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.”
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