CoA Institute Calls on HUD Watchdog to Pull Flawed FOIA Rule
Cause of Action Institute, Feb. 26, 2018
Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute”) has sent a public letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) to request that the agency watchdog recall and revise its recent direct final rule implementing changes to its Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) regulations. Specifically, CoA Institute explained that the OIG’s flawed FOIA rule cross-references deficient fee provisions in HUD’s current department-wide regulations.
As an independent component of HUD, the OIG maintains its own rules regulating public access to its records. In and of itself, this is not an unwelcome fact. These component-specific FOIA regulations are important for maintaining the OIG’s independence and limiting the potential politicization of disclosure processes by HUD political staff. Yet the OIG still relies on department-wide FOIA policy in certain important respects. For example, the OIG cross-references many of HUD’s general regulatory provisions for charging fees to requesters. The OIG’s new rule only slightly modified its existing cross-reference to reflect the changes introduced last year by HUD in response to the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016.
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