New Requirements for FOIA Response Letters, Including Affording Ninety Days to file an Administrative Appeal, and New Notification Requirement for Notices Extending FOIA’s Time Limits Due to Unusual Circumstances
“On June 30, 2016, President Obama signed into law the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, Pub. L. No. 114-185, 130 Stat. 538, which contains several substantive and procedural amendments to the FOIA.   OIP has prepared a summary of the amendments as well as a redlined version of the statute which shows the changes made by the amendments.  The new provisions apply to any request made after the date of enactment, which was June 30, 2016.  OIP will be issuing guidance on various aspects of the amendments on a rolling basis.   Agencies are encouraged to contact OIP with any questions they might have on implementation of the new provisions. Among the changes to the law are several new requirements for agency response letters and for notices to requesters extending the FOIA’s time limits due to unusual circumstances.  For response letters agencies must notify requesters of their right to seek assistance from the FOIA Public Liaison and, if the response is adverse, they must also notify the requester of their right to seek dispute resolution services from the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), within the National Archives and Records Administration.   Additionally, agencies must now afford requesters a minimum of ninety days to file an administrative appeal.  When invoking unusual circumstances to extend the FOIA’s time limits, agencies already were required to make their FOIA Public Liaison available, but now they must also notify the requester of the availability of dispute resolution services offered by OGIS.  The guidance below details these new requirements and the attached implementation checklist provides sample language for agencies to use…”