FOIA News: FOIAonline to be offline for maintenance

The government’s FOIA website FOIAonline will be offline for planned maintenance from 6:00 AM on November 11, 2020 through 6:00 PM November 15, 2020.

FOIA News: VHA claims 50 percent backlog reduction

VHA cuts FOIA backlog in half, thanks to telework infrastructure

By Jory Heckman, Fed. News Network, Nov. 10, 2020

Agency Freedom of Information Act professionals, like much of the federal workforce, have spent much of this year rethinking the way they do their jobs under mandatory telework.

The Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy, back in May, encouraged agency FOIA offices to seek out IT workarounds to keep running, “even at a diminished pace,” during the pandemic.

Six months after that memo, Michael Sarich, FOIA director for the Veterans Health Administration, said the agency had an “incredible year” and cut its case backlog by more than half. The goal of processing 600 cases in its backlog, he said, helped unify staff around a goal during a challenging time for the federal workforce.

Read more here.

FOIA News: SBA must disclose PPP loan records, court rules

Pandemic Loan Programs Borrower Info Must Be Released by SBA

By Porter Wells, Bloomberg Law, Nov. 5, 2020

• SBA has disbursed $717 billion to support economy

• Names, loan amounts sought through public records requests

The Small Business Administration must release detailed information about the businesses that received loans from the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, including the names of those recipients and the precise amount of each loan, a federal judge in Washington said Thursday.

Read more here.

FOIA News: FBI draws court's ire over McCabe records

Judge slams FBI over stonewalling request for McCabe documents

By Jeff Mordock, Wash. Times, Nov. 4, 2020

An irritated federal judge Wednesday grilled the FBI for dragging its feet on her order to produce emails and text messages from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that may show conflicts of interest with his wife’s political campaign.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said she simply did not understand why the FBI is slow-walking document production even after a May ruling ordering it to produce the materials.

Brenda Gonzales Horowitz, an attorney for the FBI, said the bureau is producing 500 pages a month, a number Judge Chutkan slammed as “unacceptable.”

Read more here.

FOIA News: 9th Circ. Says FOIA Info Can Count As Corrective Disclosure

9th Circ. Says FOIA Info Can Count As Corrective Disclosure

By Jon Hill, Law360, Nov. 3, 2020

The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday revived a proposed investor class action accusing the since-rebranded BofI Holding Inc. of securities fraud, ruling that the publication of information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request can count as a corrective disclosure for loss causation pleading purposes.

Read more here (subscription).

FOIA News: OSTP issues final FOIA regulations

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has published a final version of its FOIA regulations, which incorporates the changes made by the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016. The new regulations are effective on December 4, 2020.

FOIA News: Jobs, jobs, jobs

• Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/OIG, Gov’t Info. Specialist, Wash. D.C., GS 9-11, closes 11/5/20

• Dep’t of Justice/Criminal Div., Gov’t Info. Specialist, Wash, D.C., GS-9, closes 11/6/20

• Dep’t of Veterans Affairs/VHA, Gov’t Info. Specialist, Sioux Falls, ND, GS 11-12, closes 11/10/20

• DHS/Coast Guard, Gov’t Info. Specialist, Wash. D.C., GS 13-14, closes 11/12/20

• Dep’t of the Army, Gov. Info. Specialist, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, GS-12, closes 11/12/20

• U.S. Postal Serv., Gov. Info. Specialist, Wash., D.C., EAS-21, closes 11/13/20

FOIA News: Recap of SCOTUS FOIA argument

Justices Fret Over FOIA Evasion but Debate Sierra Club Standard

By Ellen M. Gilmer, Bloomberg Law, Nov. 2, 2020

• Broad coalition back environmentalists in case

• Dispute involves government records under FOIA

The U.S. Supreme Court seemed wary Monday of limiting government disclosure requirements, but unsure where to draw the line in a complex clash over Endangered Species Act records.

The case, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, has big implications for government transparency, in environmental contexts and beyond. It attracted even broader interest as newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett sat for oral argument for the first time.

Hearing the case remotely, Barrett and her colleagues pressed both sides to explain what legal test the high court should apply when deciding whether draft documents are subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. The dispute centers on federal wildlife agencies’ draft opinions that a proposed EPA regulation would harm endangered species.

Read more here.

A transcript of the oral argument is here.

FOIA News: SCOTUS to hear FOIA case on Monday

See a preview of the case, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, from SCOTUSBlog here, as well as the case material here. A transcript of the oral argument will be made available on same day here.

FOIA News: Enviros and industry fight feds in Supreme Court FOIA case

Enviros and industry fight feds in Supreme Court FOIA case

By Pamela King, E&E News, Oct. 30, 2020

Should the public have access to documents that show why the federal government changed its stance on the impact an EPA rule would have on vulnerable species?

That's the question the Supreme Court will set out to answer Monday in the case Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, which deals with a Freedom of Information Act request for documents underpinning a 2014 rule for cooling water intake structures at power plants.

At the heart of the battle is a draft biological opinion in which FWS found that a proposed version of the rule would jeopardize endangered species. EPA ultimately revised the rule, and FWS determined that the new version posed no harm.

But the Sierra Club will argue next week that the public has the right to know what changed.

Read more here.