Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, noted during the hearing that the number of FOIA requests filed in fiscal year 2024 surpassed 1.5 million — a 25% increase from FY 2023. The number of processed public records requests during the same period was just under 1.5 million, although that figure also included requests from previous years.
“In our digital era, the government must adapt to serve its citizens — especially when it comes to transparency, Grassley said. “This is especially important given the volume of requests we’re starting to see.”
Grassley referenced a March 2024 Government Accountability Office report, which found that governmentwide backlogs of FOIA requests had increased over the past decade. While the watchdog cited staffing shortages and increasingly complex requests as some of the contributing factors to the longer wait times, the use of outdated and limited technologies was also identified as a major barrier to streamlining the overall FOIA process.
GAO wrote that federal officials interviewed for the report said technology enhancements, in part, “can allow agencies to ensure that component FOIA offices are using the same systems, which can streamline coordination and document reviews across an agency.”
To address the often slow pace for processing FOIA requests that agencies deem complex, Mike Howell — executive director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project — said the government should “lean i ..
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