Utility ELG Data Suit Spurs Competing Claims On Adverse FOIA Precedent

摘要

A federal appeals court is weighing final briefs in environmentalists' suit testing whether data for EPA's power plant effluent rale is "confidential" under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), spurring competing claims between EPA and environmentalists over the adverse FOIA precedent the case could set. The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and other environmentalists that filed the suit claim that if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit backs EPA's broad application of FOIA's "Exemption 4" for confidential material the groups are seeking, it will broadly undermine public access to pollution data.