Several federal agencies are running more than 15 years late on public record requests sent under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) when the first President Bush was still in office.

The Energy Department has the tardiest public record request, according to a review by The Hill of annual FOIA reports published by Cabinet-level agencies for the last fiscal year. It still has not answered one request from Dec. 6, 1991, although other departments are not far behind.

“Typically, when I file a request for information, I want it this week or this month, not 15 years from now,” said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. He said the decade-old requests are inconsistent with a law that is intended to get information to the public as quickly as possible.

Most FOIA requests are handled much more quickly by agencies, which in some cases are dealing with a significant workload. But the review shows some FOIA requests go unanswered for years, often because they are seen as touching on sensitive national security matters. A lack of resources and scant pressure from Congress in recent years are also seen as factors that have led to years-long FOIA waits.

The FOIA law signed by the president at the end of last year mandated that agencies report on their 10 oldest outstanding FOIA requests, something they had already been doing under a 2005 executive order issued by President George W. Bush. The new law is intended to make federal records more accessible, but it did not provide any new funds for agencies to deal with the requests.  

“Congress is very reluctant to spend money on anything lately. That is across the board,” said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel for the National Security Archive, a research institute that makes heavy use of FOIA.

The Department of Defense processed more than 58,000 requests in the last fiscal year, with a median response rate of 11 days. The Department of Energy (DOE) processed 3,578 requests and Treasury processed 986.

Both of Treasury’s and DOE’s oldest unanswered requests seem to be outliers; many of their 10 oldest unanswered requests date from the late 1990s. Eight of the oldest Defense requests, however, are still pending from 1992.

Some requests get bogged down because they are asking for secret information, one reason why many of the Defense requests have lagged for well over a decade, according to Fuchs. The CIA also has requests that have been pending for years. Its oldest request dates from May 1, 1992.

“Their requests are probably more difficult because they could contain classified information, and they are very protective of their information,” Fuchs said.

Telling requesters what information was redacted and why is a lengthy process, since FOIA exempts anything that falls under national security or commercial parameters from disclosure.

Fuchs said federal agencies are showing some improvement in answering their requests. Her organization conducted a more extensive audit of outstanding FOIA requests at 87 agencies, and released a report in July. It found requests dating back to 1987.

Aftergood said agencies should simply offer more of their information to the public, with or without requests. “They can reduce the demand on the FOIA process by opening up records before they are even requested,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was already saddled with late FOIA requests when it was created in 2003 to house 22 separate federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Transportation Security Administration.

“We inherited a lot of their problems that came with them, including their outstanding FOIA requests,” said Larry Orluskie, a DHS spokesman.

The department’s 10 oldest requests all date from before the department was formed.

It is unclear how long the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has gone in not answering FOIA requests because it still has not posted its annual FOIA report. Agencies are supposed to release their reports to the public by Feb. 1 under FOIA, but they sometimes run late, said Fuchs.

HUD spokeswoman Antoinette Perry-Banks said HUD’s annual report has not been cleared by the Department of Justice, but should be posted in the next couple of weeks to the department’s site.  

Several FOIA advocates said the law requiring agencies to list their 10 oldest requests will serve as an incentive to clear the backlog.

“It is embarrassing to have requests that are more than a few years old. It is a clever step,” Aftergood said. “The fact that some of the oldest requests are getting some attention is a good thing.”