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Senate Judiciary Hearing Highlights FOIA Backlogs, Proposals to Strengthen Transparency
Summary
A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featured bipartisan praise for the Freedom of Information Act but focused on record request volumes, persistent backlogs, and proposals ranging from stronger affirmative disclosure rules to new enforcement tools and expanded use of technology.
Chairman Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member Dick Durbin and three witnesses told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Freedom of Information Act remains essential but strained by record volumes, staffing cuts and agency resistance.
Grassley opened the hearing by framing FOIA as “a critical tool that Americans use to keep our government transparent and accountable,” and said the committee has a continuing role in updating the law for a digital era. Durbin stressed FOIA’s role in oversight amid what he described as an atmosphere of public distrust and personnel changes he said have weakened agencies’ FOIA responses.
The hearing’s three expert witnesses — Daniel Epstein, an associate professor of law at St. Thomas University and vice president at America First Legal; Margaret Kwoka, Professor of Law at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law; and Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project — offered overlapping diagnoses and distinct reforms.
Kwoka rec…
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