Yesterday Public Citizen and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act against the Federal Maritime Commission. The dispute dates back to last October, when NRDC tried to get records about the Commission’s unusual decision to investigate and seek termination of portions of programs at two California ports that aimed to reduce truck emissions, called the Clean Trucks Programs. Why the Commission—usually concerned with regulating shipping—took such a keen interest in a program regulating trucks, is a topic of much speculation, and you can read more about NRDC’s efforts to fight for the Clean Trucks Programs here.
However, not only the environment is at stake in this case, so are our government transparency laws. Under FOIA, requesters are supposed to be granted a waiver of all the fees associated with searching for and copying the requested records if the disclosure will further the public’s understanding of the operations of government and is not in the commercial interest of the requester. The Commission denied NRDC a public interest fee waiver, even though NRDC extensively documented how it intended to use the information to inform the public about the Commission’s investigation of the programs.
