On March 15, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee convened a hearing to consider reforms to the Presidential Records Act (PRA), especially in light of recent revelations about the mishandling of records at the end of former President Trump’s term. The National Coalition for History (NCH) submitted testimony for the record urging the Committee to pass legislation to strengthen compliance requirements with the PRA.

The committee is in the process of drafting legislation to reform and update both the PRA and Federal Records Acts which were last amended in 2014 just as the use of electronic records by the federal government became more prevalent. It was clear from the hearing that both laws need to be modernized due to the sheer exponential growth in the volume of records and technology that has made it easier to evade record keeping requirements.