Grant appellant’s appeal in part and deny it in part
Office of Hearings and Appeals
October 20, 2023
minute read time
On October 20, 2023, the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) granted in part and denied in part a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) appeal filed by Petty, Livingston, Dawson & Richards P .C. ( Appellant) concerning a request made to the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Public Information (OPI) and Office of Inspector General (OIG) for records related to reported misconduct by DOE employees, OIG's investigation of such reports, and mitigation plans related to a potential conflict of interest by DOE employees. OIG indicated that it was unable to locate responsive records related to portions of Appellant's FOIA request, and provided Glomar responses pursuant to Exemption 7 with respect to other portions of the request. OPI indicated that it was unable to locate responsive records. On appeal, Appellant alleged that OPI and OIG had not conducted adequate searches for responsive records and that OIG had not sufficiently justified its Glomar responses. OIG decided to conduct additional searches for records responsive to portions of Appellant's request. OHA determined that OIG had conducted adequate searches for the remaining portions of Appellant's request, and that it had sufficiently justified its Glomar responses. However, OHA determined that OPI had not referred the request to a DOE office reasonably likely to possess responsive records . Therefore, OHA dismissed as moot Appellant's appeal as it pertained to the portions of the request for which OIG had agreed to perform additional searches, granted Appellant's appeal as to the adequacy of OPI's search, denied the appeal in all other respects, and remanded the matter to OPI and OIG to conduct additional searches. (OHA Case No. FIA-24-0002)