Congressional Leaders Ask GAO To Review Agency Compliance with FOIA

Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and the House have sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office requesting a comprehensive review of compliance with the Freedom of Information Act across the federal government. The letter was spearheaded by Rep. Cummings (D-MD), Senator Leahy (D-VFT), Senator Grassley (R-IA), Senator Feinstein (D-CA), Senator Cornyn (R-TX), and Rep. Jordan (R-OH). The letter stated that the GAO’s 2018 assessment revealed “inconsistent and incomplete” agency compliance with the FOIA between 2012-2016. The GAO report found that 18 agencies only implemented half of the FOIA requirements since the 2016 amendments and some agencies had backlogs of more than 1,000 FOIA requests. As part of EPIC’s Open Government project, EPIC frequently uses FOIA to obtain information about the government to improve government oversight and accountability.