The Department of Energy says it’s being inundated with requests under the Freedom of Information Act from “vexatious requesters and automated bots” and is working to lighten its load by closing some cases.
A staff-strapped DOE is slated to receive 5,000 FOIA requests from members of the public and bots that “barely respond to DOE inquiries to reformulate non-confirming requests, and contribute to processing bottlenecks,” according to a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday.
To boost efficiency, DOE requesters must tell the agency that they remain interested by Sept. 15 for any request filed before Oct. 1, 2024. If not, DOE said the request — excluding those tied to National Nuclear Security Administration, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or DOE field sites — will no longer be processed. Anyone who “submitted a FOIA request to DOE HQ at any time prior to October 1, 2024 (FY25), that is still open and is not under active litigation” should send a message to a newly established email address “to continue processing of the FOIA request,” the notice says.
“DOE’s incoming FOIA requests have more than tripled in the past four years, with over 4,000 requests received in FY24, and an expected 5,000 or more requests in FY25,” wrote Treena Garrett, the agency’s Federal Register liaison officer. “DOE has limited resources to process the burgeoning number of FOIA requests.”
