Senate Bills - 110th Congress

S. 2488—The Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2007

On December 14, 2007, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced S. 2488, the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2007. S. 2488 amends the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to revise requirements for federal agency disclosures of information requested under that Act.  Provisions of interest to NIH would shorten the time limits on which to act on requests, require agencies to establish a system to assign an individualized tracking number for each request for information, establish a telephone line or Internet service regarding the status of a request, institute additional reporting requirements regarding FOIA requests and processing times, and provides a definition of “a representative of the news media” directly in the statute.  Related measures include H.R. 1309, H.R. 1326, S. 2427, and S. 849.

FLOOR ACTION

December 14, 2007 – The Senate passed S. 2488 by unanimous consent.

December 18, 2007 - The House passed S. 2488 by voice vote.

PRESIDENTIAL ACTION

December 31, 2007 - The President signed S. 2488 into law as P.L. 110-175.