White House inaction stalls FOIA recommendations

Recommendations for improving how agencies handle governmentwide Freedom of Information Act requests have been awaiting approval at the Office of Management and Budget for more than nine months, the director of the office that wrote the recommendations said.

The Office of Government Information Services is tasked with mediating disputes between FOIA requesters and the agencies processing those requests and with recommending policy changes to Congress and the president for how FOIA processing can operate more efficiently and transparently. Congress created the office in 2007, when it passed the Open Government Act, which updated the four-decade-old old Freedom of Information Act. The office, which opened its doors in September 2009, was intended to operate like a FOIA ombudsman that could mediate disputes and make recommendations from its perch inside the National Archives and Records Administration -- relatively removed from the hurly-burly of government operations. More than two years into its existence, however, the office hasn't been able to make any recommendations. (11/21)