NASA

CHIEF FOIA OFFICER REPORT

JANUARY 2016
National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

2016 Chief FOIA Officer Report

NASA Chief FOIA Officer

David Weaver

Associate Administrator for Communications 

Content of 2016 Chief FOIA Officer Reports (Low-Volume 

Agencies)

Name and Title of your Agency's Chief FOIA Officer:

Section I: Steps Taken to Apply the Presumption of Openness

FOIA Training:

1. Did your FOIA professionals or the personnel at your agency who have FOIA responsibilities attend any 

FOIA training or conference during the reporting period such as that provided by the Department of 

Justice?

 Such training or events can include offerings from OIP, your own agency or another agency or 

organization.

ANSWER: Yes. FOIA professionals attend monthly training through VITS.

2. Provide an estimate of the percentage of your FOIA professionals and staff with FOIA responsibilities 

who attended substantive FOIA training during this reporting period.

ANSWER: 100%

3. OIP has directed agencies to "take steps to ensure that all of their FOIA professionals attend 

substantive FOIA training at least once throughout the year." If your response to the previous question is 

that less than 80% of your FOIA professionals attended training, please explain your agency’s plan to 

ensure that all FOIA professionals receive or attend substantive FOIA training during the next reporting 

year.

Outreach:

OPTIONAL: Did your FOIA professionals engage in any outreach or dialogue with the requester 

community or open government groups regarding your administration of the FOIA?
 This question addresses outreach that is conducted outside of the individual request or appeal 

process. Outreach activities can include engaging with frequent requesters by holding meetings or 

events which include them, conducting surveys or otherwise soliciting requester feedback, or 

participating in any other requester initiative coordinated by your agency or by others, such as 

OIP.

 Example: An agency receives numerous requests from one organization seeking similar types of 

records. The organization does not know how the agency organizes its records or how its FOIA 

professionals must conduct searches. When submitting FOIA requests, the organization often 

submits broad requests that take a long time to process and that result in the review of a lot of 

records that are ultimately of no interest to the requester. The agency holds a meeting with the 

organization to discuss its record keeping system, search capabilities, and overall FOIA process to 

assist the organization in the formulation of future FOIA requests. Because of the meeting, the 

organization now submits more targeted requests that result in the agency being able to provide 

the requester the records it is interested in more quickly.

ANSWER: Yes. When appropriate, FOIA staff contact the requester/organization and explain the 

agency search capabilities as well as the requirement to maintain records.

Discretionary Releases:

4. Does your agency have a distinct process or system in place to review records for discretionary release?

 If so, please briefly describe this process.

ANSWER: Yes. NASA Center FOIA offices do consider discretionary release as 

appropriate. NASA FOIA Staff work with the program office to determine if the records 

in question can be released. 

 If your agency is decentralized, please specify whether all components of your agency have such a 

process or system in place?

ANSWER: All FOIA Office follow the same process, policy and guidance.

5. During the reporting period, did your agency make any discretionary releases of information?

ANSWER: No, the information requested was not suitable for discretionary release. 

Additionally, NASA releases as much information as possible.
6. What exemption(s) would have covered the material released as a matter of discretion? For a discussion 

of the exemptions that allow for discretionary releases, please see OIP’s guidance on implementing the 

President’s and Attorney General’s 2009 FOIA Memoranda.

ANSWER: N/A

7. Provide a narrative description, as well as some specific examples, of the types of information that your 

agency released as a matter of discretion during the reporting year.

ANSWER: N/A

8. If your agency was not able to make any discretionary releases of information, please explain why. or 

example, you should note here if your agency did not have an opportunity to make discretionary 

disclosures because you provided full releases in response to all requests or the only exemptions that were 

applied were those that do not lend themselves to discretionary release (i.e. Exemptions 1, 3, 4, 6, 7A, 7B, 

7C, 7F).

ANSWER: The information requested was not suitable for discretionary release. NASA 

releases as much information as possible. 

Other Initiatives:

9. If there are any other initiatives undertaken by your agency to ensure that the presumption of openness 

is being applied, please describe them here.

 If any of these initiatives are online, please provide links in your description.

ANSWER: NASA continues to have one of the top rated websites in the Federal 

Government due to the frequent updating of information that is of interest to the public. 

NASA also has multiple avenues for the public to acquire information of interest, which 

has helped to reduce the need to submit a FOIA request to the Agency.

Section II: Steps Taken to Ensure that Your Agency Has an Effective System in Place for 

Responding to Requests

The Attorney General’s 2009 FOIA Guidelines emphasized that "[a]pplication of the proper disclosure 

standard is only one part of ensuring transparency. Open government requires not just a presumption of 

disclosure, but also an effective system for responding to FOIA requests." It is essential that agencies 

effectively manage their FOIA program.

Please answer the following questions to describe the steps your agency has taken to ensure that the 

management of your FOIA program is effective and efficient. You should also include any additional 

information that that describes your agency's efforts in this area.

Processing Procedures:
1. For Fiscal Year 2015, what was the average number of days your agency reported for adjudicating 

requests for expedited processing? Please see Section VIII.A. of your agency's Fiscal Year 2015 Annual 

FOIA Report.

ANSWER: 2.9 days

 Please note here if your agency did not adjudicate any requests for expedited processing during 

Fiscal Year 2015.

2. If your agency's average number of days to adjudicate requests for expedited processing was above ten 

calendar days, please describe the steps your agency will take to ensure that requests for expedited 

processing are adjudicated within ten calendar days or less.

3. On July 2, 2015, OIP issued new guidance to agencies on the proper procedures to be used in the event 

an agency has a reason to inquire whether a requester is still interested in the processing of his or her 

request. Please confirm here that to the extent your agency may have had occasion to send a "still 

interested" inquiry, it has done so in accordance with the new guidelines for doing so, including affording 

requesters thirty working days to respond.

ANSWER: NASA does not have a need to send a ‘still interested’ inquiry to requesters. However, 

if it would become necessary, we would do so in compliance with OIP guidance.

Requester Services:

4. Agency FOIA Requester Service Centers and FOIA Public Liaisons serve as the face and voice of an 

agency. In this capacity they provide a very important service for requesters, informing them about how 

the FOIA process works and providing specific details on the handling of their individual requests. The 

FOIA also calls on agency FOIA Requester Service Centers and FOIA Public Liaisons to assist requesters 

in resolving disputes. Please explain here any steps your agency has taken to strengthen these services to 

better inform requesters about their requests and to prevent or resolve FOIA disputes.

 If your agency has not taken any steps recently to strengthen these services, either because there 

has been no need to due to low demand or because these services are already robust, please 

briefly explain that that here.

ANSWER: NASA FOIA staff regularly work with requesters to inform them of the FOIA process 

and how requests are handled. If the requester has additional questions/issues, they are put in 

contact with the Principal Agency FOIA Officer who will work with them to resolve any issues. 

Other Initiatives:
5. If there are any other steps your agency has undertaken to ensure that your FOIA system operates 

efficiently and effectively, such as conducting self-assessments to find greater efficiencies, improving 

search processes, eliminating redundancy, etc., please describe them here.

ANSWER: NASA FOIA staff participates in monthly VITS meetings to discuss 

processing issues, concerns, and any FOIA related questions. Although the FOIA 

program is decentralized, the Agency FOIA staff is unified, working closely together to 

improve the program and building a collaborative team across the Agency. They 

regularly consult one-another to discuss FOIA requests and processing techniques in 

order to provide a consistent approach to responses. The success of the team approach 

has helped to streamline many business processes and ultimately directly affected 

backlog, leading to the lowest backlog of record. NASA FOIA staff have recently begun 

holding VITS sessions with the FOIA attorneys to address concerns and updates in the 

law. 

Section III: Steps Taken to Increase Proactive Disclosures

Both the President’s and Attorney General’s FOIA memoranda focused on the need for agencies to work 

proactively to post information online without waiting for individual requests to be received.

Please answer the following questions to describe the steps your agency has taken to increase the amount 

of material that is available on your agency websites. In addition to the questions below, you should also 

describe any additional steps taken by your agency to make and improve proactive disclosures of 

information.

Posting Material:

1. Describe your agency's process or system for identifying "frequently requested" records required 

to be posted online under Subsection (a)(2) of the FOIA. For example, does your agency monitor 

its FOIA logs or is there some other system in place to identify these records for posting.

ANSWER: NASA offices post material that is of current public interest on the FOIA and

mission websites. Typically, FOIA offices post all contract documents that have been 

requested under the FOIA. In general, the FOIA offices post material that has been the 

subject of public interest or is anticipated to be of public interest regardless of the number of 

FOIA requests for the documents. The FOIA offices also work with the mission/program 

offices to identify documents that should be posted on both websites.

2. Does your agency have a distinct process or system in place to identify other records for proactive 

disclosure? If so, please describe your agency’s process or system.

 Please note that this question is directed towards proactive disclosure of records that go beyond 

frequently requested records required to be posted under Subsection (a)(2) of the FOIA.

ANSWER: NASA offices post material that is of current public interest on the program and 

mission websites. Generally, the offices post as much as possible to provide the public with 
information and provide awareness of the Agency programs and initiatives. Public interest is 

determined by the program offices coupled with agency initiatives; NASA has very robust 

websites and public outreach programs.

3. When making proactive disclosures of records, are your agency's FOIA professionals involved in coding 

the records for Section 508 compliance or otherwise preparing them for posting? If so, provide an 

estimate of how much time is involved for each of your FOIA professionals and your agency overall.

 Please note that this question is directed at the efforts of actually posting the records online once 

all disclosure determinations have been made. For example, efforts to load the records in your 

web content platform or making the releasable documents accessible in compliance with Section 

508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

ANSWER: Every NASA Center FOIA Office handles posting material differently. Some offices 

have the ability to convert records while others rely on the material to be converted by 

webmasters. It is impossible to ‘guesttimate’ the percentage of time involved in this process since 

we do not track the time it takes to convert the information.

4. Has your agency encountered challenges that make it difficult to post records you otherwise would like 

to post?

ANSWER: No.

5. If so, please briefly explain those challenges.

6. Provide examples of material that your agency has proactively disclosed during the past reporting year, 

including links to the posted material.

ANSWER: NASA proactively posts as much material as possible. If the public is interested in 

launch information, astronaut information, climate change, etc., all that information is located on 

the website and easily searchable at www.nasa.gov

7. Did your agency use any means to publicize or highlight important proactive disclosures for public 

awareness? If yes, please describe those efforts.

 For example, this can be done through social media or with the offering of e-mail subscription 

services.

ANSWER: NASA has a very robust social media program and is consistently working to achieve 

public awareness of all events NASA is involved in.
Other Initiatives:

8. If there are any other steps your agency has taken to increase proactive disclosures, please describe 

them here.

Section IV: Steps Taken to Greater Utilize Technology

A key component of the President's FOIA Memorandum was the direction to "use modern technology to 

inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government." In addition to using the internet to 

make proactive disclosures, agencies should also be exploring ways to utilize technology in responding to 

requests.

Please answer the following questions to describe how your agency is utilizing technology to improve its 

FOIA administration and the public's access to information. You should also include any additional 

information that that describes your agency's efforts in this area.

Making Material Posted Online More Usable:

1. Beyond posting new material, is your agency taking steps to make the posted information more useable 

to the public, especially to the community of individuals who regularly access your agency’s website?

 Steps can include soliciting feedback on the content and presentation of posted material, 

improving search capabilities on your agency website, posting material in open formats, making 

information available through mobile applications, providing explanatory material, etc.

ANSWER: Yes. NASA is a leader in media-centric initiatives. Various media tools are used 

on a continual basis to provide the public with information regarding NASA initiatives, 

events and business-related activities. NASA posts hyperlinks to information, launches, etc. 

that is of interest to the public.

2. If yes, please provide examples of such improvements.

 If your agency is already posting material in its most useful format, please describe these efforts.

ANSWER: NASA is continually improving and updating the websites by posting new 

material on a continual basis. Material and information is available through media resources 

including twitter, Facebook, Youtube, reddit, news conferences, media bulletins, etc. 

Use of Technology to Facilitate Processing of Requests:

Not required, but agencies may answer the questions for this section from the high-voume guidelines if 

they have information they would like to include.
Other Initiatives:

3. Did your agency successfully post all four quarterly reports for Fiscal Year 2015?

ANSWER: Yes.

4. If your agency did not successfully post all quarterly reports, with information appearing on FOIA.gov, 

please explain why and provide your agency’s plan for ensuring that such reporting is successful in Fiscal 

Year 2016.

5. Do your agency's FOIA professionals use e-mail or other electronic means to communicate with 

requesters whenever feasible? See OIP Guidance, "The Importance of Good Communication with FOIA 

Requesters 2.0: Improving Both the Means and the Content of Requester Communications." (Nov. 22, 

2013) If yes, what are the different types of electronic means that are utilized by your agency to 

communicate with requesters?

ANSWER: Yes. FOIA staff communicate through email.

6. If your agency does not communicate electronically with requests as a default, are there any limitations 

or restrictions for the use of such means? If yes, does your agency inform requesters about such

limitations? See id.

Section V: Steps Taken to Improve Timeliness in Responding to Requests and Reducing 

Backlogs

The President’s FOIA Memorandum and the Attorney General’s 2009 FOIA Guidelines have emphasized 

the importance of improving timeliness in responding to requests. This section of your Chief FOIA Officer 

Report addesses both time limits and backlog reduction. Backlog reduction is measured both in terms of 

numbers of backlogged requests or appeals and by looking at whether agencies closed their ten oldest 

requests, appeals, and consultations.

For the figures required in this Section, please use the numbers contained in the specified sections of 

your agency’s 2015 Annual FOIA Report and, when applicable, your agency’s 2014 Annual FOIA 

Report.

Simple Track: Section VII.A of your agency’s Annual FOIA Report, entitled "FOIA Requests – Response 

Time for All Processed Requests," includes figures that show your agency's average response times for 

processed requests. For agencies utilizing a multi-track system to process requests, there is a category for 

"simple" requests, which are those requests that are placed in the agency’s fastest (non-expedited) track, 

based on the low volume and/or simplicity of the records requested.
1. Does your agency utilize a separate track for simple requests?

ANSWER: Yes.

2. If so, for your agency overall in Fiscal Year 2015, was the average number of days to process simple 

requests twenty working days or fewer?

ANSWER: 7.44

3. Please provide the percentage of requests processed by your agency in Fiscal Year 2015 that were 

placed in your simple track.

ANSWER: 61.6%

4. If your agency does not track simple requests separately, was the average number of days to process all 

non-expedited requests twenty working days or fewer?

Backlogs: Section XII.A of your agency’s Annual FOIA Report, entitled "Backlogs of FOIA Requests and 

Administrative Appeals" shows the numbers of any backlogged requests or appeals from the fiscal year. 

You should refer to these numbers from your Annual FOIA Reports for both Fiscal Year 2014 and Fiscal 

Year 2015 when completing this section of your Chief FOIA Officer Report.

BACKLOGGED REQUESTS

5. If your agency had a backlog of requests at the close of Fiscal Year 2015, did that backlog decrease as 

compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2014?

ANSWER: The NASA backlog decreased (from 11 to 10).

6. If not, explain why and describe the causes that contributed to your agency not being able reduce its 

backlog. When doing so, please also indicate if any of the following were contributing factors:

 An increase in the number of incoming requests.

 A loss of staff.

 An increase in the complexity of the requests received. If possible, please provide examples or 

briefly describe the types of complex requests contributing to your backlog increase.

 Any other reasons – please briefly describe or provide examples when possible.

7. If you had a request backlog please report the percentage of requests that make up the backlog out of 

the total number of requests received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2015.

ANSWER: 1%
 To calculate your agency’s percentage, you must divide the number of backlogged requests 

reported in Section XII.A. of your Fiscal Year 2015 Annual FOIA Report by the number of 

requests received in Fiscal Year 2015, which can be found in Section V.A. of your Annual FOIA 

Report. Once divided, you can multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.

BACKLOGGED APPEALS

8. If your agency had a backlog of appeals at the close of Fiscal Year 2015, did that backlog decrease as 

compared with the backlog reported at the end of Fiscal Year 2014?

ANSWER: In FY 14 NASA did not have any appeals in backlog; in FY 15 NASA had 2.

9. If not, explain why and describe the causes that contributed to your agency not being able reduce 

backlog. When doing so, please also indicate if any of the following were contributing factors:

ANSWER: A Backlog of appeals was due to loss of staff as well as addressing more complex 

issues.

10. If you had an appeal backlog please report the percentage of appeals that make up the backlog out of 

the total number of appeals received by your agency in Fiscal Year 2015. If your agency did not receive 

any appeals in Fiscal Year 2015 and/or has no appeal backlog, please answer with "N/A."

ANSWER: 6%

Backlog Reduction Plans:

Not required, but agencies may answer the questions for this section from the high-voume guidelines if 

they have information they would like to include.

Status of Ten Oldest Requests, Appeals, and Consultations: Section VII.E, entitled "Pending 

Requests – Ten Oldest Pending Requests," Section VI.C.(5), entitled "Ten Oldest Pending Administrative 

Appeals," and Section XII.C., entitled "Consultations on FOIA Requests – Ten Oldest Consultations 

Received from Other Agencies and Pending at Your Agency," show the ten oldest pending requests, 

appeals, and consultations. You should refer to these numbers from your Annual FOIA Reports for both 

Fiscal Year 2014 and Fiscal Year 2015 when completing this section of your Chief FOIA Officer Report.

TEN OLDEST REQUESTS

11. In Fiscal Year 2015, did your agency close the ten oldest requests that were reported pending in your 

Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Report?

ANSWER: yes.
12. If no, please provide the number of these requests your agency was able to close by the end of the fiscal 

year, as listed in Section VII.E of your Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than ten total 

oldest requests to close, please indicate that.

 For example, if you only had seven requests listed as part of your "ten oldest" in Section VII.E. 

and you closed six of them, you should note that you closed six out of seven "oldest" requests.

13. Of the requests your agency was able to close from your ten oldest, please indicate how many of these 

were closed because the request was withdrawn by the requester. If any were closed because the request 

was withdrawn, did you provide any interim responses prior to the withdrawal?

ANSWER: None. All requests were processed.

TEN OLDEST APPEALS

14. In Fiscal Year 2015, did your agency close the ten oldest appeals that were reported pending in your 

Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Report?

ANSWER: N/A

15. If no, please provide the number of these appeals your agency was able to close by the end of the fiscal 

year, as listed in Section VII.C.(5) of your Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than ten 

total oldest appeals to close, please indicate that.

 For example, if you only had seven appeals listed as part of your "ten oldest" in Section VII.C.(5) 

and you closed six of them, you should note that you closed six out of seven "oldest" appeals.

TEN OLDEST CONSULTATIONS

16. In Fiscal Year 2015, did your agency close the ten oldest consultations that were reported pending in 

your Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Report?

ANSWER: N/A

17. If no, please provide the number of these consultations your agency was able to close by the end of the 

fiscal year, as listed in Section XII.C. of your Fiscal Year 2014 Annual FOIA Report. If you had less than 

ten total oldest consultations to close, please indicate that.

 For example, if you only had seven consultations listed as part of your "ten oldest" in Section 

XII.C. and you closed six of them, you should note that you closed six out of seven "oldest" 

consultations.
Additional Information on Ten Oldest Requests, Appeals, and Consultations & Plans:

18. Briefly explain any obstacles your agency faced in closing its ten oldest requests, appeals, and 

consultations from Fiscal Year 2014.

ANSWER: N/A. NASA closed all oldest.

19. If your agency was unable to close any of its ten oldest requests because you were waiting to hear back 

from other agencies on consultations you sent, please provide the date the request was initially received 

by your agency, the date when your agency sent the consultation, and the date when you last contacted the 

agency where the consultation was pending.

20. If your agency did not close its ten oldest pending requests, appeals, or consultations, please provide a 

plan describing how your agency intends to close those "ten oldest" requests, appeals, and consultations 

during Fiscal Year 2016.

Interim Responses:

Not required, but agencies may answer the questions for this section from the high-volume guidelines if 

they have information they would like to include.

Use of the FOIA’s Law Enforcement Exclusions

1. Did your agency invoke a statutory exclusion, 5 U.S.C. § 552(c)(1), (2), (3), during Fiscal Year 2015?

ANSWER: NO

2. If so, please provide the total number of times exclusions were invoked.

Success Story

Not required, but agencies may answer the questions for this section from the high-volume guidelines if 

they have information they would like to include.