Case Detail
Case Title | COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE v. OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
District | District of Columbia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
City | Washington, DC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Case Number | 1:2014cv01806 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date Filed | 2014-10-29 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date Closed | 2016-10-11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Judge | Judge Amit P. Mehta | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Plaintiff | COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Case Description | The Competitive Enterprise Institute submitted a FOIA request to the Office of Science and Technology Policy for records concerning its decision finding that statements made by two OSTP staffers on its website were the personal opinions of the authors and not subject to amendment under the Data Quality Act. The agency indicated that it had located 11 pages and withheld parts under Exemption 5 (privileges) and Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy). CEI appealed and the agency agreed to do another search, although a second search did not locate any other new records. CEI then filed suit. Complaint issues: Adequacy - Search, Exemption 5 - Privileges, Exemption 6 - Invasion of privacy, Litigation - Attorney's fees | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Defendant | OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Documents | Docket Complaint Complaint attachment 1 Complaint attachment 2 Complaint attachment 3 Complaint attachment 4 Opinion/Order [16] FOIA Project Annotation: The Supreme Court's decision in Dept of Interior v. Klamath Water Users Protective Association, 532 U.S. 1 (2001), in which the Court ruled that parties who had interests separate to those of the agency did not qualify for protection under the deliberative process privilege, has left the government's ability to claim the consultant's privilege�"when the agency uses third parties as de facto agency advisors�"unsettled. Part of the post-Klamath litigation on extending privileges to third parties has focused on the common interest doctrine. But in a recent ruling exploring the reach of the consultant's privilege, Judge Amit Mehta has found that the Office of Science and Technology Policy waived the deliberative process privilege when agency director John Holdren shared portions of a draft letter with University of Rutgers Professor Jennifer Francis. The case involved a complaint filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute under the Information Quality Act challenging an agency video featuring Holdren in which he suggested that there was a growing body of evidence linking the weather phenomenon known as the "Polar Vortex" with global warming. A follow-up blog post by agency web editor Becky Fried featured the video and again made a link between recent cold weather and greenhouse-gas pollution. CEI challenged the accuracy of those statements and cited to a number of studies refuting and criticizing Holdren's claim. Nearly six months later, the agency sent CEI a letter denying its request to correct the information, explaining that under the guidelines for the Information Quality Act it did not apply to personal opinions. CEI appealed the agency's decision, arguing that Holdren's and Fried's statements were facts and not opinion and thus fell under the Information Quality Act. OSTP General Counsel Rachael Leonard affirmed the agency's decision not to correct the information, noting that the legal definition of "information" did not include expert judgment and personal opinions and that, as a result, the agency was not required to correct the information. CEI then made a FOIA request for records about production of the video and the agency's decision that the statements were personal opinions and did not represent agency policy. The agency initially found 11 pages, withholding portions under Exemption 5 (privileges) and Exemption 6 (invasion of privacy). CEI appealed the adequacy of the agency's search and Leonard ordered a further search, which yielded another 47 pages of drafts of the letter, which she indicated were being withheld under Exemption 5. In response to CEI's subsequent suit, Leonard indicated that the 47 draft pages were the only drafts in existence and that they had been reviewed only by executive branch officials. But Mehta explained that "those [statements] were, in fact, incorrect. In truth, according to a supplemental declaration submitted by Leonard, OSTP staff consulted with Holdren after filing its summary judgment motion and learned that he 'had shared one version of the draft response letter with Dr. Jennifer Francis, a professor at Rutgers University. . ." The agency claimed the draft shared with Francis was protected by the consultant's privilege. Mehta first addressed whether the 47 pages of internal drafts of the letter were protected by the deliberative process privilege. He noted that both Russell v. Dept of Air Force, 682 F.2d 1045 (D.C. Cir. 1982), and Dudman Communications v. Dept of Air Force, 815 F.2d 1565 (D.C. Cir. 1987), dealing with requests for draft histories, supported the agency's claim. Finding that the 47 pages of drafts were protected by the deliberative process privilege, Mehta pointed out that "the drafts plainly were predecisional�"they preceded in time the final version of the OSTP Letter. And they were deliberative�"they reflect the opinions, reactions, and comments of OSTP employees to the OSTP Letter. Moreover, the same concerns over disclosure that animated Russell and Dudman�"stifling creative thinking, confusing the public, and 'disrobing the agency decision maker's judgment'�"apply equally here. Court-ordered disclosure of the 47 pages unquestionably would have a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas and viewpoints that the deliberative process privilege is meant to encourage and protect." CEI argued that the drafts were not privileged because they did not deal with a policy matter. Mehta disagreed, noting that "the drafts at issue here are not 'merely peripheral' to a legal or policy matter. On the contrary, they relate directly to a legal matter. The OSTP Letter expresses OSTP's legal position on whether the Information Quality Act and implementing guidelines required it to correct statements made in the Polar Vortex video and in the related blog post." He added that "although the agency came to the conclusion that the views expressed by Holdren and Fried were expressions of their personal opinions rather than of agency policy, the process by which the agency arrived at that legal conclusion is protected." He also rejected CEI's claim that factual material could be disclosed. He pointed out that "the deliberative process privilege protects not only the content of drafts, but also the drafting process itself. . .Any effort to segregate the 'factual' portions of the drafts, as distinct from their 'deliberative' portions, would run the risk of revealing 'editorial judgments�"for example, decisions to insert or delete material or to change a draft's focus or emphasis.' Such differences easily could be discerned by comparing the final letter with an earlier version." Mehta found, however, that the draft shared with Francis, who CEI alleged was the primary academic champion of climate change, did not qualify under the consultant's privilege because of her own self-interest. He explained that "whether a person is self-interested in a particular situation is not a binary question. Rather, self-interest exists on a spectrum, with altruism at one end and greed or avarice on the other. The point at which selflessness passes into self-interest is not demarcated by a bright line. Here, OSTP offers little more than bald assertions to support Dr. Francis' purported lack of self-interest in commenting on the OSTP Letter." Mehta observed that the agency "offers [little] detail about the 'consultancy' that Dr. Francis provided to Holdren. [The agency] does not explain why Holdren needed to confer with Dr. Francis about the OSTP Letter; to what portions of the letter Dr. Francis contributed her 'technical science' expertise about the Polar Vortex; or to what extent Dr. Francis has conferred with Holdren and OSTP in the past about scientific or other issues." CEI, in contrast, portrayed Francis as the leading academic proponent of climate change. Reciting CEI's allegations, Mehta noted that "none of the foregoing should be interpreted as a criticism of Dr. Francis. Nor should it be interpreted as the court taking a position in the debate that her theory has provoked. That is not the court's purpose. Rather, the court recites the foregoing because it clearly shows that, at a minimum, Dr. Francis had a professional and reputational stake in OSTP's decision to reject Plaintiff's request to correct Holdren's and Fried's statements, which endorsed her climate theory. A government consultant, of course, is permitted to have a point of view. But here, Dr. Francis cannot be likened to a government employee whose 'only obligations are to truth and its sense of what good judgment calls for.' A decision by OSTP to correct Holdren's and Fried's statements would have been contrary to Dr. Francis' self-interest." Assessing the reasons why Holdren sought advice from Francis, Mehta observed that "Dr. Francis did not deliver her advice in this case to assist OSTP with forming a policy position in the claimed connection between the Polar Vortex and global warming. Instead, the letter Dr. Francis reviewed concerned OSTP's legal response to a demand for correction made under the Information Quality Act. Indeed, having carefully read the final OSTP letter, the court is left wondering what aspect of the draft letter required Dr. Francis' expertise either on climate science generally or the Polar Vortex in particular." The agency had also withheld emails about the agency's production of the video. Mehta pointed out that "the video, and the withheld communications about it, do not concern an OSTP policy position. Rather, when OSTP rejected Plaintiff's request for correction, it explained that the video's statements were 'an expression of Dr. Holdren's personal opinion.' If the video was an expression only of Holdren's personal opinion, then it follows that internal communications about the video cannot be part of a process of formulating agency policy."
Opinion/Order [27]Issues: Exemption 5 - Privileges - Deliberative process privilege - Deliberative, Exemption 5 - Consultant privilege FOIA Project Annotation: Noting that discovery is considered rare in FOIA cases, Judge Amit Mehta has granted limited discovery to the Competitive Enterprise Institute in its FOIA litigation against the Office of Science and Technology Policy because the agency's claims that it had found all draft copies of an OSTP letter denying CEI's request that the agency remove a blog post on its website supporting the existence of climate change under the Information Quality Act had already been proven incorrect on three occasions. The agency's denial letter was a legal analysis of the agency's obligations under the Information Quality Act. In responding to CEI's FOIA request, the agency located 47 draft pages, which it claimed represented all existing drafts, which it withheld under Exemption 5 (privileges). But after CEI filed suit, the agency discovered another draft that John Holdren, the head of OSTP, had sent to Jennifer Francis, a professor at Rutgers University, which was in the form of a literature review rather than a legal analysis. Mehta had previously ruled that the Francis draft was not privileged because it was shared with an outside party. In responding to Mehta's order to disclose the Francis draft, the agency discovered two more drafts Holdren had sent, one to another academic, and one to the Senior Science Analyst at the agency. Mehta learned from public sources that the agency had disclosed the two further drafts to CEI, at which time he ordered the agency to show cause why he should not reconsider granting discovery. After searching Holdren's email account and work computer documents, the agency found 10 drafts similar to those sent to Francis. By this time, Mehta apparently had had enough. He noted that "Defendant's representations that it conducted a reasonable search designed to locate all relevant documents has proven to be inaccurate time and again. Although Defendant has candidly acknowledged and apologized for the flaws in its search efforts, which the court appreciates, those expressions of regret come too late." The agency argued that FOIA searches were not required to be either perfect or exhaustive. Mehta observed that "the court does not take issue with those statements. But at some point the government's inconsistent representations about the scope and completeness of its searches must give way to the truth-seeking function of the adversarial process, including the tools available through discovery. This case has crossed that threshold."
Issues: Litigation - Discovery, Adequacy - Search | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
User-contributed Documents | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Docket Events (Hide) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|