Experts testified last month at a subcommittee hearing of the House Government Reform Committee that agencies still have a long way to go toward improving their handling of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Their testimony, along with troubling findings from a congressional report on FOIA, may help move reform legislation forward.

The Subcommittee on Government Management of the House Government Reform Committee held a hearing on July 26 on improvements to FOIA processes. Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) testified at the hearing, Implementing FOIA-- Does the Bush Administration's Executive Order Improve Processing?, continuing their call for legislation to build on Executive Order 13392, "Improving Agency Disclosure of Information."

The hearing focused on agency improvement plans required by the executive order, which were released earlier in July. Responding to increasing public scrutiny of FOIA problems, Executive Order 13392 required agencies to develop plans to improve FOIA procedures, reduce backlogs, and increase public access to highly sought-after government information.

Despite the executive order, implementation of FOIA continues to be plagued by a number of problems, according to those who testified. "This month as we mark the 40th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act, the current ebb tide of public access to government information has been especially severe. After four decades, FOIA--a bulwark of open government--is under a targeted assault," Leahy testified.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) called attention to a report from OpenTheGovernment.org on the FOIA improvement plans that, according to Sherman, "paints a bleak and very different picture of agency compliance with the executive order." Patrice McDermott, the report's author and director of OpenTheGovernmment.org, confirmed Sherman's observation testifying that "of the 459 possible scores assigned by the reviewers, only 14 were 'good.'"

The hearing was also an occasion for the release of a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on FOIA procedures and agency improvement plans.

"Despite processing more requests, agencies have not kept up with the increase in requests being made," according to the report. Increasing backlogs of unprocessed requests are cited as a major problem by the report, which found that "the number of pending requests carried over from year to year has been steadily increasing, rising to about 200,000 in fiscal year 2005--43 percent more than in 2002."

Tonda Rush of the National Newspaper Association testified that the executive order does not go far enough: "It fails to address some of the most pressing problems facing FOIA today, such as the lack of alternatives to litigation to resolve disputes, the lack of incentives to speed processing, and excessive litigation costs caused by unwarranted denials."

Leahy and Sherman made strong cases for FOIA legislation to improve the current law's implementation and to remedy problems beyond the scope of Executive Order 13392. In February 2005, Cornyn and Leahy introduced the Openness Promotes Effectiveness in Our National (OPEN) Government Act of 2005 (S. 394), aimed at strengthening FOIA. Then in March 2005, Cornyn and Leahy introduced a second bill, the Faster FOIA Act of 2005, to establish a commission to study backlog problems and possible improvements of agency procedures. Similar bills, the OPEN Government Act (H.R. 867) and Faster FOIA Act (H.R. 1620), have been offered in the House by Reps. Sherman and Lamar Smith (R-TX).

The hearing and the new GAO report may provide the needed momentum for Congress to take action on FOIA. "No generation can afford to take these protections for granted," stated Leahy, "and it should be the goal of each generation of Americans to hand over to the next the legacy of a stronger and more vibrant FOIA than the one we inherited."