Posted on 03/02/2015 2:18:43 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
A federal judge has blasted the Environmental Protection Agency for badly botching its response to a conservative group’s Freedom of Information Act request, but ultimately declined to punish the agency for its conduct.
In an opinion issued Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth delivered a brutal tongue-lashing to the EPA over its handling of a request from Landmark Legal Foundation about possible delays in regulations prior to the 2012 elections.
The case helped expose that former EPA Administration Lisa Jackson had a semi-secret internal email account under the fake name Richard Windsor.
“Thirty months after Landmark’s initial FOIA request, it remains unclear to this Court whether EPA undertook a comprehensive search of either official or personal email accounts belonging to the agency’s senior leadership,” Lamberth wrote. “While the existing record in this case does not support a holding that EPA acted in bad faith, it is obvious to this Court that EPA has, once again, fumbled its way through its legally unambiguous FOIA obligations.”
Landmark had asked Lamberth to impose sanctions on the agency and to imposed an independent monitor on its handling of FOIA requests. But the judge said the evidence fell short of proving that EPA officials intentionally destroyed records in order to evade the requirements of the disclosure law.
“After months of discovery pertaining to EPA’s search process, Landmark has uncovered insufficient evidence that EPA actually failed to preserve responsive documents in bad faith,” Lamberth wrote. “And without demonstrating that EPA spoliated documents with the culpable state of mind necessary for punitive sanctions, Landmark cannot ask the court to infer the relevance of any potentially missing documents.”
An EPA spokeswoman said that the agency welcomes the judge’s decision not to impose punishment in the case and that officials have been overhauling the agency’s FOIA system.
“We are pleased the court denied the motion for sanctions,” EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia said. “EPA is focused on creating more efficient work processes to ensure FOIAs responses are done more effectively and at a lower cost. That includes adopting industry concept and best practices into the delivery of information technology services in areas such as cloud computing, mobile technology and workplace standards.”
Lamberth, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, seemed to be fishing for a more direct apology from the EPA. He called one of the agency’s court filings “offensively unapologetic.”
“Despite admonitions from this Court and others … EPA continues to demonstrate a lack of respect for the FOIA process,” the judge wrote. “Neither EPA nor its counsel has offered Landmark or this Court any indication of regret…During what should be a concerted effort to reaffirm the public’s trust in the EPA, the agency’s general refusal to accept responsibility for its mistakes throughout this case is baffling.”
In the new ruling, Lamberth singled out specific EPA officials for criticism. He called a top FOIA official at EPA, Eric Wachter, “evasive and uninformed” about aspects of the agency’s handling of the request. The judge says another EPA official, Nena Shaw, was “surely negligent,” “at best….demonstrated utter indifference to EPA’s FOIA obligations” and “at worst….is lying.”
While not forcing any changes on the agency, the judge urged EPA to consider requiring employees to preserve work-related emails they received or sent from personal accounts on those accounts. At the moment, agency policy is that employees should forward such emails to official accounts, then delete them from the personal ones, he said.
Lamberth said keeping the emails in personal accounts, as well as forwarding them, would be a wise safeguard given indications that messages have been lost in the past.
Purchia did not respond to a request for comment on the judge's proposal.
I heard Levin discuss this the other day as a major victory. He said that it was related to a suit brought over the 2012 elections so it will probably not have a significant result, but if Levin is pleased, can’t be wrong.
This judge has always been in the pockets of Obama and Obama’s enablers.
In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Judge blasts, but won’t punish, EPA over FOIA failures, Regal wrote:
I heard Levin discuss this the other day as a major victory. He said that it was related to a suit brought over the 2012 elections so it will probably not have a significant result, but if Levin is pleased, can’t be wrong.
Landmark is Levin’s lawyers group which brought the suit. He has been discussing the case on todays show.
SE is tyranny.
I’m going with your first option......
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