Lawmakers in the House weighed whether a bill that would “modernize” the Freedom of Information Act does enough to eliminate some of the procedural hurdles that journalists, citizens and advocacy groups face when requesting government records under the law.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sought to understand why less than a third of the roughly 700,000 FOIA requests filed each year are answered in full despite orders by President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder that agencies should respond to such requests with a “presumption of disclosure.”
“It may not be headline-grabbing,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said of the reform effort during the hearing Friday. “But it’s important.”
The FOIA Reform Act of 2015 was reintroduced in the House and Senate in early February after both chambers unanimously passed similar versions of the bill last year but failed to strike a compromise before the 113th Congress ended.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., pressed panelists on ways to simplify the “logistical nightmare” of converting government documents — including records obtained through FOIA requests — to a format that enables them to be read aloud by software on computers of visually impaired people.
The process, known as remediation, is mandatory under laws that require government documents to be made equally available to people with disabilities.
Frederick Sadler, a former FOIA officer for the Food and Drug Administration, said the difficulty of remediating such a large volume of documents forces agencies to choose between violating laws that require them to publish documents while they attempt to convert the records or violating laws that require them to remediate the documents by publishing records without first doing so.
Sadler cited an example in which posting a single 250,000 page document in compliance with the disability law required the help of a contractor and would have cost $90,000.
“It almost sounds like it would be cheaper to have somebody read it out loud to them,” Mulvaney said before suggesting the committee should explore “a better way” to approach the issue.
Lawmakers hinted they may pursue additional strategies to strengthen the FOIA reform bill, which was co-sponsored by ranking minority Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., was among the several who questioned the scope of protections offered by the fifth of FOIA’s nine exemptions, which allows the government to withhold all records that are considered to be part of the deliberative process.
Rick Blum, director of the Sunshine in Government Initiative, told the Washington Examiner determining the basis for redactions under the “pre-decisional” fifth exemption can prove difficult.
Blum highlighted the fact that the FOIA reform bill already contains a provision that sunsets the fifth exemption on records 25 years and older.
But Blum, who also testified at the hearing Friday, isn’t hoping for a lengthy debate about how the committee can further shape the bill.
“I would hope that any issues get resolved quickly so this could move to the floor,” he said, noting the reform effort has been in the works for many months.
Blum echoed Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., when he highlighted the creation of a single online FOIA portal where people can file requests for any government agency.
Blum said the website would allow individuals to “track their requests like an Amazon package.”
The Feb. 27 hearing marked the first time Meadows took the stand as chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations.A committee spokesman said the committee may debate and amend the bill next month.
