Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment which builds off the good work accomplished by Chairman Crenshaw and Ranking Member Serrano in the underlying bill.

At a recent Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, we had the opportunity to hear testimony from David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States and head of the National Archives and Records Administration, which oversees the Federal Records Act.

In his testimony before Congress, Mr. Ferriero gave an account of how the IRS failed to notify him about the unauthorized disposal of Lois Lerner's hard drive, a hard drive which contained key emails and information about her actions in the targeting of conservative groups. In fact, during my questioning of Mr. Ferriero, he stated that the IRS ``did not follow the law.''

It is clear the IRS has not made it a priority to comply with the intent of the law, whether in the form of intimidating taxpayers, ignoring congressional requests for documents, or ignoring requirements to document valuable records that are in the public interest. My amendment would address one of these failures and prohibit any funds in this bill to be used by the IRS to act in contravention of the Federal Records Act.

It is a commonsense check on the IRS's recent behavior, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

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Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from New York for his concern about this. I am concerned as well.

I appreciate the fact what the chairman has said, that this expands the reach; it expands the authority. If, indeed, all of our agencies had a requirement under the Federal Records Act and they followed it, I wouldn't be here. But under significant questioning of the Archivist of our Nation, he indicated to me under significant questioning that the IRS ``did not follow the law.''

That is the purpose of this amendment: to make sure there are more teeth available even than what is put in this good bill to make sure that the IRS follows the law.

I ask my colleagues for support for this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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