Senate Unanimously Approves Leahy-Cornyn Faster FOIA Act

Press Release

Senate Unanimously Approves Leahy-Cornyn Faster FOIA Act

The Senate Wednesday evening unanimously passed legislation authored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) to make further improvements to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the nation's premier open government law. Leahy and Cornyn are both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which advanced the legislation to the full Senate in April.

Recent years have seen increased agency backlogs in processing FOIA requests. The Faster FOIA Act will establish an advisory panel to examine these backlogs and to provide to Congress and the President recommendations for legislative and administrative action to enhance agency responses to FOIA requests.

"Senator Cornyn and I believe that agency delays in processing FOIA requests are simply unacceptable, and that is why we introduced this bill," said Leahy. "This bill will establish a bipartisan commission to examine the root causes of agency FOIA delays and to recommend to the Congress and the President steps to help eliminate FOIA backlogs. I hope that the House of Representatives will promptly consider this bill, and I thank Senator Cornyn for his continued partnership on these important open government issues."

"Today marks an important benchmark in the effort to open up our federal government, which Sen. Leahy and I have fought for years to make more accessible and transparent to the American people," Cornyn said. "This bipartisan legislation will add new accountability measures to FOIA and will be a great benefit to Americans, who deserve to be treated as valued customers when they seek answers from their government."

Leahy and Cornyn are longtime leaders on FOIA issues and have worked on legislation together in the past to make the federal government more open and transparent to the people it represents. They first introduced the Faster FOIA Act in 2005. They have also authored several laws to improve government transparency, including the OPEN Government Act, which was enacted in 2007. The OPEN Government Act made the first significant reforms to FOIA in more than a decade. Last year, Leahy and Cornyn authored the OPEN FOIA Act, which mandated greater clarity for legislative exemption to FOIA. The legislation became law in October.

The introduction of the Faster FOIA Act in March commemorated the 6th annual Sunshine Week, a national observance of the importance of an open and transparent government. Leahy was installed in the Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame in 1996 and was awarded the Robert Vaughn FOIA Award in 2009. Cornyn has long been a champion of open government. As Texas Attorney General, he took ground-breaking measures to increase transparency, and he received the Sunshine in Government award from the National Newspaper Association in 2007.

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