FOIA News: Interior IG release report on "awareness review process"

IG: FOIA ‘awareness program’ troubled some Interior staff

By Michael Doyle, E&E News, Mar. 1, 2022

A Trump-era FOIA policy at the Interior Department caused some professionals to worry that “political considerations” were hampering the release of information, the department’s watchdog agency reported today.

In a long-anticipated report, Interior’s Office of Inspector General noted that the Trump administration’s ”awareness policy” for Freedom of Information Act requests “contained unclear language, which led to review-related delays and disagreements about records” as well as confusion about the policy’s requirements.

“FOIA professionals expressed the belief to us that actions taken pursuant to the awareness policy were prompted by political considerations,” the OIG reported. “The policy’s lack of clarity and the lack of guidance on how it should be applied may well have contributed to this perception.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: DOJ releases annual report and links to other agency reports

On the day of its filing deadline, the U.S. Department of Justice posted its annual report for fiscal year 2021. Notable metrics are as follows:

• 97,490 requests received, an increase of 12.4 percent from FY 2020 (86,729 requests)

• 75,511 requests processed, a decrease of 10.6 percent from FY 2020 (84,442 requests)

• 49,959 backlogged requests, an increase of 66.9 percent from FY 2020 (29,933 requests)

• 51 median days to process simple requests, an increase of 54.4 percent from FY 2020 (33 median days)

Links to other agency reports are listed on DOJ’s website here.

FOIA News: State Department releases annual report

On March 1, 2022, the U.S. Department of State published its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2021. Here are the highlights:

• 10,683 requests received, an 18.4 percent increase from FY 2020 (9019 requests)

• 9,505 requests processed, a 35 percent increase from FY 2020 (7041 requests)

• 14,941 backlogged requests, an 8.3 percent increase from FY 2020 (13,798 requests)

• Fees collected for processing requests: $0 (the same as in FY 2020)

• Total costs: $28,004,908.50, a 45.4 percent decrease from FY 2020 ($51, 278, 590.97)

FOIA News: DHS releases 2021 annual report

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which fields more FOIA requests than any other agency, published its fiscal year 2021 annual FOIA report on March 1, 2021. Of note, DHS received 442,650 requests and processed 467,347 requests, increases of 11.3 percent (397,671) and 19 percent (392,623), respectively, from FY 2020. Further, DHS cut its backlog of requests by 30.9 percent, from 36,350 requests in FY 2020 to 25,102 requests in FY 2021.

FOIA News: More departments post their annual reports

Federal agencies are required to post their annual reports by March 1, 2022. As of the time of this post, only five cabinet departments have published their reports: Transportation, Labor, Agriculture, HUD, and HHS—the latter two of which are posted on this site for the first time below.

• U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (reducing request backlog from 1128 to 808 requests)

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (reducing request backlog from 9995 to 8817 requests)

FOIA News: OIP updates Exemption 7 of the FOIA Guide

On January 27, 2022, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy posted an updated version of the introduction to Exemption 7 of its Guide to the Freedom of Information Act.

FOIA News: USDA releases annual FOIA report

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reduced its request backlog by 18 percent in fiscal year 2021 (from 2546 requests in FY 2020 to 2081 requests in FY 2021), according to its recently published annual FOIA report. The Department received 20,956 requests in FY 2021, an eight percent decrease from FY 2020 (22.810 requests); the Department processed 21,815 requests in FY 2021, a five percent decrease from FY 2020 (23,103 requests).

Court opinion issued Feb. 25, 2022

Bernegger v. EOUSA (D.D.C.) -- concluding that EOUSA properly denied plaintiff’s fee waiver request associated with his request for access to his prosecution and conviction records.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: Dep't of Labor release 2021 annual report

The U.S Department of Labor has released its annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2021, which indicates that it received a total of 13,560 initial requests and processed 14,022 requests. DOL trimmed its backlog from 1714 requests in FY 2020 to 1216 request in FY 2021, a 29 percent decrease.

FOIA News: Senators Introduce Bill to Remove FOIA Exemption in Broadband Grants

Sen. Rick Scott Introduces Broadband Buildout Accountability Act to Increase Transparency in Public Investment in Broadband Deployment

Feb. 24, 2022

Today, Senator Rick Scott introduced the Broadband Buildout Accountability Act with Ranking Member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Senator Roger Wicker, to increase transparency for a $42 billion Bipartisan Infrastructure Package (BIF) broadband buildout grant awarded to the National Technology Information Administration (NTIA), which is currently exempted from transparency requirements under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Senator Scott’s Broadband Buildout Accountability Act would remove the FOIA exemption and require proof of how the $42 billion is spent to ensure taxpayer dollars are not misused. Senators Marsha Blackburn, Roy Blunt, Shelley Moore Capito, Ted Cruz, Deb Fischer, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Cynthia Lummis, Jerry Moran, Dan Sullivan, John Thune, Roger Wicker, and Todd Young have also cosponsored the bill.

Read more here.