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Update 5/19/06

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Update 5/19/06

 

First, the good news – yes, there is some for a change. Then several alerts.

The WMD exemption. The Intelligence Committees in the House and in the Senate struck language, initiated by the Defense Department, that would have created a new FOIA exemption for any information loosely related to weapons of mass destruction and their possible targets. A substitute provision was inserted in the Senate bill, S 2507, which would allow the Defense Department to share sensitive or proprietary information with other federal agencies and with state and local officials without ceding the right to withhold it under FOIA.

Toxic Release Inventory. Along with the Society of Environmental Journalists, we supported an amendment to the Interior Appropriations Bill offered by Reps. Frank Pallone, D-NJ, and Hilda Solis, D-CA., prevents the EPA from rolling back reporting requirements to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program for at least another year. It was approved 231-187.

Intelligence Hearing on Leaks. The House Intelligence Committee, which has had two hearings on preventing leaks of intelligence information, will hold a third, public hearing on Friday, May 26. The focus will be on media reporting of sensitive information, and the discussion is likely to be contentious. One of the lead majority witnesses will be Gabriel Shoenfeld, who argued in a March article in Commentary that journalists could and should be prosecuted for publishing classified information. A memo the hearing from Rick Blum, the new SGI coordinator, is attached.

Wastewater Treatment Happens. Sen. James Inhofe, R-OK., has introduced a very, very bad bill that would give wastewater treatment plants a pass on accountability in developing vulnerability assessments. It creates a statutory exemption for that information from FOIA for virtually all hazard and safety related information if included in those assessments, then expands that to override state and local public records law. But it doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t even require the operators to file those vulnerability reports with the federal government. A Homeland Security administrator can inspect, but not copy, the assessments. Attached is a draft of a letter we’ll be sending to the committee, which is scheduled to markup the bill next week. Please let me know by 3 p.m. Monday if your organization will sign on.

Seaport Security. Senate Bill 2459 and House Bill 4954 dealing with seaport security contain similar provisions that would create a new statutory exemption from FOIA for information provided to the Department of Homeland Security on incoming cargo. It’s designed to assure shippers that proprietary information won’t be shared with competitors but the language is broad enough to allow port officials to keep a wider range of security information from the public, including whether hazardous cargo is coming in and out of a seaport. We’ve objected, noting there’s an existing exemption for proprietary information if that is indeed the issue. A list of talking points prepared by SGI is attached.

Please share the information on the hearing and the two bills with your members and to encourage them to contact me if they’d like more information. The more attention these get, and the more questions raised, the better.

Pete Weitzel