The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

FOIA Friday: The Fracking New York Times - How Industry and the Government Reacted to an Expose

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Internal emails from the Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration responding to a New York Times article on fraking.  Document dates: June and July, 2011 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By MIA STEINLE

In the aftermath of last summer’s damaging New York Times investigation into fracking—a method of shale gas drilling lauded by investors—industry and the Department of Energy (DOE) went into damage control mode.  

Internal department emails obtained by POGO through the Freedom of Information Act give insight into how DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) responded to the first story from Ian Urbina’s “Drilling Down” series for The Times. The story itself helped bring the fracking debate into the public consciousness, by making public internal industry emails and DOE documents, which showed skepticism about fracking’s promises as early as 2009.

The EIA emails obtained by POGO show that agency employees were displeased with The Times investigation, which revealed, among other things, industry emails from 2009 comparing shale gas investments to Ponzi schemes. The Times noted that, just one year prior, residents of Fort Worth, Texas, were promised almost $28,000 per acre for drilling leases—but many never received such high royalty checks.

The emails also show that employees from the fracking industry—from investment banks, consulting firms and energy companies—and EIA employees emailed each other Urbina’s article and press releases, written by both EIA and industry employees, that were critical of the article.

One EIA economist sent fellow agency employees a press release from natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK), which called The Times investigation “inaccurate” and “misleading.” The EIA economist wrote, “This is only my opinion, but I concur with CHK’s findings.” Another EIA employee forwarded the CHK press release to fellow employees, noting, “Here is a rebuttal from a company my nephew works at. Just for amusement.”

It’s no wonder industry hit back hard against Urbina’s story, considering how much they’re betting on fracking and the natural gas market. Another Urbina story also brought to light the dependence EIA has on industry data. As that story notes, EIA “relies on research from outside consultants with ties to the industry. And some of those consultants pull the data they supply to the government from energy company news releases.” So perhaps it shouldn’t come as any surprise some EIA employees, who’ve depended on industry for their view of fracking’s potential, might be taking industry’s side. And if industry indeed has made some rosy assumptions, this is troubling. 

FOIA Friday: Justice Dept. Denies FOIA Request for Awlaki Assassination Memo

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel's response to POGO's FOIA request for Awlaki assassination memo.  Document dates: October 31, 2011 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By NICK SCHWELLENBACH

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by POGO, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) "neither confirms nor denies the existence of the" OLC memo that describes the legal justification for its killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen.

The U.S. government alleges that Awlaki was a "regional commander" with al Qaeda.

As I wrote earlier, whether or not you support the targeted killing of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, you should at least support the redacted release of the OLC memo. Americans deserve to know under what circumstances the executive branch believes it is justified in killing citizens without the normal constitutional protection of due process.

As John B. Bellinger III, former legal adviser to the State Department in the Bush administration, told The Washington Post, “I do think it would be important for domestic audiences and international audiences for the administration to explain how the targeting and killing of an American complies with applicable constitutional standards.”

New York Times reporter Charlie Savage received the same response to his FOIA request. The Government Accountability Project (GAP) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) requested the OLC memo through FOIA as well and will presumably, if they haven’t already, get the same response as well.

POGO received a nearly identical response to its request for a mandatory declassification review (MDR) of the OLC memo as well. I plan to appeal the OLC’s denial of both the FOIA and MDR requests.

Nick Schwellenbach is POGO's Director of Investigations.

Follow @schwellenbach

FOIA Friday: Previously Unposted SEC IG Reports Describe Employee-Assisted Ponzi Schemes and Weapons in the Workplace

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's documents: 14 investigative reports by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Document dates: June 2008 - December 2009 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By MICHAEL SMALLBERG

A few years ago, we learned that most investigative reports issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) had not been posted online. In contrast to the OIG's audit reports, investigative reports often contain non-public information and privacy records, so they typically are not released to the public without approval and redactions by the Commission.

So in January 2010, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the SEC for all OIG investigative reports issued over a roughly two-year period.

Over 20 months later, we received the final batch of reports from the SEC, which we have now made available on our OIG investigation resource page.

The OIG has already provided summaries of these reports in its semiannual updates to Congress, and some of the investigations have already been covered in the press. Until now, however, the SEC had not released the reports themselves.

In the latest batch of investigative reports, you can read about a non-public draft of an SEC staff report on credit rating agencies that was apparently leaked to The Wall Street Journal, which we blogged about last week; an employee in the Office of Real Property and Facilities Support who unwittingly assisted in the operation of a Ponzi Scheme orchestrated by Jerome Carter, who claimed he could obtain amazing returns on investments by predicting the future; a Division of Enforcement employee who brought knives into the SEC building, explaining that he “always carried a knife, being from Texas”; an attorney from the Denver office who misused his official position to assist his girlfriend with private litigation; a Division of Enforcement attorney who failed to maintain active bar status; a Division of Trading and Markets employee who intentionally falsified her employment application; a Division of Investment Management employee who had excessive, unauthorized absences from duty; and an IT specialist who used SEC resources in support of a private business:

FOIA Friday: Did Someone at the SEC Leak an Internal Report on Credit Rating Agencies?

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Investigation into Unauthorized Disclosure of Non-Public Information Originating agency: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Document date: September 30, 2009 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By MICHAEL SMALLBERG

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently sent subpoenas to a number of hedge funds, trading shops, and other firms to determine if any investors traded on leaked information regarding Standard & Poor's (S&P) decision to downgrade the U.S. government’s credit rating, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, it wasn’t long ago that the SEC was being investigated by its own watchdog to determine if anyone at the agency improperly provided the Journal with a draft copy of a staff report on S&P and other credit rating agencies, as detailed in a 2009 investigative report by the SEC’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) that was obtained by POGO through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The OIG provided a summary of this investigation in a semiannual update to Congress, and it was mentioned in several media reports at the time. However, the full version of the report—which is nowhere to be found on the SEC or OIG’s website—provides some colorful new details on the OIG’s investigation, even in the heavily redacted version obtained by POGO.

In July 2008, SEC staff issued a report to summarize the agency’s examinations of three credit rating agencies: Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P. The purpose of the examinations was to analyze the agencies’ ratings of subprime mortgage-related securities during a period of severe market turmoil. Among other things, SEC staff found that some agencies had struggled to keep up with the growth in subprime mortgage-related products, significant aspects of the ratings process were not disclosed, and agencies were not doing an adequate job of managing conflicts of interest. In the summary that was released to the public, however, the SEC did not identify which agencies were experiencing these problems because “Commission Staff examinations of specific firms are non-public in nature.”

FOIA Friday: Littoral Combat Ship Form Notes Deficiencies, Non-Compliances with USS Freedom

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document:  Littoral Combat Ship DD-250 Materials Inspection and Receiving Report Document date: September 18, 2008 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By NICK SCHWELLENBACH

In September 2008, the Navy signed a form and took ownership of the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the USS Freedom, from prime contractor Lockheed Martin. According to the Pentagon office of the director of test and evaluation (DOT&E), the LCS "is designed to operate in the shallow waters of the littorals where larger ships cannot maneuver as well."

The contractor is typically required to provide the government with a "material inspection and receiving report," or DD 250 form, according to DoD regulation. When the Department of Defense (DoD) accepts delivery of goods or services under contract, it signs the DD250. As explained in a document on the Defense Contract Management Agency’s website, this form “is a multipurpose report used as: 1) “Acceptance of equipment/data by the Government (i.e. title transferred to the Government),” 2) “The Contractor's invoice for payment,” 3) “A packing list for shipping and receiving” and 4) “Evidence of Government Quality inspection.”

But just because the government accepts a good or service—for instance, a several hundred million dollar ship—that doesn’t mean the government thinks it’s completely satisfactory. According to the DCMA document:

Situations arise when a product is to be accepted, (i.e. to meet a ship deployment), with known deficiencies (deficiencies may be: missing assets (hardware/software, unperformed tests, etc)) that the Contractor will correct within a specific time frame.

“In these cases,” the document notes, “the DD 250 shall be annotated with the deficiencies: listing the deficiencies, and when/ how the Contractor will make the corrections.”

The USS Freedom was one of these cases, according to this week’s FOIA Friday document, the LCS DD-250 form. When the first LCS was accepted, it had a slew of systems that were not inspected in its first acceptance trial in August 2008. These systems were slated to be assessed a second acceptance trial in 2009.

FOIA Friday: Was the Military the Victim of a War Profiteer Fuel Supplier?

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Competition Issues and Inherently Governmental Functions Performed by Contractor Employees on Contracts to Supply Fuel to U.S. Troops in Iraq. Originating agency: Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) Document date: March 15, 2011 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By NEIL GORDON

Last March, the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD IG) released an audit of contracts for the delivery of fuel to U.S. troops in Iraq. Only a summary of the report's findings has been made available to the public. Yesterday, POGO received the full report (with redactions). DoD IG's website still promises that the report will be made publicly available "at a later date."

The DoD IG conducted the audit in response to concerns former House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) had about the competitiveness and prices paid under fuel supply contracts awarded to the International Oil Trading Company (IOTC). In October 2008, Waxman wrote to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that IOTC “appears to have engaged in a reprehensible form of war profiteering” and may have overcharged the government as much as $180 million to deliver fuel to troops in Iraq.

The report found that Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) contracting officers did not perform an adequate proposal analysis for three of four contracts worth about $2.7 billion, had limited data to support $1.1 billion in costs, and failed to ensure fuel prices were fair and reasonable. As a result, DoD IG calculated that the government paid IOTC about $160 to $204 million (6 to 7 percent) more for fuel than it should have. Moreover, the report notes that congressional investigators found that IOTC’s profits on the contracts may have been 14 percent. By contrast, the previous fuel supply contractor, KBR, which was also fiercely criticized for its fuel prices, received a maximum profit of 7 percent.

One of the reasons DLA failed to adequately ensure that prices and costs were fair and reasonable was that it had wrongly determined that fuel delivery was a commercial item, or a service sold to the general public in significant quantities. Under a commercial item contract, contractors are not required to submit cost or pricing data to the government because, in theory, competitive market forces keep prices reasonable. As DoD IG noted, “there is no commercial market place for the delivery of a billion plus gallons of fuel into a war zone.”

FOIA Friday: Was the Creation of NASA's Heavy Lift Rocket "Like Making Sausage"?

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document:  NASA Space Launch Systems - Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle: Analysis of Figures of Merit Originating agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Document date: November 30, 2010 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By NICK SCHWELLENBACH

There is an oft-cited quote in Washington, attributed to German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, which likens the creation of laws to the making of sausage. The gist of the quote is that what goes into legislation and what it takes to get it made is not a pretty sight, and you might not want to know what goes into it.

The same might be said for NASA’s proposed new Space Launch System (SLS). After all, the SLS is a creature of statute. As the New York Times pointed out, “Last year, Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law, a blueprint for the space agency calling for a rocket like the one announced Wednesday.” Some critics even refer to the SLS as the Senate Launch System, in reference to Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). Nelson and Hutchison, respectively, are the chair and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology, the Committee that passed the law setting forth many fairly detailed requirements for the SLS. Florida and Texas are the homes to major NASA facilities that are key to manned space flight.

Today’s FOIA Friday post is on a NASA document that gives the public some insight into many of the different goals, needs and objections NASA juggled in reaching decisions on the SLS. The document is dated November 30, 2010 and there were developments in NASA’s thinking between now and then. 

FOIA Friday: FDA Inspectors Fault Sanofi-Aventis For Failing to Report Drug Info

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Establishment inspection report on Sanofi-Aventis Originating agency: FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) Document date: May 13, 2010 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By NICK SCHWELLENBACH

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis has had its share of self-inflicted problems. Take for instance, the case of Sanofi’s Ketek antibiotic. As Jim Edwards at CBS’s BNET wrote earlier this year:

Sanofi knew in October 2001 that one of its main researchers on the drug was probably faking her data. That researcher was indicted for research fraud in April 2003. Yet in April 2004, the FDA approved Ketek for sale even though both it and Sanofi knew the data on which the approval was based was entirely bogus. In 2007, after 53 cases of liver failure including four deaths, the FDA all but withdrew Ketek from the market.

Finally, after coming under scrutiny from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the FDA in late 2007 issued a warning letter to Sanofi’s handling of its Ketek antibiotic that criticized it for, as Pharmalot’s Ed Silverman put it:

failing to ensure investigators were in compliance and for failing to follow-up problems with data analysis and documentation; failing to monitor clinical trials; failing to select qualified investigators; and failing to ensure protocols were followed.

Sanofi has been up to some other wonderful things as well. Earlier this year, the Senate Finance Committee released documents that suggest “medical societies and doctors [including a researcher at Duke University] with financial ties to Sanofi served as components of a coordinated public relations strategy to use FDA’s citizen petition process to prevent or delay generic alternatives to its blockbuster drug Lovenox from coming on the market.” Classy.

But I digress.

Today’s FOIA Friday document is a 58-page May 2010 FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) post-market surveillance and epidemiology “establishment inspection report” of Sanofi. There were 148 of these kinds of CDER inspections during fiscal years 2009 and 2010, according to a search for these inspections in the FDA’s inspection database. But only three of the 148 of these inspection reports are classified as “official action indicated” or OAI (rather than “no action indicated” or “voluntary action indicated”), which means the FDA feels it has to force a company to make changes in response to “objectionable conditions” that are found. The inspection of Sanofi was one of those three OAI reports.

FOIA Friday: Deficiencies Found in Air Force Ground Safety Program

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Audit Report on the "Air Force Ground Safety Program"     Originating agency: Air Force Audit Agency (AFAA) Document date: January 22, 2010 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By Nick Schwellenbach

Thought we dropped the ball and wouldn't do a FOIA Friday this time around, huh? Think again.

At twelve Air Force installations, safety officials failed to conduct two-thirds of "required spot inspections, including inspections of high-risk areas such as fuel and munitions storage sites," according to a 2010 audit report obtained through the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA). 

The report points to these examples of "high risk" areas:

...the USAF Academy (USAFA) did not inspect the Munitions Storage Area and Rocket Launches, and personnel at Charleston [Air Force Base; AFB] did not inspect the Hydraulic Shop and Fuel Storage Tank.

Potentially more problematic: "safety personnel at Elmendorf and Robins AFBs (both 402 MXW and 78 ABW) did not designate any high interest areas."

One-third of required annual unit inspections were not conducted at nine sites as well. 

For instance, "safety personnel at Elmendorf [Air Force Base] did not inspect 290 facilities," including power substations.

"Adequate facility inspections reduce and prevent industrial mishaps, help protect Airmen’s lives, and ensure operational capability," notes the audit report by the Air Force Audit Agency (AFAA). The audit was finished in January 2010.

The report's executive summary notes that safety personnel at these 13 Air Force facilities also did not "report more than 400 (23 percent) mishaps reviewed to wing safety offices, and wing safety did not report nearly 200 (11 percent) reportable mishaps to the Air Force Safety Center (AFSC)." The report states that "injured employees did not timely report 39 percent of mishaps reviewed, and safety offices reported mishaps to the AFSC, on average, 21 days late." Many of these mishaps are relatively minor, but Air Force rules require timely reporting.

In addition, safety officials failed to adequately analyze mishap trends and whether or not safety programs were effective.

Interesting nugget: "During FY08, the Air Force lost 50 Airmen and almost 35,000 workdays due to preventable mishaps, with motorcycle accidents causing 15 of the 50 fatalities."

Nick Schwellenbach is POGO's Director of Investigations.

FOIA Friday: Audit of Texas Prison Factory That Made Flawed Army Combat Helmets

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Level III Corrective Action Request for UNICOR Federal Prison Industries, INC Document agency: Defense Contract Management Agency Document date:  April 6, 2010 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By ANDRE FRANCISCO

In May of last year, the Army recalled 44,000 combat helmets after the discovery of a paint problem led to tests that showed the helmets failed when hit with multiple gunshots from a specific angle. Inmates from a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas helped make the helmets while working for UNICOR Inc., also known as Federal Prison Industries, Inc., a wholly-owned government corporation. As of 2010, UNICOR employed nearly 16,000 inmates who received pay of 23 cents to $1.15 per hour, according to its website. UNICOR only sells products to the federal government, mostly to the Department of Defense.

This week's document offers more details about the problems at the UNICOR manufacturing site in Beaumont that made the recalled helmets and about the Level III corrective actions that the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) asked UNICOR to make. The stakes were high as “the helmets associated with the contracts [examined by DCMA] are ‘Critical Safety Items,’” according to the corrective action request sent to UNICOR by DCMA.

The letter was sent in April of last year. It included a March 2010 DCMA audit report that detailed the evaluation of the quality management system at UNICOR’s Beaumont facility. The audit was conducted by a four-person team over the course of four days.

The review lists seven areas of major noncompliance and one minor area. Some of them dealt with issues like improper documentation or training manuals, but the more serious claims include numerous instances where nonconforming helmets were stored next to good helmets and where both good and nonconforming helmets were mislabeled.

FOIA Friday: The Case of the Oconee Nuclear Station Reactor Coolant Pumps

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Memo: NRC Oversight of Reactor Coolant Pump Seals at Oconee Nuclear Station Document agency: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Inspector General Document date:  July 29, 2010 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By ANDRE FRANCISCO

The Fukushima disaster has recently put a lot of pressure on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), but now critics are also worried about the competency of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the NRC. The NRC OIG was created by Congress to play a key role in overseeing the NRC. 

In an extensive investigation into the OIG at the NRC, Tom Zeller Jr. writes in The Huffington Post about a growing feeling in the nuclear safety community that the IG's office is broken.

Today's FOIA Friday is a previously unreleased memo to Joseph A. McMillan, the Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at the NRC, about the NRC’s oversight into the seals on reactor coolant pumps at the Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, South Carolina.

The document states that an investigation was launched after an allegation was made that a senior manager prevented an NRC employee from pursuing an issue related to the modification of seals for reactor coolant pumps (nuclear reactors have to be continuously cooled to prevent damage to the reactor and a potential release of radiation). The document says that these seals were looked at in NRC inspections in 2004 and 2005 and determined to be of “very low safety significance,” so the investigation was closed with little explanation.

George Mulley, a retired NRC OIG investigator, called this memo on Oconee Nuclear Station “so confusing, I can’t understand how it was resolved.” He added that he was “surprised” when he found out the case had been closed.  Mulley had a “highly-decorated, 25-year career with the inspector general's division” according to the Huffington Post article by Zeller.

FOIA Friday: Does State OIG Really Not Have a List of Closed Investigations?

FOIA FRIDAY

This week's document: Denial of POGO FOIA request for "a list of all closed investigations, from the period of January 2007 through the present." Document agency: State Department Office of Inspector General Document number: OIG FOIA Case No. 11-00031-FOI Document date:  July 19, 2011 Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will be more important than others, some may only be of historical interest— although relevance is in the eye of the beholder. POGO is doing this to highlight the importance of open government and FOIA throughout the year.

By JAKE WIENS

POGO Director of Public Policy Angela Canterbury noted recently that despite presidential memoranda to executive branch agencies instructing them to adopt a presumption of disclosure, "there's still a wide gap between promise and practice" when it comes to FOIA. One of the concerns, as stated by Canterbury, is the inconsistency in disclosure of information across agencies.

That inconsistency is evidenced by today’s FOIA Friday document. In response to a POGO request for a “list of all closed investigations, from the period of January 2007 through the present,” the State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) responded that after a “thorough” and “reasonable” search, they were not able to find documents responsive to POGO’s request.

They also added, for good measure, that “FOIA does not require agencies to create documents in response to an individual’s request for information.”

Only under the narrowest interpretation of POGO’s request could such a response be possible. While State OIG may not maintain an actual list of closed investigations for that specific timeframe, there is little doubt that they maintain records that would be generally responsive to POGO’s request.

It is difficult to imagine that any agency that conducts investigations does not use some method to track (a database, for instance) the status of those investigations. That method (whether it be a database or some other tool) would almost certainly include a listing of investigations that are closed.

Indeed, requests for a list of closed OIG investigations are routinely processed successfully throughout government. Case in point: The website governmentattic.org has posted dozens of such lists from OIG’s that were obtained using the same exact language as POGO’s request. State OIG’s response is just one more example of the inconsistency in which agencies process FOIA requests.

POGO plans to appeal the decision.

Jake Wiens is a POGO Investigator.