By: E&P Staff A proposed new federal agency to strengthen U.S. defenses against natural or man-made disease outbreaks would be the first-ever government operation given a blanket exemption from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) warns.
The Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act introduced this fall by Sen. Richard Burr (R.-N.C.) would create the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency that would not be subject to FOIA, or the openness provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and its openness provisions, or "to large portions of the Federal Acquisition Regulations," RCFP said.
"No federal agency has been given a blanket exclusion from Freedom of Information requirements in the 40-year history of the act," the group said. "Even routine administrative details such as official travel expenses and costs of office furniture would be withheld under this measure."
Barr's proposal would allow public disclosure of information only when a "need to know" is proven, RCFP said. It added that even then, both the agency's director and the Secretary of Health and Human Services would have to agree that making any information public would not "threaten national security."
"It is frightening that senators would believe that secrecy in matters of health will make us safe, and very disheartening that they would be so willing so quickly to dismiss the importance of open government laws," RCFP Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish said in a prepared statement.
RCFP said it "deplores the effort ... to create a federal agency immune from public oversight and the unfathomable failure of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to consider Freedom of Information principles in endorsing this bill."
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