Stone-Manning says BLM trying to reduce FOIA backlog

But a leader with PEER said the agency isn’t taking sufficient steps to provide information more quickly.

By Scott Streater, E&E News, July 24, 2024

The head of the Bureau of Land Management acknowledged in a recent letter to a conservation group that the agency has a problem responding to open records requests, but said officials are taking substantive steps to resolve the issue.

BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning, in a letter sent last week to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, wrote that the bureau this year has implemented a series of moves designed to whittle down a Freedom of Information Act backlog of nearly 1,600 requests.

But PEER Rocky Mountain Director Chandra Rosenthal wrote Wednesday in a blog post on the watchdog group’s website that the moves outlined in Stone-Manning’s letter are “equivalent to trying to reduce an iceberg one ice cube at a time.”

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