FOIA News: Interior Department posts annual FOIA report

The U.S. Department of the Interior has released it annual FOIA report for fiscal year 2022. Here are the highlights.

• 6407 requests received, a 1.6 percent increase from FY 2021 (6302 requests received).

• 6182 requests processed, a 7 percent increase from FY 2021 (5774 requests processed).

• Request backlog increased 7.2 percent, from 4484 in FY 2021 to 4808 in FY 2022.

• The response times for all “processed perfected requests” were highest at the Office of the Secretary, which reported taking an average of 351 days to process “simple” requests, an average of 953 days to process “complex” requests, and an average of 841 days to process “expedited” requests.

• Processing and litigation costs exceeded $18.5 million, with agency components collecting a meager total of $5,264 in fees.

FOIA News: Sunshine Week award nominations close Feb. 17

On February 15, 2023, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy announced that it had extended its deadline to nominate FOIA professionals for Sunshine Week awards by two (2) days, from February 15, 2023, to February 17, 2023. See OIP’s announcement and the nomination process here.

FOIA News: EPA finds replacement for FOIAonline [updated]

The EPA has found a replacement for FOIAOnline. Relativity and Deloitte & Touche LLP announced today that EPA has deployed “RelativityOne Government” as the agency’s cloud solution for processing FOIA requests. See announcement here.

Addendum: Following publication of this post, a representative from Relativity notified us that “the news included in [its] press release is totally separate from FOIAonline.”

Court opinion issued Feb. 13, 2023

Immigrant Def. Project v. DHS (S.D.N.Y.) -- holding that: (1) ICE’s search was inadequate because it neglected to search its Office of Public Affairs for records pertaining to “Operation Palladium,” an enforcement program initiated during the Trump Administration, and because it omitted “clearly relevant” search terms; (2) ICE failed to sufficiently explain the applicability of the deliberative process and attorney work-product privileges to two disputed emails; and (3) ICE properly relied on Exemption 7(E) to redact a fugitive operations handbook , but it did not demonstrate the propriety of its remaining withholdings using the same exemption.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: FOIAonline's demise

EPA shutters public records portal

Heralded as a step for open government when it launched, FOIAonline, in service for more than a decade across agencies, will be decommissioned later this year.

By Kevin Bogardus, Greenwire, Feb. 13, 2023

EPA will shutter FOIAonline, the public records web portal it manages, ending what was once a promising stride toward transparency taken more than 10 years ago.

The website tracks Freedom of Information Act requests across multiple federal agencies and posts records online for all to see. Heralded as a step for open government when it launched, FOIAonline has since faced departing user agencies and rising costs that could have saddled EPA alone with an expensive web application that was increasingly difficult to use.

Now, it will be decommissioned Sept. 30, according to the website itself. Those who follow FOIA wonder what will come next.

Gbemende Johnson, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said, “It is a loss of a valuable resource."

She explained requesters can chase records from individual agencies' web portals, costing time and resources, but FOIAonline simplified the process and made it easier for those requesting information from certain agencies.

Read more here (subscription required)

[The author of this post is quoted in the article]

FOIA News: Even more annual reports

On January 24, 2023, and January 31, 2023, we posted a total of 36 annual FOIA reports for fiscal year 2022. Below are several more reports that we have since located. All agencies must post their reports online by March 1, 2023.

• U.S. Department of Commerce -- 1768 requests received; 1774 requests processed

• Consumer Financial Protect Bureau -- collected no FOIA fees despite significant percentage of commercial use requesters

• Presidio Trust -- only 9 requests received

• Office of Science and Technology Policy -- fulfilled only 65 of 104 requests received

• National Mediation Board -- only 20 requests received

Court opinion issued Feb. 10, 2023

Hooker v. U.S. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs (M.D. Fla.) -- granting agency’s summary judgment motion after finding that agency had properly withheld records pertaining to plaintiff pursuant to Exemption 7(A) and then released all requested records after its law enforcement proceeding against plaintiff had closed.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: Upcoming FOIA workshop

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is hosting a virtual “Student Press Freedom Day FOIA Workshop” on February 23, 2023. Details available here.

Court opinion issued Feb. 8, 2023

Ghassan v. DOJ (D.D.C.) -- dismissing case because plaintiff failed to show that he actually submitted requests to FBI for records concerning alleged court-ordered assassination program, and FBI averred that it had never received them and sufficiently explained agency’s search process.

Summaries of all published opinions issued since April 2015 are available here.

FOIA News: New FOIA regulations issued

The Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, formerly housed within OMB and now a stand-alone component of the Executive Office of the President, has issued its final FOIA regulations following a public comment period. The regulations are effective March 10, 2023.