The EPA’s inspector general has found no indications of political interference in the agency’s decisions regarding release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
The audit was done in response to a congressional inquiry that asked for written certification from agency management that no non-career officials were involved in the agency’s response to any FOIA request or that if there was such involvement, it never resulted in an undue delay or the provision of less information than would have otherwise been provided.
However, management said that such an assessment was not feasible given that both career and non-career employees have FOIA responsibilities. Nevertheless, the auditors credited the agency’s response that delays in releasing information were generally due to the complexity or volume of information requested.
The report noted that EPA uses an automated system called FOIAonline to manage FOIA requests. Records released are entered for public viewing and searching unless the volume of paper records is very large and conversion to electronic format is not practical, or the response is subject to special handling requirements or policies.
