FOIA Advisor

FOIA News (2025)

New OIP Commentary on Executive Order 14303

FOIA News (2025)Ryan MulveyComment

New Executive Order on “Gold Standard Science”: FOIA Implications

Dep’t of Justice, Office of Info. Pol’y, The FOIA Post (July 9, 2025)

On May 23, 2025, President Trump issued a new Executive Order No. 14303, “Restoring Gold Standard Science.”  This Executive Order is “committed to restoring a gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous, and impactful, and that Federal decisions are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”[1]  The Executive Order includes a provision that requires agencies to proactively make publicly available certain scientific information.

[. . .]

In short, these are the Executive Order’s disclosure-related takeaways:

  • The Executive Order requires proactive public disclosure of “influential scientific information” as well as models and analyses used to generate that information.

  • Such information cannot be withheld from disclosure pursuant to FOIA Exemption 5 absent notice to OSTP and approval from the agency head.

  • However, non-discretionary FOIA exemptions including Exemptions 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7(C) should still be applied to such information where appropriate.

  • Risk models for agency enforcement actions are not subject to the disclosure requirements of the Executive Order.

[. . .]

FOIA personnel should be made aware of the new public disclosure requirements in the Executive Order and should consult with their General Counsel’s Office for any questions regarding implementation of these requirements. Questions regarding the applicability of the FOIA to information subject to the Executive Order may also be directed to OIP.

Read the full blog post here.

FOIA News: Amtrak issues interim updates to FOIA regulations

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) has issued an interim final rule that updates its FOIA addresses, increase the FOIA fees on the fee schedule, and update procedures for filing FOIA requests. Of note, the rule increases fees for search and processing time from $38 per hour to $50 per hour. This rule is effective September 29, 2025. Comments must be received by August 29, 2025.

FOIA News: Bill Moyers, LBJ's press secretary and early FOIA supporter, dies at 91

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary turned acclaimed TV journalist, dead at 91

By Frazier Moore, AP, June 26, 2025

Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died Thursday at age 91.

Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former CEO of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Moyers’ son William said his father died at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness.”

Moyers’ career ranged from youthful Baptist minister to deputy director of the Peace Corps, from Johnson’s press secretary to newspaper publisher, senior news analyst for “The CBS Evening News” and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports.”

Read more here.

NB: Mr. Moyers drafted a signing statement for President Johnson on enacting the FOIA on July 4, 1966. See Moyers’ version and LBJ’s handwritten edits here.

FOIA News: IRS staff reductions are delaying FOIA responses, reports Captain Obvious

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

Staffing Cuts Slow IRS FOIA Processing

By Lauren Loricchio, Tax Notes, June 25, 2025

The Trump administration’s workforce reorganization efforts are slowing down Freedom of Information Act processing at the IRS, which could lead to bigger backlogs.

Because so many employees participated in the deferred resignation program, “we have lost many of our experienced [FOIA functional coordinators] and new people are being trained to take over. This is causing a delay in processing the backlog of FOIA requests,” an employee in the IRS Disclosure Office told Tax Notes via email.

FOIA functional coordinators are the employees in each IRS business unit who search for records that are responsive to FOIA requests.

Records obtained by Tax Notes through a FOIA request show that the IRS also fired probationary employees in the office that administers its privacy and records policy and initiatives and ensures compliance with FOIA.

The records show that at least 25 employees in the IRS Office of Privacy, Governmental Liaison, and Disclosure (PGLD) accepted a deferred resignation program offer from the Office of Personnel Management. There were 665 employees in PGLD as of March 14.

According to the records, five government information specialists in PGLD were among more than 7,000 IRS employees fired in February after President Trump took office.

Read more here.

ICYMI, DOJ skips another FOIA Advisory Committee meeting

FOIA News (2025)Allan BlutsteinComment

The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy failed to send a representative to the federal FOIA Advisory Committee’s meeting on June 12, 2025, the second consecutive committee meeting OIP has missed since its director was ousted in early March. OIP’s continued absence did not go unnoticed. Of note, OGIS director and Committee Chair Alina Semo jumped into a discussion about a draft recommendation aimed at OIP and remarked that “we obviously have a vacancy on the FOIA Advisory Committee which is occupied by the director of the Office of Information Policy. There is no director currently or acting directing. As I understand it they’re waiting for confirmation of a new associate attorney general to whom OIP staff reports . . . .” FOIA Advisory Committee Meeting, YouTube (June 12, 2025), https://www.youtube.com/live/59PYN88FCpw (45:14-45:38).

The President’s nominee for Associate Attorney General, Stanley Woodward, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 12-10 vote —coincidentally, on June 12, 2025. The bylaws of the FOIA Advisory Committee provide that government members “should”— not must—include “one representative from the Department of Justice, Office of Information Policy” (not necessarily the director) Thus, the Archivist of the United States could lawfully appoint an OIP staff member to temporarily serve on the committee if DOJ were interested in participating (which it clearly is not). Moreover, the Committee’s bylaws do not prevent AOTUS from filling OIP’s traditional seat with an employee from another agency. The FOIA Advisory Committee has lost four government members since its latest term began in September 2024. None have been replaced.