On the recordMay 5, 2010
I commend the Senate in promptly passing the Leahy-Cornyn Faster FOIA Act of 2010--an important measure to improve the administration of the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA. This bill will establish a bipartisan commission to examine the root causes of agency FOIA delays and to recommend to the Congress and the President steps to help eliminate FOIA backlogs. Senator Cornyn and I first introduced this bill in 2005 to address the growing problem of excessive FOIA delays within our Federal agencies. In the 5 years since, we have successfully worked together to reinvigorate FOIA through several other legislative initiatives. I thank Senator Cornyn for his work on this bill and for his leadership on this issue. I also thank Senators Feingold, Whitehouse and Klobuchar, who have cosponsored this bill. We have also worked with Senator Grassley and Senator Sessions to make further improvements. The Obama administration has also made significant progress in improving the FOIA process. In March, the administration announced that the number of overdue FOIA cases fell by 50 percent governmentwide during the past year. This is good news. But large FOIA backlogs remain a major roadblock to public access to information.
