Interior Proposes Rule To Make FOIA Requests Harder To Fulfill

"Trump administration criticized for trying to make it harder to obtain records of interior department dealings"

"Trump administration officials took steps on Friday to crack down on transparency at one of the largest US federal agencies, proposing a slew of changes that could make it harder for the public and media to obtain records of agency dealings.

The proposal is part of an effort to grapple with what the interior department describes as an “unprecedented surge” in requests under the Freedom of Information Act (Foia), the United States’ pre-eminent open government law, since 2016 when Donald Trump took office.

Among other wide-ranging revisions to its Foia regulations, the interior department’s proposal would enable the agency to reject Foia requests that it considers “unreasonably burdensome” or too large, and it would allow the agency to impose limits on the amount of records it processes for individual requesters each month."

Jimmy Tobias reports for the Guardian December 29, 2018.

SEE ALSO:

"Interior Proposing to Ignore Certain ‘Burdensome’ FOIA Requests" (Bloomberg Environment)

"Interior: New Rules Would Raise Bar For FOIA Requests" (Greenwire)