The Senate is expected to soon join the House in passing legislation that would modernize the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Lawmakers in the upper chamber who stopped the FOIA Improvement Act from advancing by unanimous consent appear to have walked back their objections, according to The Hill. The proposal is now expected this week to quickly pass the Senate. A version of the legislation was approved in January by the House.
“The bill is one of the few pieces of legislation that could make it to President Obama’s desk in a tight election-year schedule,” The Hill noted.
The White House has not said how it will act if the bill passes, but the Obama administration has opposed it behind the scenes–despite its penchant for describing itself as “the most transparent administration in history.”
A Presidential veto will ultimately be irrelevant, however, if the FOIA Improvement Act garners sufficient support (advancement in the Senate by unanimous consent suggests that it might). Congress can override an executive rejection by two-thirds supermajorities in both the House and Senate.
The proposal would force federal agencies to cite “foreseeable harm” when withholding information in response to FOIA requests. It would also task the White House and the Attorney General with creating “a consolidated online request portal” for every federal agency.
The lawmakers who obstructed the legislation were Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and David Vitter (R-La.). They reportedly relinquished their holds within the past week.
Both the Senate and the House passed versions of the FOIA Improvement Act in the 113th Congress, but Senate approval only came in the dying days of 2014—too late for differences between the two chambers to be ironed out.
In March 2015, an Associated Press investigation revealed that the Obama Administration in 2014 had improperly denied one-in-three initial FOIA requests. The disapproval rate was the highest it had been in five years.
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) responded to the news by telling The Sentinel that Congress should pass the FOIA Improvement Act.
“As the data indicates, some agencies are better than others in making and keeping FOIA compliance a priority, but the standard should always be one of openness,” he said.
Leahy is a co-sponsor of the FOIA Improvement Act, alongside his Judiciary Committee counterpart, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In February 2015, the committee unanimously approved of the legislation.
