DHS FOIA Efficiency Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1615.

In November of 2014, it was reported that DHS had received and
processed the most FOIA requests out of any Federal department. It
holds the largest backlog of unprocessed FOIA requests of any Federal
agency. In fact, since 2010, DHS FOIA requests have increased by over
65 percent, and DHS currently holds almost half of all Federal FOIA
requests of any government agency--about 50,000 of 95,000 requests.

In addition, 3 weeks ago, I was informed that the increase in DHS
FOIA requests was partly due to requests for immigration records for
people requesting information for their future deferred action cases.
My bill, H.R. 1615, the DHS FOIA Efficiency Act of 2015, streamlines
the process to address the tremendous workload and backlog and bring
transparency to the cost of FOIA requests to the Department.

In the recent past, DHS has received poor evaluations regarding its
efficiency in handling FOIA requests. For these reasons, my bill
directs the chief FOIA officer of DHS to work with other officers
within the Department to update their capabilities in handling the
large amount of FOIA requests and identify the total annual costs
associated with processing these requests.

By updating their capabilities and reporting to Congress on how the
Department is addressing their poor performance, my bill will direct
the Department to address its backlog and inefficiencies in an
appropriate and quick manner.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, once again, I urge my colleagues
to support this strong, bipartisan piece of legislation, and I yield
back the balance of my time.

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