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Hearing Hearing Date: June 3, 2015 9:00 am Rayburn HOB

Ensuring Agency Compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

Subject
Ensuring Agency Compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Date
June 3, 2015
Time
9:00 am
Place
Rayburn HOB
Full Committee on Oversight and Accountability

HEARING PURPOSE:

  • This hearing will examine the processes agencies use to meet FOIA’s legal requirements and explore barriers to effective and efficient compliance from the FOIA officer’s perspective.
  • The Committee will hear from the witnesses tasked with implementing FOIA at several agencies that need to improve response efforts.

HEARING BACKGROUND:

  • Enacted in 1966, FOIAis a transparency tool for individuals to ensure government accountability. Under FOIA, requesters may ask federal agencies for information about any matter. An agency has 20 business days to respond to a request (and an additional ten days for unusual circumstances) and must release non-exempt records to the requester.
  • In Fiscal Year 2014, the federal government received 714,231 FOIA requests. The backlog of FOIA cases that had not been processed within the statutory time limit increased by 67 percent to a total of 159,741 backlogged cases.
Witnesses and testimonies: Ms. Joyce A. Barr

Chief FOIA Officer
U.S. Department of State

Document

Ms. Mary Howard

Director, Privacy, Governmental Liaison, and Disclosure
Internal Revenue Service

Document

Ms. Melanie Ann Pustay

Director, Office of Information Policy
U.S. Department of Justice

Document

Ms. Karen Neuman

Chief FOIA Officer
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Document

Mr. Brodi Fontenot

Chief FOIA Officer
U.S. Department of Treasury

Document

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