Senate Unanimously Approves Leahy-Cornyn Faster FOIA Act

WASHINGTON (Wednesday, May 5, 2010) – The Senate Wednesday evening unanimously passed legislation authored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) to make further improvements to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the nation’s premier open government law.  Leahy and Cornyn are both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which advanced the legislation to the full Senate in April.

Recent years have seen increased agency backlogs in processing FOIA requests.  The Faster FOIA Act will establish an advisory panel to examine these backlogs and to provide to Congress and the President recommendations for legislative and administrative action to enhance agency responses to FOIA requests. 

“Senator Cornyn and I believe that agency delays in processing FOIA requests are simply unacceptable, and that is why we introduced this bill,” said Leahy.  “This bill will establish a bipartisan commission to examine the root causes of agency FOIA delays and to recommend to the Congress and the President steps to help eliminate FOIA backlogs. I hope that the House of Representatives will promptly consider this bill, and I thank Senator Cornyn for his continued partnership on these important open government issues.”

“Today marks an important benchmark in the effort to open up our federal government, which Sen. Leahy and I have fought for years to make more accessible and transparent to the American people,” Cornyn said. “This bipartisan legislation will add new accountability measures to FOIA and will be a great benefit to Americans, who deserve to be treated as valued customers when they seek answers from their government.”  

Leahy and Cornyn are longtime leaders on FOIA issues and have worked on legislation together in the past to make the federal government more open and transparent to the people it represents.  They first introduced the Faster FOIA Act in 2005. They have also authored several laws to improve government transparency, including the OPEN Government Act, which was enacted in 2007.  The OPEN Government Act made the first significant reforms to FOIA in more than a decade. Last year, Leahy and Cornyn authored the OPEN FOIA Act, which mandated greater clarity for legislative exemption to FOIA. The legislation became law in October.

The introduction of the Faster FOIA Act in March commemorated the 6^th annual Sunshine Week, a national observance of the importance of an open and transparent government. Leahy was installed in the Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame in 1996 and was awarded the Robert Vaughn FOIA Award in 2009.  Cornyn has long been a champion of open government. As Texas Attorney General, he took ground-breaking measures to increase transparency, and he received the Sunshine in Government award from the National Newspaper Association in 2007.

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Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman, Senate Committee On The Judiciary,
On Passage Of The “Faster FOIA Act Of 2010”
May 5, 2010

MR. PRESIDENT.  I commend the Senate for promptly passing the Leahy-Cornyn Faster FOIA Act of 2010 -- an important measure to improve the administration of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  This bill will establish a bipartisan commission to examine the root causes of agency FOIA delays and to recommend to the Congress and the President steps to help eliminate FOIA backlogs.

Senator Cornyn and I first introduced this bill in 2005 to address the growing problem of excessive FOIA delays within our Federal agencies.  In the five years since, we have successfully worked together to reinvigorate FOIA through several other legislative initiatives.  I thank Senator Cornyn for his work on this bill and for his leadership on this issue.  I also thank Senators Feingold, Whitehouse and Klobuchar, who have cosponsored this bill.  We have also worked with Senator Grassley and Senator Sessions to make further improvements. 

The Obama administration has also made significant progress in improving the FOIA process.  In March, the administration announced that the number of overdue FOIA cases fell by 50 percent government-wide during the past year.  This is good news.  But large FOIA backlogs remain a major roadblock to public access to information.  

According to the Department of Justice’s Freedom of Information Act Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2009, the Department had a backlog of almost 5,000 FOIA requests at the end of 2009.  The Department of Homeland Security’s report for the same period shows a backlog of 18,918 FOIA requests. 

The Associated Press recently reported that more than 67,000 overdue FOIA requests remain outstanding across the Federal Government.  Their report also indicates that that the Government’s use of FOIA exemptions to withhold information from the public – which often contributes to FOIA delays – increased during FY 2009. 

Senator Cornyn and I believe that these delays are simply unacceptable.  And that is why we introduced this bill. 

The commission created by the Faster FOIA Act will make key recommendations to Congress and the President for reducing impediments to the efficient processing of FOIA requests.  The commission will also study why Federal agencies are relying more and more on FOIA exemptions to withhold information from the public.  In addition, the commission will examine whether the current system for charging fees and granting fee waivers under FOIA should be modified.  The commission will be made up of Government and non-governmental representatives with a broad range of experience related to handling FOIA requests. 

I have said many times that open government is neither a Democratic issue, nor a Republican issue – it is truly an American value and virtue that we all must uphold.  The Senate has unanimously passed this bipartisan legislation.  I hope that the House of Representatives will promptly consider this bill, so that Congress can send it to the President before the end of the year.