A federal judge has sided with a nuclear watchdog group that sued the federal government over access to site plans for Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico wanted the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration to turn over plans for the years 2003 through 2006. The Santa Fe group had requested the information under the federal Freedom of Information Act, but it took more than 17 months for the information to be released.
The group, in its complaint, accused NNSA of a “pattern and practice of unlawfully withholding agency records.”
Tracy Loughead, a spokeswoman for NNSA in Albuquerque, declined to comment Thursday.
The agency argued such plans contain important information on the direction of the federal nuclear weapons lab, and the documents had to be reviewed at several levels before they could be released, resulting in the delay.
U.S. District Judge Bruce Black ruled the agency offered no rationale for its multilayered, cross-country review process or the resulting delay. He noted the Freedom of Information Act requires agencies to respond to requests for information within 20 days, and 10-day extensions are allowed when there are unusual circumstances.
“This makes a mockery of the 20-day target set by the act and violates congressional intent,” Black wrote in an 11-page order dated Sept. 19.
The case is not over, however. Black said further hearings would be scheduled to address remedies of the FOIA violation as well as Nuclear Watch’s complaints about information that was blacked out from documents released by the agency.
Richard Mietz, an attorney for Nuclear Watch, said the ruling is a vindication of the group’s right to a timely response under the law.
Nuclear Watch executive director Jay Coghlan said his group looks forward to “real remedies that require prompt disclosure of information under citizens’ right to know.”
