The federal
department with the highest total costs was the Department of Justice, which
reported spending more than sixty-nine million dollars on FOIA-related activities
during Fiscal Year 2000. Second was the Department of Defense, at more than
thirty-six million dollars, and third was the Department of Veterans Affairs,
at more than twenty-four million dollars. The federal department that reported
spending the least amount of money on the FOIA was the Department of Education,
at just under a half-million dollars. Also at the lower end of reported FOIA
costs for federal departments were the Department of Housing and Urban Department,
the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Energy, each of which spent
approximately two million dollars.
Among other federal
agencies, nine reported spending more than one million dollars on FOIA matters
during the fiscal year. The Social Security Administration led this list, reporting
the expenditure of $16.2 million during the year. Among the others were the
CIA, at $9.8 million, the Environmental Protection Agency, at $7,628,075, the
Securities and Exchange Commission, at $3,058,293, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
at $1,393,465, and the National Archives and Records Administration, at $1,339,336.
On the other hand, twenty-three agencies reported total FOIA costs of less than
$25,000 during the year.
Comparisons with
Previous Years
The Department
of Justice's standard format for annual FOIA reports includes a section (Section
VIII) entitled, "Comparisons with Previous Year(s)." Agencies used this section
to provide additional information about their administration of the Act that
was of particular significance to them, including additional statistics where
applicable. See also FOIA Post, "Supplemental
Guidance on Annual FOIA Reports" (posted 8/13/01) (advising agencies that
such statistics "can be specified in Section VIII, Part D, of the standard report
format").
Most departments
and agencies that provided information in this category stated that they had
reduced the number of incoming FOIA requests by posting information of public
interest on their FOIA Web sites. For example, the National Endowment for the
Arts reported that largely due to information that it made available on its
FOIA Web site, its volume of FOIA requests decreased from a high of 697 in Fiscal
Year 1995 to only 79 in Fiscal Year 2000. Likewise, agencies such as the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the Corporation for National Service, and the
Tennessee Valley Authority reported achieving such results as well. In this
regard, many agencies mentioned putting in their electronic reading rooms records
that have been frequently requested under the FOIA, as required by the 1996
Electronic FOIA Amendments. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(2)(D).
Additionally,
under this report heading, eight federal departments and twenty-six federal
agencies reported increases in the numbers of FOIA requests that they received
in Fiscal Year 2000 as compared to Fiscal Year 1999. By contrast, six federal
departments and forty-one federal agencies reported in Section VIII receiving
fewer requests for access in 2000 than in 1999. At the Social Security Administration
(SSA), where the number of requests has greatly increased in recent years (see
above), much of that increase was attributed to the use of its records by genealogists:
"The genealogy hobby is growing in the United States and is causing continuing
increases in SSA FOIA requests."
For Fiscal Year
2000, many departments and agencies reported that they were improving their
timeliness by various electronic means. Among these were the Department of Agriculture,
the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the Department of
Justice, the Department of Transportation, the Department of the Treasury, and
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Additionally, many agencies reported
the value of using in-house and external training activities for its FOIA personnel.
Among them were the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Commerce, the
Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice,
the Department of Transportation, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,
the Federal Maritime Commission, NASA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Lastly, many agencies
reported that they were monitoring and evaluating their internal FOIA administrative
procedures in an effort to reduce their request-processing times. Among these
were the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
As noted above,
the Office of Information and Privacy now will be preparing governmentwide annual
FOIA report compilations such as this on a regular yearly basis, as soon as
possible after the completion of all agency reports following the end of each
fiscal year, and this will require increased diligence by all agencies in the
timely completion of their reports each year. See FOIA Post,
"Supplemental Guidance on Annual
FOIA Reports" (posted 8/13/01). All agencies should remember that the untimeliness
of the last agency to complete its report each year necessarily constrains this
governmentwide compilation process, so it is important that all agencies heed
the Act's requirements for the completion of their annual FOIA reports in a
timely fashion. See 5 U.S.C. § 552(e)(1)-(3). (posted
1/31/02)
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