Journalists critical of President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are on the cusp of breaking the record for most Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed in a fiscal year.
Reporters have filed about 10,970 FOIA requests against the agency, with several weeks remaining in the fiscal year. The current record number of files in a full year was 11,820 in Fiscal Year 2007.
Most of the requests are overly broad, according to an Tuesday analysis from The Washington Examiner. One particular example is from New York Times reporter Eric Lipton, who is seeking any correspondence that includes his name.
Lipton was the subject of withering criticism from the EPA in August after TheNYT reported that the agency supposedly rejected research showing the harmful effects from the pesticide chlorpyrifos.
TheNYT reported “false facts” about EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s decision in March not to ban chlorpyrifos, the agency noted in an August press statement. The agency claimed that Lipton withheld information from an Aug. 18 article showing that an appeals court upheld the EPA’s ruling.
It is not clear whether Lipton filed his FOIA requests because of the criticism or if they were filed beforehand.
In another example, the Associated Press requested troves of emails between Breitbart reporter Matthew Boyle and agency officials, and the AP wants them produced for free because “the documents are requested in the public interest.”
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