Opinion ID: 722513
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Legislative History of the PRA

Text: 64 Before concluding, we respond to the suggestion elaborated at some length in the dissent that the status of the NSC as an agency could be resolved by looking instead to the legislative history of the PRA rather than to our own prior cases. The argument, in brief, goes like this: When the Congress enacted the PRA in 1978, both the Congress and the President were aware that the NSC complied with the FOIA. Moreover, the Congress intended that any agency which, apparently like the NSC, is now subject to the FOIA would remain so. H.R. R EP. N O. 1487, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 11 (1978), reprinted in 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5732, 5742. Accordingly, by its express terms, the PRA excluded from coverage any documentary materials that are official records of an agency subject to the FOIA. 44 U.S.C. § 2201(2)(B). Ergo, for us to hold that the NSC is not an agency within the meaning of the FOIA, and is therefore subject to the PRA rather than to the FRA, is contrary to the intent of the Congress that passed the PRA. 65 The legislative history of the PRA also reveals, however, that the Congress intentionally aligned the definition of agency in the FOIA with the test we had announced in Soucie. See Meyer, 981 F.2d at 1291 (As clearly shown by the legislative history ... Congress intended to codify our earlier decision [319 U.S.App.D.C. 344] ... in Soucie); H.R. C ONF. R EP. No. 1380, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 14-15 (1974). By incorporating the Soucie test, the Congress made a deliberate decision to forego specifically listing the NSC and other EOP units as agencies, as had been done in the House Report. H.R. R EP. N O. 876, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 8 (1974), reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6267, 6274. Instead, the Congress adopted a flexible, judicially-created test and handed the matter back to the courts, anticipating that we would continue to shape and refine the basic Soucie definition--as indeed we did when we established the three-factor test in Meyer. There is nothing to indicate that the Congress intended specifically to define the NSC as a FOIA agency apart from a judicial determination to that effect.