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03/22/2018

White House Directive on Congressional Oversight Requests Classified as “Presidential Record,” Not Subject to Disclosure under the FOIA

A report published earlier this month by the General Services Administration (“GSA”) Inspector General (“IG”) provides new and illuminating, as well as concerning, details about the White House’s directives to agencies for responding to congressional oversight requests from Democratic legislators and other individual members of Congress.  The IG report confirms that during the first seven months of the Trump Administration, the GSA implemented “a series of . . . unpublished policies that effectively amended” its procedures for handling congressional communications, just as the press and transparency community alleged.  The report also concludes that the GSA’s latest published guidance, which was released in July 2017, is ambiguous because it does not reflect oral policies still in force and cites to a controversial May 2017 Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (“OLC”) opinion that the White House has publicly rejected.  Most alarmingly, the IG report identified the underlying written basis for the GSA’s “oral” policy as a White House-created document, which is marked “presidential record” and is therefore “excluded from public disclosure under the Presidential Records Act.”

Cause of Action’s Investigation into the GSA Nondisclosure Policy

For the past year, Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute’) has been investigating rumors—now confirmed by the GSA IG—that the White House is directing federal agencies to ignore congressional oversight requests from Democratic legislators and individual Members who are not committee chairmen.  Various reports in the media (here and here, for example) have detailed contentious interactions between congressional staffs and employees at the GSA and the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”).  According to some sources, White House attorney Uttam Dhillon is responsible for instructing agencies “not to cooperate” with record requests from the minority.

CoA Institute filed a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request with the GSA in an effort to verify what the Trump Administration’s actual policy might be.  We asked for records concerning the “new policy” cited by the GSA’s Acting Administrator in testimony before Congress.  We also asked the GSA for records reflecting directives or guidance originating with the White House.  When the GSA finally provided its response, it left much to be desired.  The GSA only released two documents: a February 20, 2015 order on congressional and intergovernmental inquiries, which is now obsolete, and an April 15, 2009 White House memo that CoA Institute already had made publicly known in June 2013.

We appealed that final determination, which prompted the GSA to release two additional records created during the Trump Administration.  One of those records, a copy of the agency’s “updated Agency policy,” also known as GSA Order ADM 1040.3, was remarkable.  As I discussed in a September 2017 op-ed in The Hill, although the White House had by then disavowed the OLC opinion letter as a statement of government-wide policy following harsh criticism by Senator Chuck Grassley, GSA Order ADM 1040.3, which is dated July 24, 2017, expressly cites to the OLC opinion as the GSA’s—and, presumably, the White House’s—official policy.

We then wrote to the GSA seeking public clarification, but that request went unanswered.

Our efforts to investigate OPM have been less fruitful.  Last month, the agency responded to our FOIA request by disclosing a single email linking to the OLC opinion, but without further details concerning the opinion’s implementation or continued relevance.  Our appeal challenging the adequacy of OPM’s search efforts, as well as its redaction of the responsive email, is pending.

The GSA’s Confusing Use of “Oral” Policies for Nondisclosure

The IG’s report goes into significant detail describing the evolution of the GSA’s nondisclosure policy under President Trump, but a few key findings stand out:

  • The GSA developed a series of “oral” policies that “effectively amended” the GSA’s published procedures for dealing with Congress. These policies were formulated by the agency’s Senior White House Advisor and Acting General Counsel and disseminated throughout different agency components through “small in-person meetings,” “telephone calls,” and “hallway conversations.”  This sort of official but unwritten policy development violated the GSA’s “internal policymaking directives.”
  • This “oral” policy was continually modified. In March 2017, for example, the GSA decided to permit the disclosure of publicly available information or records that would otherwise be available under the FOIA to a non-congressional requester.  At this point, the GSA’s FOIA office started to process certain requests before providing records to the congressional affairs office for final release.  These changes were based on “guidance”—presumably, written—from the White House.
  • In another instance, the GSA started to treat congressional requests under the “Seven Member Rule” as seven individual requests, thereby avoiding mandatory disclosure as required by 5 U.S.C. § 2954. This development was prompted by Ranking Member Elijah Cummings and other Democrats on the House Oversight Committee investigating the Trump Old Post Office lease.
  • Once the GSA’s FOIA office started processing congressional requests, agency employees were unsure whether the FOIA’s procedural safeguards—such as the right to file an administrative appeal—applied.
  • In one remarkable case, despite instructions from Chairman Jason Chaffetz of the House Oversight Committee to produce agency records to both the Majority and Minority staffs, the GSA intentionally neglected to do so. A senior agency advisor reported to the GSA White House Liaison and Senior White House Advisor that the “cc to [Ranking Member] Cummings” had been “take[n] off” the response to Chairman Chaffetz.
  • The IG concluded that GSA’s nondisclosure policies did not contain vital whistleblower protection language required under federal law. Although the GSA has contested the IG’s interpretation of the law and its application in this context, the agency nevertheless agreed to change its published policies to include explicit whistleblower protection language.

The “Presidential Record” Underlying the Ongoing Problem

On May 19, 2017, the White House Office of Legislative Affairs provided the GSA with some “written guidance” on congressional oversight requests.  This guidance apparently reflected the “oral” policy that had already developed at the GSA, which limited disclosures for non-chairmen to publicly available or publicly accessible records.  This policy, and the underlying White House guidance, were the basis for the GSA Acting Administrator’s testimony before Congress.  And it is this guidance that was marked as a “presidential record,” thereby removing it from access under the FOIA.

Continued Uncertainty about the GSA’s Actual Policy

According to the IG, GSA Order ADM 1040.3 is ambiguous because it does not reflect the unwritten policies that have remained in place at the GSA as late as December 2017, as reported by some officials.  Indeed, two weeks after the order’s publication, and after the White House rejected the OLC opinion, the GSA’s Acting Commissioner for Public Buildings, in testimony before Congress, reiterated the GSA’s practice of responding only to committee chairmen.  He intimated that this was “in line with the current Administration’s policy on responding to oversight questions.”

Ultimately, the lesson here is that unwritten policies, besides being bad from a transparency perspective, lead to confusion and inconsistency.  The GSA IG concluded that many high-ranking officials at the GSA never fully understood the actual policy was for responding to congressional requests.  Nor could they answer vital questions: What was the legal basis, if any, for the GSA’s policy?  What was an “oversight” request?  Were congressional members in their individual capacity really subject to the FOIA with all of the statute’s procedural safeguards?  What role did the White House have in formulating the policy?  Was it agency-specific, or indicative of a wider, government-wide policy change?

In response to the IG’s revelations, the GSA has agreed to remove any reference to the OLC opinion in Order ADM 1040.3.  But the agency still insists on qualifying its commitment to processing disclosure requests from individual members based on unidentified “longstanding agency and Executive Branch policies.”

CoA Institute will continue to investigate this matter and the extent to which “oral” policies have influenced the processing of congressional oversight requests at other agencies.  In the meantime, we have submitted a new FOIA request to the GSA, explicitly seeking the so-called “presidential records” that were the basis for the GSA’s unwritten policies.  It is not clear why the Presidential Records Act should even apply in this instance.

Ryan Mulvey is Counsel at Cause of Action Institute

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03/22/2018

Supreme Court Limits Gov’t Power to Charge Criminal Penalties for Unknowingly Obstructing the IRS

Washington, D.C. – The Supreme Court this week issued a ruling protecting all Americans from prosecution for vaguely defined tax crimes. In the case of Carlo Marinello, II v. United States, it clarified a broad statute regarding who can be charged with criminal conduct for obstructing the IRS’s administration of the tax code. Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute”) filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Mr. Marinello’s petition for Supreme Court review, and another one during the merits stage, urging a narrow reading of the statute to ensure no one could be charged under it without knowing that he is committing a felony.

CoA Institute President John J. Vecchione: “As Justice Breyer noted, the law Mr. Marinello was charged under could be interpreted to make felonies of routine conduct by everyday American taxpayers and business owners, such as failing to report a payment to a babysitter. Without this important decision, sloppy tax filers could be charged with obstruction with just an allegation that the conduct helped the defendant avoid tax liability. We applaud the Court for reining in such broad and potentially abusive prosecutorial authority, and Cause of Action is proud of its efforts in this result.”

Mr. Marinello owned a small courier service in New York. In 2012, the United States obtained an indictment against him under the criminal tax code, arguing that Mr. Marinello could be guilty of corruptly obstructing or impeding the administration of the tax code by performing acts as common as failing to maintain books and records for his small business, failing to provide his accountant with complete information, and discarding business records, all because he did these acts with the goal of not paying taxes.  However, the tax code already outlaws tax evasion, and it requires that the government prove a heightened criminal intent—that the defendant acted “willfully.”

During oral argument, the Court showed enormous skepticism towards the Government’s position that virtually any act or omission, no matter how slight, could subject one to felony conviction, even though the particular tax code penalties for those actions are misdemeanors. In the Court’s opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote “Just because a taxpayer knows that the IRS will review her tax return every year does not transform every violation of the Tax Code into an obstruction charge.”

The full opinion can be found here.

For information regarding this press release, please contact Zachary Kurz, Director of Communications at CoA Institute: zachary.kurz@causeofaction.org.

 

 

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03/19/2018

CoA Institute calls on Millennium Challenge Corporation to revise problematic FOIA rule

Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute”) submitted a comment today to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (“MCC”) concerning the agency’s publication of a deficient rule that proposes revisions to the agency’s Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) regulations.  The MCC is a small agency tasked with delivering foreign aid to combat global poverty.  CoA Institute explained that the MCC’s problematic FOIA rule failed to provide a definition of a “representative of the news media” that conforms with statutory and judicial authorities.  The proposed regulations could also cause confusion by directing requesters to consult outdated fee guidance published by the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”).

News Media Fee Category

The MCC’s proposed rule improperly retains the so-called “organized and operated” standard in the definition of a “representative of the news media.”  This is an important deficiency because the “organized and operated” standard has been used in the past to deny news media requester status to nascent media groups and government watchdog organizations like CoA Institute.  Indeed, CoA Institute took another agency—the Federal Trade Commission—to court, and argued its case all to the way to the D.C. Circuit, just to get the agency to acknowledge that its similar retention of the “organized and operated” standard was unlawful and led to improperly denying CoA Institute a fee reduction.  The D.C. Circuit eventually issued a landmark decision in CoA Institute’s favor to clarify proper fee category definitions and their application in FOIA cases.

Congress amended the FOIA to provide a straightforward and comprehensive definition of a “representative of the news media.”  The MCC—and all other agencies—should not attempt to modify that definition or introduce additional hurdles for news media requesters.

OMB Fee Guidelines

The MCC’s problematic FOIA rule also proposes to introduce an explicit reference to the OMB’s 1987 FOIA fee guidelines, which are the genesis of the “organized and operated” standard.  The MCC should strike this reference because the OMB fee guidelines are outdated and unreliable.  Over the past thirty years, Congress has amended the FOIA on numerous occasions, courts have developed overriding FOIA jurisprudence, and technology has evolved in significant ways.  Yet OMB has made no effort to revisit its fee guidance.  It should not be used as a reference point for the proper administration of the FOIA.

In 2016, the FOIA Advisory Committee and the Archivist of the United States called on OMB to update the fee guidelines.  CoA Institute even filed a petition for rulemaking on this issue.  Last November, we filed a lawsuit to compel the agency to provide a response to that petition.  Until they are revised, the MCC should not direct requesters to OMB’s fee guidelines.

Other Agencies Have Followed CoA Institute’s Advice

CoA Institute has succeeded in convincing a number of other agencies to abandon the OMB’s “organized and operated” standard in favor of a proper definition of “representative of the news media” in line with the FOIA statute and controlling case law.  Those agencies include, among others, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Office of the Special Counsel, Department of Defense, U.S. Agency for International Development, and Department of Homeland Security.  We hope that the MCC will similarly revisit its problematic FOIA rule and eliminate the “organized and operated” standard in lieu of a proper definition of a news media requester.

Ryan Mulvey is Counsel at Cause of Action Institute

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03/15/2018

Inspector General Admits to Flawed FOIA Rule and Intends to Request HUD Revisions

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) has responded to Cause of Action Institute’s (“CoA Institute’) letter requesting that the watchdog recall and revise its direct final rule implementing changes to its Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) regulations.  CoA Institute criticized the OIG’s cross-referenced definition of a “representative of the news media,” which improperly retained the outdated “organized and operated” standard, rather than incorporating the statutory definition.  The OIG now admits that its flawed FOIA rule “does not track the current statutory language,” and agrees that the D.C. Circuit’s decision in Cause of Action v. Federal Trade Commission is controlling.

As we previously explained, the OIG, as an independent component of HUD, maintains its own rules regulating public access to its records.  Yet the OIG still relies on department-wide FOIA policy in certain respects, including HUD’s general provisions for charging fees to requesters.  With respect to the definition of a news media requester, HUD’s regulations do not comport with statutory and judicial authorities.

Although the HUD watchdog concedes it promulgated a flawed FOIA rule, it will not commit to revising its regulations due to the “difficulty” of doing so.  The OIG has instead forwarded CoA Institute’s letter to HUD with the request that the agency-wide regulations be amended.

Unfortunately, HUD issued its own final rule implementing revised FOIA regulations back in January 2017.  When it did so, the agency did not solicit public feedback.  CoA Institute nevertheless submitted a comment to explain the deficiency in HUD’s rule.  That comment went unanswered and, to date, HUD has not indicated any intention of revisiting its flawed rule.  It is promising that the OIG agrees there is a serious deficiency in its regulations.  Considering that acknowledgement, though, the agency should undertake efforts now to fix the obvious error.

Ryan Mulvey is Counsel at Cause of Action Institute

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03/14/2018

GAO audit of Office of Special Counsel referrals under FOIA reveals weakness in the statute

An audit report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) provides alarming details concerning the lack of referral of cases of wrongful withholding under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) to the Office of Special Counsel (“OSC”).  Since at least 2008, neither the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) nor any federal court has referred a single case to the OSC so that the agency could investigate whether disciplinary action would be warranted for the arbitrary or capricious withholding of records litigated in court.  The publication of the audit coincided with the testimony of the GAO’s Director of Information Technology Management Issues, David Powner, at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

OSC’s Investigatory Role under the FOIA

Congress envisaged a special role for the OSC in policing agency behavior with respect to the withholding of records.  Section 552(b)(4)(F) of the FOIA obliges the OSC to investigate whether disciplinary action is warranted against an official responsible for withholding records if a federal court has (1) ordered the production of those records, (2) assessed reasonable attorney fees and litigation costs against the government, and (3) issued a “written finding” that the case “raises questions whether agency personnel acted arbitrarily and capriciously with respect to the withholding.”

Once these conditions are met in any given case, the Attorney General must refer the matter for investigation to the OSC, and the agency at issue must take any corrective action recommended by the OSC.  If the government fails to comply, a court can punish a responsible official with contempt.  Apart from the FOIA, the OSC also has independent authority under 5 U.S.C. § 1216(a)(3) to investigate most allegations of arbitrary or capricious withholding of records.

No Referrals Have Been Made to the OSC Over the Past Ten Years

After examining various records and interviewing officials at the DOJ and OSC, the GAO concluded that, since 2008, no court orders have issued in a FOIA lawsuit such that referral to the OSC was appropriate.  At the same time, between 2013 and 2016, requesters in at least six cases nevertheless sought a court-ordered referral to the OSC.  In all six cases, the court denied the requests.

The referral provisions of the FOIA are toothless in practice.  According to one source, the OSC has investigated only two possible cases of punishable wrongdoing.  In Holly v. Acree, the OSC concluded that it could not determine the “officer or employee who was primarily responsible for the [wrongful] withholding.”  And in Long v. Internal Revenue Service, the OSC closed its investigation without any public findings.  Furthermore, despite numerous allegations and some instances of field investigation over the years, it does not appear that the OSC has ever initiated a disciplinary proceeding under Section 1216(a)(3).

Judicial decisions likewise exemplify the reticence of courts to refer cases to the OSC.  The judicial branch is already highly deferential to the government when assessing justifications for the treatment of FOIA records.  That deference appears to affect the analysis of whether it is appropriate to issue a “written finding” that an official or employee may have personally acted wrongfully.  For example, in the case of Kempker-Cloyd v. Department of Justice, No. 97-253, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4813 (W.D. Mich. 1999), the court acknowledged that an agency failed to act in a timely manner, to conduct adequate searches, or to comply with the FOIA “in good faith.”  On further order, the court also determined the agency was liable for attorney fees and litigation costs.  Yet the court still did not believe there was evidence suggesting the agency acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner.  In a more recent case, Consumer Federation of America v. Department of Agriculture, 539 F. Supp. 2d 225 (D.D.C. 2008), when faced with a motion to refer the case to the OSC after the agency conducted an inadequate search and lost responsive records, the court sidestepped the issue altogether by ordering the agency to file a supplemental declaration confirming its promise—made during oral argument—to revise the process for handling requests for electronic records and to correct the problems that led to the loss of the records at issue.  Countless other examples of judicial refusal to engage with the OSC referral provisions abound.

The FOIA Should Be Strengthened to Hold Agency Officials Responsible for Wrongful Withholdings

As it stands, agency officials are effectively unaccountable for their decision-making under the FOIA.  There is no punishment for an agency when it mishandles a request or forces a requester to file a lawsuit to obtain records or fight wrongful withholdings.  Indeed, it is the taxpayer who ends up footing the bill for the government’s litigation costs.  The individuals responsible for processing requests, therefore, have little incentive aside from their personal commitment to transparency to ensure that agency decision-making is consistent with the law.  Even if a requester prevails in court, he faces the uphill battle of securing attorney fees and recoverable litigation costs, not to mention the tremendous difficulty of obtaining a written finding of arbitrary and capricious behavior on the part of the agency.

The requester community deserves better.  If agency officials knew that they would be held personally responsible for their administration of the FOIA, we would have a more efficient disclosure regime and a more transparent government.  The OSC can and should play an important role here, but the FOIA, as implemented, does not currently facilitate that endeavor.  Congress should undertake efforts to remedy the situation.

Ryan Mulvey is Counsel at Cause of Action Institute

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03/13/2018

IRS Seeks to Halt Fifth Circuit Appeal of Controversial Inversion Rule, Submits Final Rule for White House OMB Review

In January, Cause of Action Institute released a report highlighting IRS exemptions from various regulatory oversight mechanisms.  This report kicked off a flurry of activity, and Treasury and OMB are now in talks about whether and how the IRS should continue to be functionally exempt from White House review of IRS rulemakings.  A recent development in a closely watched Fifth Circuit case challenging an Obama-era rulemaking on inversions shows the effort may be bearing fruit.

In April 2016, the Obama Administration issued a controversial rule attempting to block inversions, a business reorganization technique designed to provide relief from high U.S. corporate taxes.  The IRS made this rule by issuing a Notice and publishing a proposed rule in the Federal Register.  Because IRS rules are effective from the date of the Notice, the agency was in no hurry to complete the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) rulemaking process that it had begun with the proposed rule and request for comment.  The Obama Administration ended without the rule ever being finalized but the Notice continued to be in effect.

The Chamber of Commerce sued the IRS over the inversion rule, claiming that the agency failed to comply with APA rulemaking procedures and that the substantive rule was in excess of its statutory authority.  The IRS tried to use the Anti-Injunction Act (“AIA”) to block the suit, as it often does.  But, in October 2017, a district court in Texas ruled that the AIA did not deny the court jurisdiction over the case and that the IRS did indeed violate the APA.  The court than invalidated the temporary rule.  The IRS promptly appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

IRS Moves to Stay Appeal of Inversion Rule Decision

But, in a twist, last week the IRS moved the appellate court to stay the proceedings because it was restarting the long-dormant APA process and finalizing the underlying rule.  In its motion seeking a stay (or a 45-day extension), counsel for the IRS wrote that it needs “to reevaluate whether [the IRS] should proceed with th[e] appeal[.]”  The IRS also told the Fifth Circuit that:

Having completed notice and comment, Treasury and the IRS plan to finalize the proposed regulation. That process is nearly complete. A draft of the final regulation has been prepared, and it has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for review. The final regulation would replace the temporary regulation that is at issue in this case, which will be removed.

Accordingly, we respectfully request that briefing of this case be stayed until a final regulation is published in the Federal Register, during which time the Government will evaluate whether it should proceed with this appeal or dismiss it.

This is an interesting development.  The inversion rule remains controversial and whether it is still necessary, following the recent changes to the corporate tax rate, is an open question.  But it now appears that Treasury and IRS are rethinking whether it is wise to press the government’s current disadvantage on the AIA and APA compliance in the Fifth Circuit.  This case could provide a clear circuit split with the D.C. Circuit (following Florida Bankers, which held the AIA blocked pre-enforcement review in APA challenges to IRS rules) on the proper application of the AIA.  So we may be seeing a strategic retreat by the IRS trying to limit the damage from its earlier loss in the district court.  But it is good to see that the agency is involving OMB in this finalization process.

We’ll have to wait to see what OMB says about the rule, whether the IRS does indeed finalize the rule, what form that final inversion rule will take, whether the Fifth Circuit grants the stay, and, ultimately, whether the IRS will back out of this appeal.  Stay tuned.

Update: The Fifth Circuit did not act on the stay motion before the deadline for the IRS to file its opening brief, which it timely did on March 16.

Update 2: On March 22, the Fifth Circuit denied the stay motion and the case is proceeding.

James Valvo is Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor at Cause of Action Institute.  He is the principal author of Evading Oversight.  You can follow him on Twitter @JamesValvo.

 

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03/13/2018

CoA Institute President John Vecchione Submits Written Testimony to Senate Judiciary Committee for Sunshine Week

Before The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Hearing on The Freedom of Information Act: Examining the Administration’s Progress on Reforms and Looking Ahead

March 13, 2018

Written Testimony of John Vecchione

President & CEO, Cause of Action Institute

Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit this written testimony about the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), the implementation of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, and other issues related to government transparency.

My name is John Vecchione and I am the president and CEO of Cause of Action Institute (“CoA Institute”).  We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit government oversight organization committed to ensuring that government decision-making is open, honest, and fair.  We use various communication, investigatory, and legal tools to pursue that mission.  We believe deeply that in order for a government to be accountable to the people, it must be transparent.  To that end, we use the FOIA to gather information and educate the public.  But we also police agency behavior under the FOIA, submit regulatory comments on proposed FOIA regulations, and use strategic litigation to bring agencies into compliance with the FOIA and the Federal Records Act.[1]

Today, I would like to address two important topics: the proposed policy of Release to One, Release to All and agencies updating their regulations to reflect statutory changes in the FOIA.

Release to One, Release to All

In July 2016, the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of the FOIA.  Congress marked the occasion by passing the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016.[2]  In conjunction with signing the bill into law, President Obama announced a series of policies to implement the bill and build on the goal of increasing government transparency.[3]  One of those policy initiatives was to learn from the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy’s (“OIP”) Release to One, Release to All pilot program and to work toward all agencies posting their FOIA productions online.

President Obama wrote that this “concept would ensure that all citizens—not just those making a request—have access to information released under FOIA.”[4]

[The President then] direct[ed] the newly established Chief FOIA Officers Council to consider the lessons learned from the DOJ pilot program and work to develop a Federal Government policy establishing a “release to one is a release to all” presumptive standard for Federal agencies when releasing records under FOIA.  The Chief FOIA Officers Council [was directed to] examine issues critical to this policy’s implementation, including assessing the impact on investigative journalism efforts, as well as how best to address technological and resource challenges.[5]

President Obama established a “January 1, 2017 [deadline for] the Chief FOIA Officers Council [to] work with the Office of Management and Budget (‘OMB’) to provide further guidance” on this policy.[6]

On August 10, 2016, in a round of pre-publication comments, CoA Institute submitted comments to OMB and OIP that broadly supported the Release to One, Release to All policy and identified areas where explicit guidance language was necessary to prevent abuse of discretion or agency-avoidance behavior.[7]  We support the policy “because when an agency produces records under FOIA, it has reviewed those records for release to the public and not just the requester.  Proactive disclosure of records may reduce the need for use of FOIA to access information in the first place and thus lessen the burden on FOIA offices throughout the federal government.”[8]  Congress has long recognized that frequently requested records should be proactively disclosed by agencies.  In the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, Congress directed that once a record has been requested and released three times, the agency must post the record in its electronic reading room.[9]  Release to One, Release to All simply takes this idea one step further and would have agencies release information to the public after the first FOIA request and production.

CoA Institute is concerned that too many exceptions to the Release to One, Release to All policy could undermine the policy’s goal.  Namely, in our comments, we highlighted that an exemption for content that is “inappropriate” could be abused “to protect the agency mission, agency head, administration generally, or the president from the political fallout of an embarrassing release.”[10]  CoA Institute has been investigating the role political interference plays in the release of information through FOIA,[11] and we urged OIP not to allow such considerations to taint a Release to One, Release to All policy.  As part of this project, we recently profiled the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s practice of applying so-called “sensitive review” procedures to “high visibility” FOIA requests.[12]

We also commented on several others issues as well, including: agency compliance the readability requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the posting of auxiliary information along with produced documents (such as final determination letters), and recognizing the need for a short delay between releasing information to the requester and making information publicly available in order to safeguard incentives for requesters—particularly news organizations—to make requests in the first place.

In December 2016, OIP issued a request for comment in the Federal Register, seeking input on its draft guidance.[13]  The comment period closed on December 23, 2016.  President Obama’s January 1, 2017 deadline has come and gone; and, more than a year later, neither OMB nor OIP has finalized the guidance or implemented the policy.  OIP also has refused to respond to multiple requests for updates on its process of either finalizing or abandoning the policy.  Frustrated by this lack of action, in October 2017, CoA Institute joined with the Sunlight Foundation and filed a petition for rulemaking with OIP and OMB asking those agencies to finalize the Release to One, Release to All policy.[14]  We have not received a response.

Release to One, Release to All remains an important opportunity for the government to both increase the amount of government information in the public sphere and also potentially ease the burden on FOIA offices.  It is both ironic and unfortunate that the agencies tasked with implementing a transparency policy are being opaque about their plans with regard to the policy.  I urge this Committee to press OIP and OMB to finalize and implement Release to One, Release to All.

Agency FOIA Regulations

The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 required agencies to update their FOIA regulations within 180 days of enactment to reflect the statutory changes.[15]  As often happens, most agencies missed this deadline but, as a whole, agencies have made moderate and steady progress in updating their regulations.

There are approximately 120 agencies subject to the FOIA.[16]  Although most agencies have their own regulations, some share regulations with another agency; and some entities within an agency, such as an office of inspector general, may have FOIA regulations separate from a parent agency.[17]  Therefore, there does not appear to be an exact count of how many FOIA regulations need to be updated with each statutory amendment.  According to FOIA Advisor, a website that tracks FOIA news and regulatory developments, since the passage of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, approximately sixty-three agencies, or about half, have either proposed or finalized updates to their FOIA regulations.

CoA Institute has been paying particular attention to this process because many agencies still maintain an anachronistic definition of a “representative of the news media,” a category of FOIA requester that is able to access records at a reduced cost.  Congress defined the term more than a decade ago in the Open Government Act of 2007.[18]  We were embroiled in litigation over this issue when the Federal Trade Commission used the outdated standard that an entity must be “organized and operated” to publish or broadcast news to deny CoA Institute access to records by claiming we did not qualify for reduced fees and demanding we pay a large sum in order to access records.  Unfortunately, agencies sometimes try to use fees and fee definitions to deny requesters access to records.  In 2015, CoA Institute secured an opinion from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit holding that the “organized and operated” standard has no place in FOIA administration and that agencies must use Congress’s statutory definition.[19]

Following that decision, CoA Institute has been submitting regulatory comments to agencies when they propose or finalize new FOIA regulations in an attempt to bring those agencies’ regulations in line with the 2007 Act and binding jurisprudence.  Over the past few years, we have submitted twenty-four regulatory comments, many focused on agencies’ improper fee definitions.

Relatedly, OMB maintains a three-decades-old guidance document—which the FOIA requires agencies to follow—directing agencies to use the “organized and operated” standard.[20]  CoA Institute is currently in litigation with OMB over a petition for rulemaking we submitted urging OMB to update its guidance and conform to the statute.[21]  When CoA Institute filed that petition, the improper “organized and operated” standard appeared in the Code of Federal Regulations more than seventy times, including in the FOIA regulations of eleven cabinet-level agencies.[22]  While we have been successful in convincing several agencies to conform to the statute,[23] the improper definition of a representative of the news media still appears in dozens of agency FOIA regulations and in OMB’s guidance.

CoA Institute will continue to monitor agency regulatory updates and urge them to bring their regulations into harmony with the FOIA statute.  I urge you to raise this issue with OMB and encourage them to update their guidance document.

Conclusion

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to submit this written statement for the record.  I look forward to continuing to work with you to secure the public’s right to access documents concerning the public’s business.

 

A PDF file of the testimony is available here.

[1] See, e.g., Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Kerry, 844 F.3d 952 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (securing decision as co-plaintiff that agency Federal Records Act obligations are not moot so long as agency can still recover records that have been unlawfully removed from the government); Cause of Action v. Fed. Trade Comm’n, 799 F.3d 1108 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (securing decision on proper definition of a “representative of the news media” under FOIA’s fee provisions).

[2] FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-185, 130 Stat. 538 (2016).

[3] Press Release, The White House, Fact Sheet: New Steps Toward Ensuring Openness and Transparency in Government (June 30, 2016), available at http://bit.ly/2xSReOa.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Letter from James Valvo, Cause of Action Inst., to Hon. Shaun L. S. Donovan, Dir., Office of Mgmt. & Budget, White House, & Melanie Ann Pustay, Dir., Office of Info. Policy, Dep’t of Justice (Aug. 10, 2016) [hereinafter CoA Institute Release to One, Release to All Comment], available at http://coainst.org/2lej2GH.

[8] Id. at 2.

[9] FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 § 2(a); 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2)(D)(ii)(II).

[10] CoA Institute Release to One, Release to All Comment at 2.

[11] See Cause of Action Inst., Grading the Government: How the White House Targets Document Requesters (Mar. 18, 2014), available at http://coainst.org/2FpsnBr; Cause of Action Inst., White House FOIA Obstruction, http://bit.ly/2r0hBub (last visited Mar. 12, 2018).

[12] Ryan Mulvey, NOAA Records Demonstrate Expansion of Sensitive Review FOIA Procedures, Cause of Action Inst. (Mar. 12, 2018), http://coainst.org/2tFnLp5.

[13] Dep’t of Justice, Request for Public Comment on Draft “Release to One, Release to All” Presumption, 81 Fed. Reg. 89023 (Dec. 9, 2016); see Draft Mem. for the Heads of Departments & Agencies, “Release to One, Release to All” Presumption:  Achieving Greater Transparency by Making More Information Available Online, from Office of Info. Policy, Dep’t of Justice (undated).

[14] See Letter from Alex Howard, Deputy Dir., Sunlight Found. & James Valvo, CoA Inst., to Hon. Mick Mulvaney, Dir., Office of Mgmt. & Budget, White House, & Melanie Ann Pustay, Dir., Office of Info. Policy, Dep’t of Justice (Oct. 31, 2017), available at http://coainst.org/2I6Xkf6.

[15] FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 § 3(a).

[16] See FOIA.gov, Where to Make a FOIA Request, Full List of Agencies, https://www.foia.gov/report-makerequest.html (last visited Mar. 12, 2018) (listing agency FOIA contacts).

[17] See, e.g., 7 C.F.R. pt. 2620 (Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General maintaining separate FOIA regulations).

[18] See Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2007 § 3, Pub. L. No. 110-175, 121 Stat. 2524, 2525 (2007).

[19] See Cause of Action, 799 F.3d at 1119.

[20] See Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Uniform Freedom of Information Act Fee Schedule and Guidelines, 52 Fed. Reg. 10012 (Mar. 27, 1987); 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(4)(A)(i) (Agency fee schedules “shall conform to the guidelines which shall be promulgated . . . by the Director of [OMB] and which shall provide for a uniform schedule of fees for all agencies.”).

[21] See Cause of Action Inst. v. White House Office of Mgmt. & Budget, No. 17-2310 (D.D.C. filed Nov. 2, 2017).

[22] See Letter from James Valvo, CoA Inst. to, Hon. Shaun L.S. Donovan, Dir., Office of Mgmt. & Budget, at 4 (June 2, 2016) (listing agencies), available at http://coainst.org/2D64Raw.

[23] See Ryan Mulvey, CoA Institute Criticizes the Presido Trust on Flawed FOIA Rule, Cause of Action Inst., Mar. 6, 2018, http://coainst.org/2FolU9M (detailing successful regulatory comments to “among others, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Office of the Special Counsel, Department of Defense, U.S. Agency for International Development, and Department of Homeland Security”).

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