Today, we sent a letter to the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) to ask for mediation services to force the U.S. Coast Guard’s to comply with our lawful records requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
OGIS, which is the federal government’s FOIA Ombudsman, harshly criticized the Coast Guard in a September 2015 report on FOIA compliance. But the Coast Guard appears to have learned little from the OGIS report over the past year.
We hope OGIS will help us to obtain answers about the creation of the taxpayer-funded Atlantic Coast Port Access Route Study (ACPARS), released on March 11, 2016.
ACPARS appears to have been improperly influenced by the shipping industry in contravention to guidance from President Obama. Our FOIA requests and appeals are embedded in the letter that you can read below. If the Coast Guard’s study becomes policy, we believe it will block the widespread development of offshore wind energy in the U.S.
To read the entire request for mediation, click on the image above or HERE.
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Evlondo Cooper is a senior fellow with Checks and Balances Project, a national watchdog blog that seeks to hold government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP comes from sustainable economy philanthropies and donors.
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