National Archives and Records Administration June 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) publishes notice at least once monthly of certain Federal agency requests for records disposition authority (records schedules). Once approved by NARA, records schedules provide mandatory instructions on what happens to records when agencies no longer need them for current Government business. The records schedules authorize agencies to preserve records of continuing value in the National Archives of the United States and to destroy, after a specified period, records lacking administrative, legal, research, or other value. NARA publishes notice in the Federal Register for records schedules in which agencies propose to destroy records they no longer need to conduct agency business. NARA invites public comments on such records schedules.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552 (k)), OGIS and the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy (OIP), announce the third meeting of the Chief FOIA Officers' Council.

NARA is requesting an extension from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of approval to use the following three information collections. We use the first information collection form to advise requesters of the procedures they should follow to request certified copies of records for use in civil litigation or criminal actions in courts of law, and the information they need to provide us so that we can identify the correct records. Veterans, military dependents, and other authorized people use the second information collection form to request information from, or copies of, documents in military personnel, military medical, and dependent medical records. Genealogical researchers use the National Archives Trust Fund (NATF) forms contained in the third information collection to order records for genealogical research. We invite you to comment on these three proposed information collections.

We are revising this regulation to reflect changes instituted by the Presidential and Federal Records Acts Amendments of 2014 (2014 Amendments). These Amendments in part added new requirements to the Presidential Records Act (PRA), which went into effect in 2014. The changes to this regulation make clear that, when we maintain electronic Presidential records on behalf of the President before the President's term of office expires, the President retains exclusive control over the records. In addition, the proposed changes establish procedures that we will follow to notify an incumbent President and former President when we propose to disclose Presidential records to the public, Congress, the courts, or the incumbent President under the provisions of the PRA allowing for access to Presidential records otherwise subject to restrictions. We began the regulatory revision process in response to the 2014 Amendments to reduce confusion about access to Presidential records in light of these recent changes in the law. We published a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register on December 28, 2016, with a public comment period ending on January 27, 2017. We received no comments.

In accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, we are announcing a meeting of the Advisory Committee on the Records of Congress. The committee advises NARA on the full range of programs, policies, and plans for the Center for Legislative Archives in NARA's Office of Legislative Archives, Presidential Libraries, and Museum Services (LL). This meeting will take place at the Capitol Visitor Center.