Veto Threats Hang Over House FOIA Bills
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 14, 2007
Filed at 5:52 p.m. ET
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Open-government bills sped to House passage Wednesday as Democrats pushed to make the president and his executive branch more forthcoming about their actions. The White House struck back with veto threats.
Aided by substantial Republican support, the Democrats approved legislation to force government agencies to be more responsive to the millions of Freedom of Information Act requests for public documents they receive every year.
The House also easily passed bills to require donors to presidential libraries to identify themselves -- an issue as President Bush prepares for his own library -- and to reverse a 2001 Bush decision making it easier for presidents to keep their records from public scrutiny.
The White House, citing the president's constitutional prerogatives, warned that the presidential records bill would be vetoed if it reached his desk. The White House threatened to veto a separate bill, to better protect government whistle-blowers, that was being considered Wednesday.
The votes were 390-34 on the presidential library bill; 333-93 on the presidential records bill; and 308-117 on the FOIA legislation.
Those three bills and the whistle-blower bill are part of the media-led Sunshine Week. Democrats are using the annual event to highlight what they say is a disturbing level of secrecy in the Bush administration.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, heard testimony on a parallel FOIA bill. Introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, it would improve administration of the law and penalize agencies that fail to comply in a timely fashion.
Media representatives said seven agencies have gone more than a decade without responding to some requests for information under the law. They endorsed the bill's penalties, its provisions to allow people to track the progress of their requests and its plan to repay attorney fees in successful suits for records that were denied.
Tom Curley, president and chief executive of The Associated Press and a member of the media Sunshine in Government Initiative, said AP's legal battles to get information about suspected terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had cost ''well into six figures,'' but the Pentagon proposed to reimburse only $11,000. Under current law, he said, ''We'll have to sue again to get a higher, fairer number.''
The House bill goes a step further than the Senate version in restoring a ''presumption of disclosure'' standard. That would oblige agencies to release requested information unless there is a finding that such a disclosure could do harm.
The requirement would overturn a memo by former Attorney General John Ashcroft after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, advising against the release of information when there was uncertainty over security or law enforcement exemptions.
The White House said in a statement it strongly opposed the House provision, contending it would upset the balance between the public's right to know and the need to safeguard certain information.
The statement said the administration was against the bill because it was ''premature and counterproductive'' to legislate new requirements on federal agencies before they have a chance to put in place changes the president previously outlined.
The 40-year-old FOIA law was a promise that people could find out what their government was doing ''in all but a few kinds of highly sensitive or confidential matters,'' Curley said. ''The law does back them. But in many cases the government doesn't back the law.''
Democrats claimed that situation has worsened under this administration.
''For the past six years, we have had an administration that has tried to operate in secrecy, without transparency, without the public having knowledge about their action,'' said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. ''Well, this week, Congress is finally pushing back.''
Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office, said the FOIA bill was needed because ''this has been the most secretive administration since the Nixon years. ... It is too easy for the government to defy requests for information it is obligated to turn over.''
The presidential records measure would rescind Bush's 2001 executive order giving current and former presidents and vice presidents authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely.
The act was passed after Watergate ''to underscore the fact that presidential records belong to the American people, not to the president,'' Waxman said. The presidential directive, he said, ''undermines the entire purpose'' of the act.
Sunshine Week, March 11-17, is a three-year-old national initiative led by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It is intended to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others.
The Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday also took up an open-government issue, a bill that would force Senate campaign finance reports to be filed electronically rather than in paper format. House and presidential candidates file electronically, and ''there is no excuse for keeping our own campaign finance information inaccessible to the public,'' said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.
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Associated Press writer Michael J. Sniffen contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Information on the House bills -- H.R. 1309 (FOIA); H.R. 1254 (libraries); H.R. 1255 (presidential records); and H.R. 985 (whistle-blowers): oversight.house.gov
Information on the Senate bill, S. 849, can be found at thomas.loc.gov
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press |
