and your response was can you use my home e-mail rather than this one when you need to contact me directly. >> intend again, if you look at the entire i think of the -- >> i don't have it. i'll be happy to look at. >> it's been released under foia. i also gave it for the record. >> gentleman yield for a second? >> sure. >> i just want to make sure the record's clear. for allison taylor to contact you at your windsor account, it wasn't public. >> i actually do not know how she got the account address. i do not know. i don't have those records, i don't have the windsor e-mail accounts available to me. >> okay. and i think mr. gowdy hit everything sense one subquestion. you said in your testimony that you would determine when something would be forwarded.

isn't it true under the federal records act you don't get to decide what's relevant. it is your entire database is often looked at for discovery. so in the case of your private e-mail, you're deciding what you think, and mr. silver, mr. gensler are deciding what's relevant rather than a neutral third party deciding whether something should be discoverable. and i think that may be a part of what mr. gowdy was alluding to. by a lobbyist contacting you outside of government chains, it becomes much more, well, i'll turn over what i think is relevant and delete the rest. and with that -- >> mr. chairman, may i respond to that? >> there wasn't a question there. there was an observation that somebody had your personal government with account. you gave a lobbyist your personal -- >> no, sir, i did not say that. >> the person was asking for an official meeting. your web site shows you had a lobbyist trying to do official business with the epa, you had

shall be that was in the process of trying to work with your agency, and you're giving them a private e-mail and not telling them, you know, if you want to talk to me about the dinner dance, go to my personal e-mail. no, you were telling them here's my personal e-mail and use it. you were not specific on how to divide your personal life with this friend who you don't even know how she got your nonpublic government account. you may answer. >> thank you, mr. chairman. respectfully, the e-mail chain if you look at the entirety includes a request for a meeting that's gone through official channels. it's addressed to me as lisa. i address her as allison. she says there's no business to be done. we hi you're a rock star. -- we think you're a rock star. so my only intent was to simply say, hey, friend, if you want to contact me directly, here's my personal e-mail account. the business that was done was handled through official channels, sir. >> ms. jackson, i appreciate all

that. but let's understand that the ig and your former agency have made it clear that we have lost forever and will not have your entire train of official activities. they have discovered that much of what we're asking for simply no longer exists. and that's been told to this committee. so in the case of your activities using personal accounts, we will not get full discovery, the public will not get it. the fact is, epa has not met its responsibility for transparency, and quite frankly, ma'am, that means you put us at risk of lawsuits for decisions made in which people suspect that e-mails that have been lost would help their case rather than yours. that's a real problem, and that's the result of when people don't do their job right, and clearly, you didn't do your job right when it came to making those available. and that's also in the record. and people may look at it. mr. davis, i apologize for the lateness of that. gentleman's recognize.

>> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. ferrio, let me try and make sure that we have the facts straight on the laws that we're talking about today. i've heard accusations from the other side of the aisle saying that some of the witnesses at the table today, quote: broke the law. end of quote. because they used their personal e-mail accounts for official business. could you, please, answer this question yes or no? is it against the law for a federal employee to use the nongovernment e-mail account for official government business? >> would the gentleman yield to make sure that the the accusation is correct? i'd just like you to -- mr. davis, would you yield? i just wanted to add to that because i think this answer is important. our allegation is that not that people use private e-mail, but

that in, many cases those private e-mails of official, doing official business were not forwarded in any time frame at least until we were in discovery with subpoenas to the government. that's our accusation of wreaking the law -- breaking the law, and i just want to make that clear. thank the gentleman. >> thank you very much, and i resume. >> with the chairman's clarification, the guidance that we have provided is that, is the recognition that personal e-mail accounts can be used. but if they're used for official business, ten that communication -- then that communication needs to be forwarded to their government accounts. ..

would even be a federal record. can you explain what would be considered a record? >> anything related to the business of the agency. >> so if there is something of a personal nature that does not relate to the business of the agency, must that be accessible? >> no. >> if an employee creates an e-mail record using a nonpublic account, what should be -- what should be employed into?

>> if they are transacting government business on that personal account, then that message needs to be forwarded to their government account so that it is captured as record. >> so the federal record act does not include in its specific -- violations of the law? >> that's right. >> i think then that we all agree that federal employees should avoid non-official e-mail accounts for official business. but as acknowledged in the guidance issued yesterday, there are times when you have a personal e-mail account that's necessary. nara's guidance say, and i quote, while agency employees should not generally use personal e-mail accounts to conduct official agency business, there may be times

when agencies authorize the use of personal e-mail accounts, such as an emergency situation when federal accounts are not accessible, or when an employee is initially contacted through a personal account. in these situations, agencies, the agency employee must ensure that all federal records sent are received on personal e-mail systems are captured and managed in accordance with agency recordkeeping taxes. so mr. ferriero, do you agree there are times when an employee may need to use a personal e-mail account in order to perform their duties, is that correct? >> that is correct. >> thank you very much. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> i think the gentleman.

we now go to the gentleman from florida, mr. mica. >> thank you, gentlemen. i came in a little late. let me just talk to mr. silver if i may, a couple of questions for mr. silver. you were the executive director of the long program of the department of energy from -- when was it? 2009 -- >> november 2009 until the end of september 2011. >> and you were i guess in that position when the administration issued some energy loans that resulted in significant taxpayer losses, including solyndra, beacon power, abound solar and fisker automotive, is that correct? >> yes and no, congressman. i was the head of the agency -- >> during the time -- >> yes. not all of us ran into trouble during that period, yes.

>> and then i seeor tt when you came and testified before us, mr. cummings, ranking member, july 18 hearing, 2012, said, you stated, as i say, almost nobody, certainly nobody i'm aware of in the loan program even who the individuals were who had invested either directly or indirectly in these companies. that was your statement? >> yes. i did make the statement. there seems to be some confusion about that. i was referring -- we obviously know who the investor groups are, because we negotiate with them. that's the nature of the business. i took the question to me, did we know anything about their donation history in the we know the underlying -- so, for example, anything to capital

firm, we have no idea the limited partner speak so you did know people like -- >> yes. >> you did know him before? >> and certainly he is one of the partners of one of the firm's -- >> did you know at the time he was a major investor in a bound solar? >> that i know at the time? at what time, sir? yes. i mean i knew that -- >> at the time they received government loans. >> of course. i had, members of my staff at negotiate with he and his firm and the other investors on the terms of the transaction. >> did you communicate with him by telephone or by e-mail? >> undoubtedly both, sir. >> private e-mail speak with i don't recall but i wouldn't be surprised. >> how about john dewar, an investor in mr. -- >> is a partner.

>> yes. partner. did you community with him on personal e-mail or by phone calls? >> probably both, sir. >> it seems a little and conflict what you told mr. cummings about -- did you know also that mr. dewar was again an investor in fisker at the time. >> i did, although yes, i did, but -- >> do you still stand by your statement that you are given to mr. cummings? >> yes, sir. id. it's a very fair question but i was responding to whether not we knew who the come in the investment world in which i come from, the question but who is an investor is a function -- >> he was trying to find out what kind of relationship and a few new people that you are giving alone stoop. the question has always been about what type of communications, and it appears

that the communications that were personal in nature also took place with these people who have a financial stake, correct? >> yes, i do know them personally. >> okay. so you've been with this third way think tank since you left? >> i apologize. >> have you been with this third way, think tank? >> yes, sir. >> have you done any of the consulting work or received any compensation's from anyone else, other than third way since you left d.o.e.? >> yes, sir. i'm on the board of several privately held companies. >> any of these firms that received government -- >> no, sir. none. >> what about your relationship to some of the individuals that i just mentioned, -- what about contacts postemployment with

mr. doerr and -- >> i'm stuck on is -- can you repeat the question? >> i mentioned to individuals in particular which were personal accumulations, and also received these loans or assistance. what has been your relationship with them host your employment with d.o.e.? >> i maintain a personal relationship with them but i have no -- [talking over each other] do either of them or any of the firms you associate with contribute to this third way? >> nose or not to the best of my knowledge -- no, sir. not to the best of my knowledge. >> the gentleman from virginia is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome to our panel. i don't quite understand what we're doing here today. i guess to try to create a

breathless scandal, another one. we really want to look into the misuse of e-mail, political, personal and professional. we really ought to be calling a number of the officials from the previous administration back to. because that was egregious, actually. where there was a deliberate circumvention, and destruction. mr. ferriero, if they were archived. 81, 81 officials, systematic. this was systematic. a colleague want to seem to make a case study out of poor ms. jackson, guilty of the crime of trying to protect the environment of the united states. as far as i can tell from the evidence, you know, tried her best among many, many other things she's been with, make sure she got her e-mails right. and when they weren't right, now i want to make sure though that, to be fair to you, ms. jackson,

that your this evil genius who is trying to misuse eminent property and you know, at this rate transparency for all times. we want to get that on the record. so let me make sure the following what happened. when you became the administrator of the environmental protection agency, you were assigned to epa address, isn't that correct? >> yes, sir. >> and i am sure given all you were facing after the economic collapse, and, that was overseen by the previous administration, you really focus like a laser be on these e-mail addresses your given. i mean, you just study them, you know, you wanted to make sure they're going to work. you call people in to brief you. i me, you spent your time on that, right? >> no, sir.

the career staff step up the account as had for previous administration's -- >> stop right there. so this wasn't unique to you? >> no, sir. this was a practice that had become common through several administrations before makes. so, for example, your predecessor in the bush administration and your predecessor in the clinton administration were similarly given to e-mail addresses, is that correct? >> i can't confirm the clinton administration, i don't know, but from media reports i know that's true for the bush administration. >> okay, so then they had to figure out a name for your account, is that right? >> yes, sir. they asked for a name spelled why wouldn't they just say lisa jackson speak as i suggested adminjackson because it was easy to remember. >> what did they -- >> career staff recommended not to use something easily searchable, because our database is searchable and people can search and find a, then that would negate the advantage of

having a secondary e-mail account. >> gotcha. no one could actually, should have access to what you're trying to do, hack in spent it just meant you would get too many e-mails to be able to use the account. >> while there is that, too. but someone could easily, no homework, no problem, don't you sophisticated. it's under lisa jackson. they thought that was prudent not to do? >> apparently that's what they learned through experience. >> okay, so the menus was richard windsor, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and throughout her tenure, that secondary e-mail account was used for official business and subject to foia, freedom of information act, correct? >> yes, sir. i used it everyday. >> so was it misused? >> sir, it's an epa account. it was set up that way so that

information could move into it and be captured. and, in fact, that's exactly what happened. it was not my practice to use it that way so that -- bp isn't process of releasing thousands of e-mails. >> i'm sorry, ms. jackson. some people, just you are a convenient target to demonize another official from this administration. and try to make something bigger than it is. mr. gensler, you said, executrix of the general accounting to enhance the agency's training on the federal records act and transparency in government. and to promote further an environment that supports total work -- telework and flexible schedules. i was intrigued by the.

i'm a big champion of telework i'm glad you're going to promote that. but obviously e-mails matter a lot if you're going to be doing that. could you just expand a little bit on that entrance of doesn't have posed some challenges? not just technological, but security? >> it does. i think -- >> if you speak closer to the mic so we can hear, thank you. >> as i've come to learn more about this i think there are three related issues. transparency laws, like the federal records act, foia which are really about enhancing the public's fairness and trust in government. information security, for sure because we don't want breaches, and then thirdly, just the technology itself. i'm not a technology expert, but i would say when i came to the agency, we did not have a robust training mechanism either on the federal records act or on technology. i'm the chairman of the agency and i take full responsibility, and they do think we can and need to do better so that's what

i've directed the appropriate senior people at our agency, let's go back and make sure that when we bring people onto the agency in the first wiki, not months later, not even years later, but they really care robust training about everything that david ferriero wants us to get. also that we promote telework in a way that there's efficient means to see that e-mail or other documents through various access devices. when you're at home, but access devices that comply with federal records act. so it's doing both. this third prong is information security. >> mr. chairman, would you allow me and -- we went six minutes over time. i thank the chair. you've always been there. mr. ferriero and mr. mclaughlin, to this point, i would like you to just, because all right, put aside whether somebody systematically liberally circumvents the law.

that's a fair concern if it's occurring. my sense is that what goes on here is we're trying to adjust the technology come we're trying to meet multiple goals, compliance with this law, compliance with that law, promoting telework which is also the law i might add, to say nothing -- not incidental come and so you know what, sometimes people slip a. sometimes on my official count my daughter since me a picture. it has nothing to do with my business. now, sometimes i, i have multiple accounts. i've got facebook, twitter, i get a member which is political in which is official. which is personal, you know, i'm busy and with the best of intention i might slip. could you talk about that a little bit in terms of both the technological challenge of that, mr. mclaughlin, and mr. ferriero, the issue of compliance.

because we do need to be fair to people in terms of technology sometimes poses a challenge that human beings make mistakes versus insidious desire to circumvent the law because their something awful going on and we've got to get to the bottom of it. >> so the common thing for me as the archivist and listening, has to do with exactly what this new directive is addressing, and that is the need for any serious in the federal government about compliance with the federal records act. a need for training, the need for adequate tech orgy, the responsibility of the senior agency -- technology, the responsibly of the senior agency, better certification of managers creating the reference manager job description in the federal government. this is the development of a new culture around records that involves inspector general, legal counsel, the cio, the entire agency, and helping make

the transition to electronic records much more robust. and as chairman said when he opened this hearing, to make it possible for americans to know what's going on. that's the purpose of the keeping of the records. >> it's a huge conundrum. and actually what this debate sort of strikes me as is yet another example where suspect it will catch up with e-mails, practices and policies and the technology for capturing them right at the moment that everything is shifting over the new proprietary platforms, new messaging services, what's called over the top. for example, you may be used to doing sms text messaging on your phone. if you were in your 20s you would be doing something which looks and feels the same but it's an app on your smartphone that is used in a completely parallel system where the

traditional governmental techniques are capturing that text messages don't even exist. so i think, if i could maybe add a fourth idea to the three i laid out in my prepared testimony just from listening, one thing that is clear is that as the technology evolves rapidly agency practices have to keep up. it will not keep up technologically but the human practices of training, periodic reminders and if i were to add a fourth idea to my list, it would be a departure checklist so that as you're leaving the agency you get a checklist where you go through with counsel or with somebody from the relevant records management official in the agency, and you go through, or private account and you do some of the obvious things that you should do. in my case this happened when a foia because camden. we went to my personal account, type in searches, got those e-mails. most of which have been captured and forwarded over but some of them had an. i'm a poster child for a mid-level official tries to become changes in this is something. that's what happens.

so a regular administrative practice could make up for a lot of the technological gaps and confusion that exists. >> thank you, thank you so much. >> i thank the gentleman. no one argues that will be inadvertently or so accounts i think but what we're talking about here is thousands of pages of e-mails come in the case of mr. silver, thousands of pages of the news which frankly the last time when mr. silver in front of us we didn't have all of those. we now do. and to want to go back to where mr. silver, starting with you, go back to where some of my colleagues were earlier extensively and exchange it with mr. gowdy were he said continues maybe an explanation for why people into things on the personal accounts, the work accounts. would you also agree that consumers may be a motive for folks who want to use the personal account and not the official account? your response from the transcript, well, it certainly was not my motive, serve. dirty strong and emphatically which. and yet we have this e-mail that

the chairman talked about where you're communicating with morgan right, don't ever senate in on the department of energy know with private addresses. that makes them subject to subpoena. sludges want to ask you, i think the obvious question is, the conclusion would reach is looks like you are being square with mr. godwin answered his question back on july 18, 2012. >> congressmen, all i can say again is that i was. i was not trying to be anything at the e-mail that you put up here was a reminder, an admonition to a small group of staff. >> why not send that admonition back on your government account? why send it on your personal account? >> i don't know what happened to i don't remember where i was speaking out to you what i think happen. i think you were trying to conceal it. let's go to the next e-mail. the reason i think you are

trying to conceal it is, we talked about this the last time you are a witness i wish i would've had this e-mail the last time we got together. but i think you're trying to help your friend. we've got an e-mail from mr. ward, brightsource got money from the long program, isn't that correct? >> yesterday. >> on this him well you're talking about mr. ward, asking to get taxpayer money. invite them to stitch house, guest bedroom is ready, go to the next e-mail and we talked about this the last time you're with us, too, mr. silver. this is an e-mail exchange between you and mr. woolard where they ask, they're asking to get taxpayer money and the ask you to write a letter is going to go to the white house chief of staff. pretty important person, wouldn't you agree, mr. silver? pretty important if they ask you to edit the letter that john

bryson who would later become secretary of commerce who is the chairman of the board of brightsource, they ask you to edit a letter that you send to the white house chief of staff. so it seems to me, you know, just common sense would say you're concealing things using private e-mail accounts because you're trying to help your buddies get taxpayer money. and, in fact, you are doing it so much come you're so focused on helping your friends get money in this program you are editing the letters that they're going to send to the white house. that's unbelievable. don't you think taxpayers would say wait a minute, something doesn't look quite kosher here? >> as i said the last time when i have disputed you did edit that letter, right? >> i did edit the letter. >> that went to the chief of staff, right? >> wrong. >> you say in there, you wanted the white house to quarterback this loan closure between

management and budget and department of energy, right? >> if you read speed is what it says can and you wrote it -- >> you be the first two sentences and you will see i said i don't think this is a particularly good idea. the point i made to you before speeding you are making my point because he was your friend. the same guy you invited to stay at your house. you are willing to do it even though you didn't think it was a good idea. >> the loans had already been conditionally approved. it had been approved by the grist that of the department of energy. >> i think you're missing the point. spent the point. spin no, sir. spin no, no, no. mr. gowdy at your specific question. we didn't have this e-mail -- we got it two days after the hearing was over. even though we got an e-mail where you said on your private into account telling people don't ever give the department of energy addresses on e-mail. it might be subject to subpoena. and we have you helping your friends. that's what the record 30 shows.

i think anyone with common sense can make that conclusion. and to add insult to injury, this is the part we forget. this is the part we forget the attacks. not only had it concealed from them, the representative mr. gowdy was not only like you, the program at 22 of the 26 companies that have money had a credit rating of double d. six of them have went bankrupt. taxers lost millions of dollars. that taxpayers got the shaft all the way around to your friends got help. you aren't square with congress. and -- finally, finally we have come and i think the chairman brought this up, finally we have your lobbyists. let's put that one up. this adds insult to injury. finally, we have your lobbyists saying to the committee just a couple of days ago, though direct any questions to mr. silver. this is unbelievable. i mean, you can mislead a member

of congress when he is asking you. you can help your friends. you can lose billions of dollars of taxpayer money, and still have the call for your lobbyists to tell, to ask members of congress not to ask you any questions. tell me have that, do you think the taxpayers might take offense to that whole scenario, that whole story, that whole narrative? which is proven by the facts in front of us. >> i think that's a wholesale mischaracterization of what happened. >> did you not send e-mail that said don't do this? spent i did send the e-mail. >> did you edit the letter of brightsource from, the e-mail with the seal of brightsource asking you to edit the letter from the chairman of the port of brightsource going to the white house chief of staff them is that true? >> only after they had already received -- >> you edited that letter, right? >> i did. >> is not to your lobbyists

asked you not to ask questions because i know nothing about that. >> is this individual your lobbyists? >> it was product perhaps -- >> yes or no. is your lobbyists? >> i don't anything about this. >> would the chairman job? >> happy to yield. >> i think first of all there's nothing wrong with this line of questioning but the chairma chad i, chairman issa and i agreed that we would look into that particular issue, because it's an attorney-client situation. but he and i have expressed concern and that we would look into a jointly off the record. spent appreciate that. finally, and isn't it true that solyndra, beacon power, abound solar and this could have all filed for bankruptcy? >> yes. which brings the total lost to 3% of the portfolio. which is millions and millions of dollars, right? >> and a fraction of what congress had appropriated funds for the programs.

>> what's your point? >> my point is not every investment will be successful but the vast majority have been. >> and so the fact that taxpayers lost money, that's a success story? >> the program is a success. >> twenty-two out of 23 companies had a dd- rating. you guys go ahead and do, six of them go bankrupt and that's a success? >> dd- is a function of a speculative trading by a ratings agency. >> it looks like you should have paid more attention to it. at least to the sex that went bankrupt. >> the ratings are included in the analysis that is undertaken by the professional -- >> mr. silver, you lied to mr. gowdy. you help your friend. taxpayers lost a bunch of money and your lobbyists had the gall to say, members, don't ask questions. >> i did not lie to mr. gowdy. at all. >> i'll finish here. so it's not conceal it when you tell someone don't do this because it could be subject to

foia? that's not conceal its? >> is not the way i intended it. i intended it -- >> but that's a common taxpayer who paid for these programs, or the six cup is not lost millions that went bankrupt, attacks them i think, the taxpayer might say that sure looks and sounds like concealment to me. >> i think was -- i understand there's a different interpretation. that's not what i meant, that's all i can tell you. >> recognize the gentleman from michigan, or arizona, who is in line next. the gentleman from arizona. >> i stand corrected. the gentleman from michigan is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the "washington post" reported that over the past 12 years, he was often away from his job as high level staffer at the environmental protection agency. he cultivated an air of mystery and explain his lengthy absences

by telling his bosses that he was doing top secret work, including for the cia in some capacity. for years apparently no one checked. now he is charged with stealing nearly $900,000 from the epa. actually from the taxpayers by receiving pay and bonuses he did not deserve. my question is for lisa jackson. did your aliases richard windsor when a scholar of ethical behavior a word or any other award or certificate from the epa? >> when i used my secondary official epa account -- >> as richard windsor and? >> it was windsor.richard@epa.gov. >> so you didn't -- >> no, no, no. i didn't answer your question yet. when i use that account to take any type of training, which i

thought was an important thing for me to do as leader of the agency, the end of the training certifies completion of training in the name on the account. so i cannot, i am not administer of the epa. i am a private citizen so you can track your questions to epa as to what was awarded. but what i can say is i completed the training spent and you receive a certificate? >> i did not speak well, mr. windsor. >> will already gone over the. the use of a secondary name was common practice, is common practice. the archivist has always said there's nothing wrong with having additional official accounts, and that those accounts need to be named. now, you can quibble with the name if you' if you would like t what i did was is a do government business on a government account spent apparently he must've done the same thing. children to figure out -- spent if you have questions do mr.

beale, i suggest -- >> thank you. one of your aliases, richard windsor, awards -- to any one reminder using an alias for official business was prohibit prohibited? >> no, sir. in fact the archivist earlier stated that one may have secondary or multiple official government accounts. i had a secondary official government account, like my predecessors before me, and that was done for time management and to be able to do my job. >> i have to ask him did richard windsor receive any kind of day from the epa on top of his salary you already see the as administrator jackson? >> i don't even understand your question. >> okay. well, let me ask you another question. anytime during your service with the epa, did you receive a bonus? >> i don't believe that -- >> did you ever receive any pay whatsoever as richard windsor or -- welts be personal i worked

for the epa for 15 years. i receive bonuses as a great employee. may i assume you're asking about my time as administrator? when i was administrator i receive no salary increase or bonuses. >> thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. i guess it's me, next. mr. mclaughlin, i think you brought some interesting ideas to the table. in the private sector i'm a health care professional, particularly with patients. we are very, very careful. we have pre-checklist with patients or people that deal with patients information. so i like your idea of a post-checklist, but you suck have a pre-checklist to orient that. so i think what i'm going with this question is i want to see some recommendation that i'm not happy with what i see. when you look at the process, to feel like it was right.

>> i think, mr. chairman, that we kind of need to do better. we look at this, the training was not robust at the agency. i met at the agency. i take full responsibility i think we need better training. i also think we need to tighten and enhance our policies because as the archivist just laid out yesterday for the first time in writing, directly speaking to personal e-mail, we need to narrow the use of it. and when it's used to get that into federal records. fortunately, in my case 99% was already in a government system somewhere. so they're still not 1% excise do think i've learned a lot in these last three or four months, that we need to do better and i applaud this committee's efforts with regard to the house bill that you are trying to move forward on this. >> i'm a very big person on personal accountability, personal responsibility. leadership in my office stops

with the whether it's my hygienisttal hygienist and receptions but anything goes wron.g,t' but it seems to me we need some type of a third party, which not agree, for oversight, more jurisdiction than just an inspector general's? >> welts be i'm alluding to the department of justice. >> i know our laws are vigorous. i'm not familiar enough with this federal records law for how it should be amended. but our inspector general raised this, look at it specifically for congress, said there were no laws that were violated. >> mr. ferriero, would you agree that we need to have some different type of teeth in your? this is my second term of congress, and i have no ability as a member of congress that actually get records in many cases, whether it be from previous administrations or this

administration. it's part of my constitutional duty, do not think that we also ought to have department of justice being involved in some type of oversight of these records? >> i think that part of the education process for each agency, and reminding the inspector general's, which i've done personally. i've been reading that they have a role to play, too. it's not something that has been followed through to its greatest extent. >> is there any other thing that you can see for expedience of the records? because we draw this out in court proceedings. do you have some other ideas in regards to how we would approach this that we have a speedier release of documentation? >> i think that the capstone system which we have instituted, trial and the national archives the last several months, and attached to my testimony are kind of the outline of that

process, goes a long way to address some of the problems that you've heard this morning. >> ms. jackson, did it feel like it was wrong? i got the feeling from listening to some of the, from both sides, that your comment was previous administrations have done it, that's not an excuse to get if you it was from? >> no, sir. i feel as though i did everything i could to comply with the law and the policy as it was explained and as i understood it. >> to get even question the practice when it was first proposed? >> as i mentioned, i questioned why can't i just have the name adminjackson on the cat but i didn't question this second e-mail account. as we heard, it was used commonly and is recognized by the archivist as being an okay practice but as long as judgment is used to ensure that if anything is in the personal account that it is forwarded.

>> that leaves a lot for the individual, and i mean the forthright in regards to acknowledge the of that. but i mean, we are subject to human display and there's always that question. >> absolutely i agree there is an exercise in judgment, implicit in what the archivist is describing. that's exactly what i did to the best of my ability. that's what i worked to do everyday. so if there are changing requirements, i think cheney is a wonderful opportunity, because as requirements change, i think that needs to be a constant awareness. >> so do you believe there ought to be some accountability? i mean, mistakes are made. in private sector when i make a mistake i am liable for. you've got some accountability on the federal level. >> that's exactly what i did because i want to explain the steps i took to ensure that my records were managed

appropriately. >> do you agree with everything that mr. ferriero has put forward with regard to oversight? is there anything else you would like to add? >> i was simply like to add that, you know, i came in today because i wanted to be able to explain what i did and why i did it. and i believe very strongly that the use of my e-mail accounts was in order to be consistent with requirements, which appeared to be changing. so i don't envy him, that job, or frankly you that job because this is a very complex thing. >> would you agree with that, mr. silver? >> yes, sir. i would. i'm sorry no expert but everything i heard make sense to me and my protector situation. i could would've been -- i wouldn't benefit from additional training and guidance. >> it looks like interested discussions should be an impartial type of jurisdiction.

>> yes. i'm agreeing with you. >> do you see anything that you would propose as looking in hindsight that you would actually want to move forward? >> i'm not terribly qualified to offer the kind of advice that mr. mclaughlin did, but i would say that there's clearly a challenge with how to handle relationships you've had for many, many years prior to come into these offices. there could be some additional clarification and guidance around that. >> what about penalties? >> i'm unqualified to comment on that. >> why not? >> i don't know what -- id for -- >> are to be a steward of the federal taxpayer? >> well -- i was spent i think that's the ultimate accountability. >> i completely agree with you. >> mitchell mclaughlin, to get anything he would like to add? >> i would just reiterate my earlier point. the world of technology is

changing very fast to anyone entering federal service right now will have a multitude of accounts people can reach them on. and so the best ideas that i've been able to come up with are a pre-checklist, better trained, post-checklist when you're leaving so you go mature amateur clear that everything that should've been but i commend the committee for the two clarifications and h.r. 1233, which would specify where you have to forward things and five days in which to do it. but i still think for the reasons i've laid out in my prepared testimony that that's going to quickly actually be outdated. so anyway, i suggested some other ideas, foreign language for any personal accounts that should come out in public profile so that you're instructing people how to steer things in your official account. making it easy with fellow employees even when you want to keep e-mail addresses themselves hidden. i think all of these things would help, but ultimately, what

you're depending on is for people to exercise good judgment. and i don't think you can remind them often enough their responsibilities in order to reinforce what i think is the general goodwill and federal employees across the board. >> it always stops at the top within an agency. >> i'm finished. thank you very much. i want to thank the witnesses for being here today. i've got to get to another hearing. >> with that, the committee is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> it was different than are their presidential homes because it wasn't ever a commercial venture. they did not try to be self-sufficient. what edith wanted from sagamore hills is basically to offset the expense of living there.

and so they did raise pay. so they could feed their horses and reduce the cost of having horses here. they did have a lovely garden that produced everything from corn to strawberries. they had an arbor at eight different kinds of grapes. get stronger and blueberry fields but the idea was to both feed the family and the staff of the downside, but also the to reduce the cost of maintaining a property like this. >> watcher program on edith roosevelt at our website, c-span.org/first ladies, or see it saturday at 7 p.m. eastern. we continue our series live next monday as we look at first lady helen taft. >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel in for the day to continue work on energy efficiency bill cosponsored by an amateur

democrat senator jeanne shaheen and a high republican rob portman. they say this bill is the first substantive energy bill to receive consideration on the senate floor since 2007. it is aimed at helping manufacturers develop energy efficiency technology for the business. it has attracted bipartisan support and majority leader be said republicans are tended to offer nongermane amendments to the bill. work on the is expected to continue next week. and now live to the floor of the u.s. senate. the prsiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. o god, you are our god alone. early to you, we lift our hearts in praise. we look to you today to sustain us, for because of you, we live and move and breathe.

by your power, we find life and joy and peace today. help us to focus on your love that can make us mention of understanding and purveyors of justice to our nation and world. lord, give to our lawmakers the peace that the world can't give, protecting them from seen and unseen dangers. encompass them with your strength and meet their every need. we pray in your sacred name, amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance

to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., september 12, 2013. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable brian schatz, a senator from the state of hawaii, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patrick j. leahy, president pro tempore. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following leader remarks, there will be an hour of morning business. the majority will control the first half, and the republicans the final half. following that morning business, the senate will resume consideration of s. 1392, the energy savings legislation. so we may have some votes today.

we'll see if we can come up with some manager-related amendments that we can vote on. mr. president, america has and has for so many years had the most brilliant and innovative and imaginative science in the world. -- scientists in the world. many of them work hard developing new environmentally friendly energy sources. that's one area that we have just been so good. every year for the last many years, in august i host an energy summit in las vegas. we have had governors and presidents and all kinds of cabinet officers there. it's a bipartisan event. and one of the things we do there is recognized some of the smartest and most creative inventors and investors in the world show their latest discoveries. there are lots of them all the time.

this august, i learned about an energy summit. i'm sorry. i learned about an american company that's developing high-tech batteries, really great potential. they want to store solar power long after the sun goes down. i met the inventor of a flying wind turbine. it looks like a cross between a giant kite and a small plane. on the nevada-california border just a few miles from las vegas, there is an amazing thing going on out there. they have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of solar panels, mirrors, and they have three very tall towers, they look like skyscrapers, and they do it to harness the sun. the reason this work and this invention is so terrific is that one of the problems we found with solar energy when the sun goes down, it is not producing energy anymore. this will no longer be the case,

because in these large, as i said, skyscrapers, they have molten salt stored in this, and during the day it heats up. when the sun goes down, it still produces energy. amazing. and that's 95%, 98% completed now. so i'm constantlyily amazed by the ingenuity of clean energy industry, which brings a bright spot in the darkest of our times. but americans can't just rely on scientists and inventors to solve our energy dilemma and break our own reliance on polluting fossil fuels. we need to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. that will mean reducing our energy consumption at home and at work. that's, mr. president, what the shaheen-portman legislation is all about. be more efficient. at home, we could start with small choices. replacing a burned out light bulb with an energy-efficient

one. buying more efficient appliances. they're out there. we can do that. installing a thermostat that turns the heat down or the air down when you're not at home and be regulated remotely. the effect of these choices and many more is real, but we need also the buildings we live in and work in as well as technology inside these buildings to be more efficient. what's happened your generations here in america, mr. president, is that you put a building out, you get the specs and people come in and build it as cheaply as they can. no one is concerned about at the time its constructed, certainly the construction company. they want to get it done as quickly and as cheaply as possible. and the insulation is not good, the air conditioning equipment,t as good as they could be. and so we need to make the buildings we work in, as well as the technology inside these buildings, more efficient.

much of the electricity created in america is wasted. as a boy growing up in rural nevada, like i did, just less than a mile from home were these massive power lines coming from boulder dam, hoover dam, in california, lots of them. we used to stand under them. you could hear that electricity popping and snapping. that was from boulder --bolder city to l.a., think of all that electricity lost down there. so much of the electricity we use in america today is wasted. just heating our homes and offices with outdated electricity is one of the ways we waste so much electricity. this legislation before the senate will spur the use of energy-efficiencies technologies. here is what shaheen and portman named this legislation -- the energy savings and industrial competitiveness act. that's what it's called. it will spur the use of energy

efficiencies technologies in private homes, commercial buildings, as well as in the industrial sector. all at no cost to taxpayers. so i commend shaheen and portman for their persistence and dedication in bringing this bill to the floor. i thank chairman wyden, chairman of the full committee and ranking member murkowski for their able management of this measure. investing in energy efficiencies is one of the fastest and most effective ways to grow our economy. this legislation will make our country more energy independent, protect our environment, but will also save consumers and taxpayers money by lowering their energy bills. this measure would save american families today $14 billion per year, and it will create more than 150,000 new jobs, according to some of the studies surrounding this legislation. this bipartisan bill makes it easier for the private sector to adopt efficient technology, and

by 2030 -- that's real close, mr. president -- even as a young man presiding, you will understand how quickly 2030 will get here, this legislation will reduce americans' co2 emissions as much as taking nearly 17 million cars off the road. the bill creates incentives for companies to use technology already available right off the shelf, technology that can be used in every secretary of state in the nation and will pay for itself right away through savings and energy. the federal government also has an important role to play in saving energy, and we haven't done very well in the past. the federal government's importance as the single largest user of electricity. no one is a bigger customer for electricity in america today than the federal government. reducing the government's energy use will not only be good for the environment, it will save taxpayers lots of money. i am aware that senators wish to offer amendments. i have been told by senator

shaheen that there is 18 bipartisan amendments to be offered. so i look forward to working with them and with the bill managers to help american businesses and consumers play an active role in reducing our nation's energy consumption. because while some of the answers to america's energy dilemma will come from inventors and researchers, others must begin in the places we live and work. now, mr. president, a lot of happy talk about what a great piece of legislation this is, and it is. even though i have worked with senator shaheen and senator portman, oh, there will be no amendments, we have all bipartisan amendments, of course we're diverted totally from what this bill is all about. why? why, mr. president? because the anarchists have taken over. they have taken over the house. now they're here in the senate.

the speaker couldn't pass a simple c.r. today. when asked at a press event yesterday, as was reported to me on the news today, they said what's next? he said do you have a couple ideas? give them to me. they'll be shot down also. we're in a position here where people who don't believe in government -- and that's what the tea party is all about -- are winning. that's a shame. there has not been a single amendment allowed to be offered in this legislation that has anything dealing with energy. oh, all kinds of different issues. defund obamacare. and i guess that's the new -- as the fiscal year comes to an end, i guess that's what it's all about. you do what we want, get rid of obamacare, or we're not going to fund the government. mr. president, the president of the united states has said he is not going to negotiate dealing

with the debt ceiling. if the republicans in the house can't pass a simple funding resolution for a short time, then shut down because of that. the government can't fund unless we have activity here. so even though i gave all this -- all the reasons why we need to do this energy bill, and senators shaheen and portman have been talking to me for months and months, let's do this bill. there won't be amendments on it. unless they relate to energy. so here we are. where are we? where we have been this whole year, and what have we accomplished? not much, mr. president.

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i did a rot of of -- lot of listening over the past several weeks at meetings and events all across kentucky. last week, i participated in my 51st hospital town hall since 2011, and i'll tell you, one theme kept emerging over and over and over -- kentuckians are really, really worried about obamacare. they have read the same stories we have, about businesses being forced to cut hours and eliminate health care, about people being laid off. they have read about how the rollout of this massive law is becoming a massive mess and how their personal information could be compromised by scam artists.

now, i know that there is still some of you who supported the law who are thinking well, they will learn to like it, but it's precisely the kind of we know what's good for you attitude that's so upsetting to my constituents. that's what got us into this mess in the first place. so let's at least get this much straight. the doctors, the nurses, the health care professionals, the patients and everyday kentuckians i have been speaking with on this issue are not ignorant of the facts. they know what they're talking about. a lot of them know more about health care than those who voted for this law ever will. and the fact is that more my states seem to know about obamacare, the more worried they tend to be. that's true for the business owners, too. one small business owner in murray wrote to me she is

looking at premium increases of nearly 90%. premium increases of 90%. i think she summed up the situation pretty well. she wrote government is crippling the businesses that are keeping this country going. another constituent wrote to me to say that as a matter of conscience, he doesn't want to let his employees go uninsured. but that realistically, he may no longer have a choice. no longer have a choice. one of kentucky's biggest employers recently announced plans to stop providing health care to spouses of 15,000 of its employees. also due in part to obamacare, part of a growing trend across america. these are just some of the human costs of this law, and it hasn't even fully come on line yet. so it's small consolation for business owners in my state that

they'll have little more time to work through this mess after the president's decision to delay the so-called employer mandate for year. they get a reprieve for a year, the mess comes along just a year later. interestingly enough just yesterday the country's largest union federation, the afl-cio, outlined serious flaws in obamacare that could hurt its members, too. and they came very close, very close to calling for outright repeal. this is the afl-cio, mr. president. came this close to calling for outright repeal. news reports suggest that a lot of harsh words were said. i don't think i can even quote all of it out here on the floor but one union leader implied obamacare could lead to the federation losing three quarters of its membership in just the next few years. this is the afl-cio, the biggest supporter the president had. coming this close to calling for

outright repeal. so we know big labor is leaning on the president. we know they want him to let them rewrite the same law they helped ram through and apparently he's listening to them. but what about everybody else? that's not in big labor. what about the single mom in bowling green who won't be able to cover rent if her hours are, in fact, cut as she anticipates they will be? what about the recent college graduate in louisville who is barely scraping by as it is and won't be able to afford a premium increase? what about the families from covington to paducah who are worried sick about this law. doesn't the administration think those folks deserve some relief, too? the same kind of delay at least that businesses will get? well, republicans do. that's why the republican-led

house of representatives patched a bill on a bipartisan basis -- that means democrats voted for it too -- before the august recess to do just that. last month i tried to pass that same bill here in the senate. but the washington democratic leadership blocked it and i'm not sure why. this legislation is just common sense. it's the fair thing, the right thing to do. so today i'm going to try again. yesterday i along with a number of my colleagues filed an amendment to the perform bill that would -- portman-shaheen bill that would provide the same reprieve for individuals that the administration has offered to businesses. this time i hope nigh colleagues on the other side will join me in supporting it as a number of democrats did over in the house. i know they ought got an earful when they were hope last month. so maybe they've reconsidered the wisdom and fairness of their earlier position. maybe now they'll think that individuals and families should be treated no differently than

businesses when it comes to protecting them from obamacare. this same legislation as i indicated attracted votes from both republicans and democrats in the house. and there's no reason for blocking it here in the senate. we need to pass a one-year delay. a one-year delay of obamacare for everyone. that's what the amendment i filed would do. and then enact what kentuckians and americans really need, a full repeal of this job-killing mess of a law. job-killing mess of a law. that's what it is. and just what i intend to keep fighting for. as i said earlier, union members that pushed for this bill are now turning against it in droves. so are businesses and so are our constituents. i don't care what party you're in, you're hearing from them. let's take this first step together. let's delay obamacare mandates for families right now, just like the white house did for businesses, while there's still

time to do it and then let's work together, democrats and republicans, to repeal the law for good and replace it with a kind of commonsense step-by-step reforms that will actually lower costs, actually lower costs. that's what kentuckians want, that's what americans want, and anybody who actually listened to their constituents last month already knows what i just said. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will be in a american dream of morning business for one hour with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with senators permitted to speak therein for ten minutes each with the majority controlling the first half. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: