New EPA rule could expand number of Trump officials weighing in on FOIA requests

By Miranda Green, The Hill, June 25, 2019

More political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could soon have the authority to weigh in on public information requests.

The rule is expected to be published in the Federal Register as early as Wednesday and will not allow for a public comment period.

According to the new language in the FOIA rule signed by EPA chief Andrew Wheeler last week, the administrator and other officials would be allowed to review all materials that fit a FOIA request criteria, known as responsive documents, and then decide “whether to release or withhold a record or a portion of a record on the basis of responsiveness or under one or more exemptions under the FOIA, and to issue ‘no records’ responses.”

Read more here.

[Note: An early version of this story mischaracterized the scope of the new rule and misstated some of the authorities that come with it.]