FOIA Performance is Deteriorating, Journalists Say
If the Leahy-Cornyn bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act that was adopted in the Senate last week becomes law, as expected, it will not happen a moment too soon, because current government handling of FOIA requests is deteriorating, according to a new analysis from the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government.
“Over the past nine years, the number of FOIA requests processed has fallen 20%, the number of FOIA personnel is down 10%, the backlog [of pending requests] has tripled, and costs of handling a request are up 79%,” the CJOG study (pdf) reported.
In fact, “the cost of processing FOIA requests is up 40% since 1998, even though agencies are processing 20% fewer requests.”
Productivity of FOIA requests has dropped in other respects as well.
“The number of denials [of FOIA requests] increased 10% in 2006 and the number of full grants, in which the requester got all the information sought, hit an all-time low.”
See “Still Waiting After All These Years: An in-depth analysis of FOIA performance from 1998 to 2006,” principally authored by Pete Weitzel, Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, August 8, 2007.
Innovations in artificial intelligence and robotics will allow us to accelerate the search process using foundation AI models for science research and automate much of the experimentation with robotic, self-driving labs.
FAS commends the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for clearing a historic 75 pieces of legislation, including multiple crucial bills to confront the wildfire crisis.
The United States needs a strategic investment fund (SIF) to shepherd promising technologies in nationally vital sectors through the valley of death.
Standardizing support for Accessibility & Accommodations in federally funded research efforts would open opportunities for disabled scientists and their research programs.