“As I mentioned a while back, I’ve started a new project to bring much-needed transparency to the process whereby agencies get permission to destroy their records at fixed intervals (chosen by the agencies and okayed by the National Archives). I’m obtaining and posting every such request, which have never appeared online before. This project is here: https://altgov2.org/records-destruction-requests/. Today I want to specifically highlight a massive request from the Department of the Interior to schedule records destruction across all of its agencies. It’s asking for permission to destroy records about oil and gas leases, mining, dams, wells, timber sales, marine conservation, fishing, endangered species, non-endangered species, critical habitats, land acquisition, and lots more. It’s also wanting to permanently retain a smaller subset of documents in each category, which will be transferred to the National Archives, where they will become harder to access via FOIA. This is crucial stuff. In the months, years, and decades ahead, if you get “records destroyed” responses, or a vague “no records” response, from NPS, BLM, FWS, BIA, etc., this could be the root cause. But there’s time to comment. October 29 is the deadline I was given. Here’s all the info, including a streamlined, easy-to-read HTML version of Interior’s extensive request: https://altgov2.org/doi-records-destruction/” [Via Russ Kick – http://www.russkick.com/; http://www.altgov2.org/; http://www.thememoryhole2.org/]