CPSC FoIA Grants Plummet in FY2025 but Due to Filer Errors

Submitters' errors or similar issues were behind a nearly 60% drop in FY2025 of CPSC's full grants of Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) requests. The difference was 136 in FY2024 vs 55 in FY2025. A smaller decline occurred with partial grants at 168 vs 134.

The biggest changes involved three non-exemption reasons for full denials. In 94 cases in FY2025 the requesters could not be located or contacted. That number was just 14 in FY2024. FY2025 had 63 cases of inadequate descriptions of records while FY2024 had 20. Also totaling 63 in FY2025 were voluntary withdrawals compared to 15 in FY2024.

Differences were not due to request numbers as the two years had similar flows. FY2024 started with 276 pending requests; 783 came in; CPSC processed 701; and the end tally was 358. FY2025 started with 358; 702 came in; CPSC processed 735; and the end was 325.

Other non-exemption reasons for fully denied requests in FY2025 were no records (132), not CPSC record (47), referral to other agency (33), duplicate request (9), improper request (9), and fee issues (1).

FY2025 denials under exemption in the law, according to the report (bit.ly/4rb7IHc) available February 27, involved:

• Release prohibited by other law (exemption 3): 60.
• Confidential business information (exemption 4): 22.
• Inter/intra-agency communication (exemption 5): 55.
• Disclosure would invade privacy (exemption 6): 127.
• Enforcement interference (exemption 7(a)): 77.
• Law enforcement techniques (exemption 7(e)): 10.

Those numbers were for both full and partial denials, and more than one exemption might have applied to a request.

Also in FY205, CPSC processed 18 FoIA appeals. It fully denied nine, partially granted/denied five, fully granted two, and closed two as improper appeals.

Non-exemption reasons for denials were no records (4), referral to other agency (2), and not CPSC record (1).

Exemption reasons were prohibited release (3), business information (1), agency communications (1), enforcement interference (2), and law enforcement techniques (1).