The Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved the FOIA Improvement Act.
The bill had a leg up in the bipartisanship department— it was co-authored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), former chairman and current ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and current committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is an original co-sponsor of the bill.
The bill, a version of which was introduced in the last Congress, was reintroduced earlier this week. It would require a "presumption of openness" when considering the release of government information to journalists and the public under the FOIA and addresses the overuse of exemptions that allow government agencies to withhold information. It also puts more teeth in the Office of Government Information Services, which was created by the Leahy-Cornwyn OPEN Government Act in 2007.
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