Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sued by watchdog group for allegedly dodging FOIA request
- May 23, 2022
Juliette Fairley, Legal Newsline
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was sued by a watchdog group last week for allegedly dodging a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking information about ethics waivers and impartiality decisions.
“What was surprising is that we had sent the request to the contact they provided on their website to submit the requests and nine months later, they still claim they never got it,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT).
After PPT filed the original request in early June 2021, the nonprofit attempted to contact FERC to check on the status at least three times over the next several months, according to Chamberlain.
“We don’t know exactly what happened in this case, but as a hypothetical, the agencies can’t be allowed to just ignore FOIA requests,” Chamberlain told Legal Newsline.