Seife v. FDA (S.D.N.Y.) -- reserving judgment on most Exemption 4 withholdings pending Supreme Court’s decision in Food Market Inst. v. Argus Leader, but ordering agency to release information already in public domain.
Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. EPA (D.D.C.) -- determining that EPA performed reasonable search for records pertaining to its assessment of a new pesticide and that it properly withheld records pursuant to attorney-client and deliberative process privileges, except with respect to certain factual information contained in PowerPoint slides.
Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. EPA (D.D.C.) -- ruling that EPA properly relied on deliberative process privilege to withhold records pertaining to agency’s revisions to water quality criteria for the heavy metal cadmium. In reaching its decision, the court found that EPA’s consultations with its outside contractor did not undermine agency’s Exemption 5 withholdings and that factual material was protected from disclosure because it was deliberatively culled from larger body of information.
Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.