FOIA Advisor

Court opinion issued May 8, 2026

Court Opinions (2026)Allan BlutsteinComment

Energy & Policy Inst. v. TVA (6th Cir.) -- in a case concerning TVA’s communications with two industry groups, the Climate Legal Group and the Power Generation Air Coalition (which were coordinated by a law firm), as well as a TVA insurance policy with AEGIS, affirming in part, reversing in part, and remanding; finding that: (1) the district court correctly upheld agency’s Exemption 4 withholdings for CLG legal updates, membership lists, PGen recruitment materials, and AEGIS insurance policy terms, but erred in upholding withholdings of purely logistical documents and the name of the AEGIS negotiating representative, for which TVA articulated no foreseeable commercial harm; (2) Exemption 6 protected individual names and email addresses but not company names or email domain names; and (3) reversing the denial of attorneys' fees because TVA's mid-litigation release of documents was a "voluntary or unilateral change in position" even though the submitter prompted the release, because "the choice to release documents is TVA's own."

Summaries of published opinions issued in 2026 are available here. Earlier opinions are available for 2025, 2024, and from 2015 to 2023.