Public Comments Posted by Cindy Cafaro, Chief of Policy & Operational Support Team, Departmental FOIA Office, Department of the Interior

The draft model determination letter proposal seeks to reduce the
number of FOIA appeals submitted to the federal government by requiring
agencies to provide FOIA requesters with extensive information about the
agency's search process at the determination letter stage.  We are concerned
both about the premise and the practical impact of this proposal.  At the
Department of the Interior (DOI), we do not see a meaningful causal
relationship between the number of FOIA appeals we receive each year and the
scope of information we routinely provide to requesters about our search
processes.  Indeed, most of our appeals (78% in the last fiscal year) are not
related to search issues.  Moreover, DOI, like many federal agencies, is
working to reduce its FOIA processing backlog.  Requiring FOIA staff to
include extensive  information about the search process in our determination
letters would add to their workload and likely increase our processing
backlog.  This would likely result in additional delays for many FOIA
requesters while benefiting, at best, a small subset of potential appellants.