Members of the FOIA Advisory Committee voted to approve two recommendations at their May 7, 2026, meeting. The two recommendations, regarding FOIA funding for federal agencies and FOIA-like disclosure for non-executive branch agencies, came from the Statutory Reform Subcommittee and are:
- Recommendation No. 2026-03: In its annual appropriation language to federal agencies, Congress should require federal agencies to fund their FOIA function at a level sufficient to enable them to fulfill their FOIA requests timely. In determining appropriate funding direction it would provide, Congress should consider an agency’s average workforce size, including any contract staff; changes in the volume and complexity of its requests over the past five years; its average backlog over the past five years; and its operational structure, among other influencing factors.
- Recommendation No. 2026-04: Congress should create new, FOIA-like disclosure laws to ensure public access to records controlled by legislative and judicial branch agencies.
The Statutory Reform Subcommittee also presented two additional recommendations for further review and discussion. The Committee will consider voting on these at its June 11, 2026, meeting.
- Proposed Recommendation SR-4: We recommend that Congress create a new Article III “FOIA Court” with specialized jurisdiction over FOIA claims.
- Proposed Recommendation SR-5: Congress should amend FOIA’s judicial-review provision in three ways:
1) To reaffirm the statute’s de novo standard;
2) To specify the remedial authority of the courts, including the power to order an agency to comply with its affirmative-disclosure obligations, provided that a requester has exhausted administrative remedies prior to filing suit; and
3) To reinforce that, for purposes of FOIA claims, a complainant’s injury-in-fact stems from an agency’s failure to comply with the statute.
The Implementation Subcommittee offered three recommendations for review and discussion. The Committee will consider voting on these at the June meeting.
- Proposed Recommendation I-1: To increase collaboration and connection among federal agency FOIA professionals, the Chief FOIA Officers Council’s Committee on Cross-Agency Collaboration and Innovation’s (COCACI) Resources Working Group, assisted by the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) and the Office of Information Policy (OIP), as appropriate, should establish a process for creating and maintaining small, self-governing cohorts of federal FOIA professionals interested in collaboration, support, and sharing of best practices.
- Proposed Recommendation I-2: In an effort to increase the awareness and adoption of FOIA Advisory Committee (FAC) Recommendations, the Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) should require status reporting from agencies on implementation of recommendations, either through questions in annual Chief FOIA Officer Reports or through another appropriate publicly available reporting mechanism.
- Proposed Recommendation I-3: To make recommendations more useful to agency FOIA professionals, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) should create a resource for agency use presenting FAC recommendations in an easy-to-access manner, enabling FOIA professionals to quickly identify actionable improvements to their FOIA programs.
Finally, the Volume and Frequency Subcommittee offered two recommendations for review and discussion after hearing the results of a survey conducted for the Committee by member Dr. Shelley Kimball of Johns Hopkins University earlier this year. The Committee will consider voting on these at the June meeting.
- Proposed Recommendation VF-1: Federal agencies should align current staffing levels to meet the increasing levels of FOIA demand by analyzing agency FOIA, Privacy Act, and appeal backlogs; the volume and complexity of incoming requests; and the processing capacity of employees against their assigned workloads. Specifically, agencies should staff their FOIA operations to eradicate any existing backlogs and ensure capacity for timely responses to incoming requests.
- Proposed Recommendation VF-2: The 2026 to 2028 FOIA Advisory Committee should leverage the survey and focus group data collected by the 2024 to 2026 term subcommittees to identify priority areas for improvements to the FOIA process, such as leveraging efficiencies within the software procurement processes, strengthening the culture of FOIA support within agencies, evaluating the potential for artificial intelligence to aid in response efficiencies, and modernizing the FOIA statute.
If you wish to submit a written public comment about any of these proposed recommendations, please visit this webpage for a link to the comments form and to read our posting policy.
The two approved recommendations bring to four the number of recommendations passed by this term of the Committee, which ends its work in July. If you wish to watch the May 7, 2026, Committee meeting, you may do so on the National Archives YouTube channel.
The next meeting of the FOIA Advisory Committee will be on Thursday, June 11 at 10:00 a.m. ET. Registration is available at: zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_wovn0drVTiGgMYwJXSc09w#/registration
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