Interior's new FOIA reg's critisized

Amid the chaos of the ongoing government shutdown and winter holidays, critics on Monday are calling out the Trump administration for quietly moving to make it harder for the public to find out what goes on behind closed doors at the U.S. Department of the Interior. A proposed new rule (pdf) filed to the Federal Register on Friday would enable the department—which, along with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has been responsible for pushing through President Donald Trump’s widely condemned regulatory rollbacks—to ignore public records requests that officials deem too “unreasonably burdensome.” The rule would loosen timelines for the agency to fulfill Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests—which journalists, advocacy groups, and others use to attain government records in the name of accountability—and increase requirements for how specific requests must be. Critics of the proposal warn it could jeopardize efforts to keep the public informed about the actions of the administration. “This is a war on transparency,” declared Jeremy Nichols of the environmental group WildEarth Guardians. “This is a calculated attempt to shield the Interior Department from scrutiny, to shield it from watchdogs, and to shield it from accountability.”...MORE