WOC Settles Freedom of Information Lawsuit

by Nancy Debevoise

In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by WOC in September 1998, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has announced that it will begin publishing its administrative decisions and legal orders on the World Wide Web on January 1, 2000.

As we reported in the Spring 1999 edition of Frontline,the U.S. Forest Service, which WOC also sued, agreed almost immediately to make its final administrative appeal decisions available on the Web. The agency has been publishing these decisions since June on its web site (www.fs.fed.us/forests).

However, the DOI had argued that it was not required to publish electronic versions of its decisions, since citizens could buy the documents from commercial providers and a government subscription service.

"To this day," said WOC executive director Dan Heilig, "I cannot understand why the Interior Department objected so strenuously to publishing its decisions on the Web. Its responsibility to do so is clearly defined in the Electronic Freedom of Information Act and is consistent with the Administration’s policy of making government information more accessible to citizens."

Nonetheless, Heilig was pleased with the outcome of the case. "Now every American will have easy and affordable access to decisions and policies that affect hundreds of millions of acres of public lands and mineral resources spread across the United States," he said.

The agreement is particularly important given the DOI’s responsibilities for managing public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Interior Board of Land Appeals, the Interior Board of Indian Appeals and the National Park Service.

Heilig noted that the BLM is responsible for managing 264 million acres of land — about one-eighth of the land in the United States — and another 300 million acres of subsurface mineral resources. In Wyoming alone, BLM manages more than 18 million acres of land and an additional 11 million acres of federal minerals. "Now, for the first time," said Heilig, "ordinary citizens will be able to track — and closely monitor — the internal policies and decisions that guide our federal land managers."

The Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA) decides cases for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which administers federal treaty and trust obligations to Indians and Indian tribes. The agreement to publish IBIA decisions came shortly after a Lander-based law firm, Baldwin & Crocker, joined WOC’s lawsuit as a co-plaintiff.

Berthenia Crocker, a partner in the firm, praised DOI’s agreement to publish IBIA decisions. "The people of the Wind River Reservation have to deal with an additional layer of bureaucracy in the conduct of their daily lives not experienced by non-Indians," she said. "Electronic access to the rulings of remote decisionmakers is a great benefit to many Indian people in Wyoming, as well as to the Tribes of the Wind River Reservation, since decisions by the Bureau of Indian Affairs directly affect their lives and livelihoods."