Today Senators Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Jeffords (I-VT), Lieberman (D-CT) and Byrd (D-WV) introduced the “Restore Freedom of Information Act”. The new legislation, called “Restore FOIA” for short, proposes to fix troubling information provisions that were passed in the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The bill would clarify and narrow a broad FOIA exemption that was created for the Department of Homeland Security and would completely eliminate various provisions that seriously restrict the government’s ability to use information. OMB Watch along with almost 50 public interest groups including lawyers, reporters, librarians, environmentalists, and unions support these efforts to fix the information provisions in the Homeland Security Act and have signed a statement of support. The Homeland Security Act contains provisions intended to create an incentive for companies to “voluntarily” submit information about the vulnerabilities of “critical infrastructure.” However the law is too broad and vague in its language and goes too far creating overly restrictive provisions that will provide corporations immunity and prevent government from acting on the information to protect the public. OMB Watch consistently criticized and opposed the Critical Infrastructure Information provisions that passed in the Homeland Security. Among the problems:

• Uses vague terms such as “voluntary” and “information” which are overly broad and open to abuse.
• Restricts the government from acting on the information it receives.
• Grants corporations unprecedented civil immunity and creates new hurdles to enforcing the law.
• Preempts all state and local disclosure laws.
• Eliminates whistleblower protections by criminalizing the release of the information.

The Restore FOIA bill proposes to remove the entire subtitle containing these troubling and far-reaching provisions and replace them with bipartisan language that Sens. Leahy, Levin and others developed last year during negotiations on homeland security. Unfortunately during the lame duck session of Congress last year the bipartisan compromise was stripped out of the bill and the House language was enacted. The new Restore FOIA bill would:

• Limit the FOIA exemption to relevant “records” submitted by private entities, so that only those records that actually pertain to critical infrastructure safety are protected. “Records” is the standard category referred to in FOIA.
• Remove the restrictions on the government’s ability to use the information it receives, except to prohibit disclosure where such information is appropriately exempted under FOIA.
• Protect the actions of legitimate whistleblowers by removing the unnecessary criminal penalties.
• Respect, rather than preempt, state and local FOIA laws.

OMB Watch has detailed the differences on key issues between the current law and the Restore FOIA bill. OMB Watch believes the Restore FOIA bill not only restores the public’s right to know about the risks they face in their communities and workplaces, but it also restores the government’s ability to act on the public’s behalf when information cannot be made public.