House poised to approve FOIA reform bill

The House is slated to approve a bill that could expand the public’s access to government records. Similar legislation to update the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has gotten close to the President’s desk in recent years, even though some federal agencies and the banking industry have raised concerns about access to sensitive financial information. The current proposal, sponsored by Reps Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Elijah Cummings (D-MD), is expected to pass the House easily.

The most high-profile portion of the legislation would codify a so-called presumption of openness, which requires federal agencies and other parts of the government to adopt a policy that leans toward the public release of documents. Agencies would have to point to a specific identifiable harm when withholding documents unless disclosing them is specifically barred by law. President Barack Obama instructed agencies to adopt this model when he first entered office. But critics say agencies have not lived up to that promise. The legislation would do a number of other things, including creating a single FOIA request portal for all agencies and limiting the amount of time that certain documents are exempt from disclosure. The bill would also make more documents available online.