Opinion ID: 628033
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The PRA Definition of Presidential Records

Text: 78 Having held that the recordkeeping guidelines defining presidential records are subject to judicial review, and having remanded to the district court for that purpose, it remains for us to discuss the definition of presidential records to be applied on remand. As our previous discussion of the PRA, supra pages 1290, 1292-93, has undoubtedly indicated, we must turn again to the PRA provision exempting from its scope any materials that are official records of an agency, as agency is defined in the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(f). 44 U.S.C. Sec. 2201(2)(A)(i). Congress expressly intended when it passed the PRA to preserve unchanged the coherent body of law that had been developed under the FOIA, and it is that body of law that provides the basis for our limited review of the definition of presidential records provided in the guidelines. The guidelines violate the PRA to the extent that they classify as presidential records materials that would otherwise be subject to the FOIA. 79 The FOIA definition of agency invoked in the PRA raises a clear but somewhat intricate set of references and cross-references. The FOIA provision mentioned in the PRA, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(f), incorporates the definition of agency provided at 5 U.S.C. Sec. 551(1): agency means each authority of the Government of the United States, whether or not it is subject to review by another agency, but does not include ... the Congress ... [or] the courts of the United States. 5 U.S.C. Sec. 551(1). Section 552(f) itself adds an additional proviso: 80 [A]gency ... includes any executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government (including the Executive Office of the President), [303 U.S.App.D.C. 128] or any independent regulatory agency. 81 5 U.S.C. Sec. 552(f). The Supreme Court has added still another layer of complexity, holding that for FOIA purposes, the EOP does not include the Office of the President.  '[T]he President's immediate personal staff or units in the Executive Office whose sole function is to advise and assist the President' are not included within the term 'agency' under the FOIA. Kissinger v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 445 U.S. 136, 156, 100 S.Ct. 960, 971, 63 L.Ed.2d 267 (1980) (quoting H.R.CONF.REP. No. 1380, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 15 (1974)), 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6267. 82 The Supreme Court test adopted in Kissinger for determining which entities within the EOP are agencies subject to the FOIA was originally developed by this court in Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d 1067 (1971). In Soucie, this court held that only entities whose sole function [is] to advise and assist the President are not separate agencies subject to the FOIA. Id. at 1075. Thus, the court concluded that the Office of Science and Technology (OST)--the precursor of the OSTP, one of the agencies whose guidelines are at issue in this appeal--was an agency subject to the FOIA because its duties went beyond advising the President and included evaluating federal scientific programs. Id. 83 The legislative history of the PRA could not be clearer in indicating congressional intent to adopt the test articulated in Soucie to determine what entities are agencies subject to the FOIA: 84 The [PRA] does not modify the applicability of the [FOIA] to White House and [EOP] records.... That is, it does not redefine the term agency to include entities not now covered by the FOIA. The Conference Report for the 1974 Freedom of Information Act amendments stated that [w]ith respect to the meaning of the term '[EOP]' the conferees intend the result reached in Soucie v. David, 448 F.2d 1067 [ (D.C.Cir.1971) ]. The term is not interpreted as including the President's immediate staff or units in the [EOP] whose sole function is to advise and assist the President. 85 H.R.REP. No. 1487, 95th Cong., 2d Sess. 11 (1978) (quoting H.R.CONF.REP. No. 1380, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 13 (1974)), reprinted in 1978 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5732, 5742. The FOIA Conference Report quoted in the PRA legislative history is the same report upon which the Supreme Court relied in Kissinger, 445 U.S. at 156, 100 S.Ct. at 971. 86 This court has consistently applied the sole function test developed in Soucie and adopted in Kissinger in its subsequent decisions. In Ryan v. Department of Justice, 617 F.2d 781 (D.C.Cir.1980), we rejected the argument that certain records of the Attorney General regarding judicial nominations were not subject to the FOIA because the Attorney General was acting in his independent capacity as an advisor to the President when he prepared the records in question. Id. at 788. The Court explained that 87 Soucie did not intimate that the [OST] might be an agency only when performing its non-advisory functions, and still be a presidential staff component, or non-agency, when performing its other function of advising the President. In fact, the reports under consideration in Soucie were requested by the President precisely for advisory purposes, but we did not deem the [OST] to be a non-agency in that specific context. 88 Id. (citing Soucie, 448 F.2d at 1075-76). See also Pacific Legal Foundation v. Council on Environmental Equality, 636 F.2d 1259 (D.C.Cir.1980) (holding that the Council on Environmental Equality (CEQ) is a FOIA agency because, in addition to advising the President, the CEQ coordinated federal environmental regulatory programs, issued guidelines for preparing environmental impact statements, and promulgated regulations for implementing the procedural provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act); Rushforth v. Council of Economic Advisers, 762 F.2d 1038 (D.C.Cir.1985) (holding that the Council of Economic Advisers is not an agency under the FOIA because its sole function is to advise and assist the President); Meyer v. Bush, 981 F.2d 1288 (D.C.Cir.1993) (holding that the President's [303 U.S.App.D.C. 129] Task Force on Regulatory Relief f[alls] within the Soucie test as an entity whose sole function is to advise and assist the President). 89 We hasten to add that our opinion in Armstrong I did not hold as a matter of law that the NSC produces both presidential and federal records because the NSC advises the President and has statutory obligations. See Armstrong, 810 F.Supp. at 347-48, 349 (citing Armstrong I, 924 F.2d at 286 n. 2.). The passage on which the district court relied appears as a footnote in the background section of our Armstrong I opinion, without any of the legal exposition that would be expected to accompany a holding announcing the resolution of a previously unsettled legal question. See Maggard v. O'Connell, 703 F.2d 1284, 1290-91 (D.C.Cir.1983) (statements in the background discussion of an opinion should not be construed as deciding unresolved legal issues, especially where the court was only reviewing and reversing a grant of summary judgment). The footnote appears to be nothing more than a description of the position of the defendants-appellants as embodied in the EOP regulations. See Joint Statement p 157 (The records of the [NSC] staff are federal records if they were received or created in connection with the work of the statutorily-created [NSC].... The records of the NSC staff are presidential records if they were received or created for the President, the Assistant to the President for National Security, his Deputy, or a member of the White House staff independently of any meeting or policy and staff actions of the NSC or its various groups.). Consequently, Armstrong I did not provide the legal basis for distinguishing federal and presidential records nor decide the legal status of various NSC materials. 90 Although we hold in accordance with the PRA that materials subject to the FOIA are not presidential records, we are unable to ascertain on the record before us whether the guidelines defining presidential records inappropriately classify certain materials. We cannot determine with certainty whether materials that the guidelines classify as presidential records are in fact official records of an agency subject to the FOIA. The NSC appears to have routinely conceded its status as an agency subject to the FOIA in litigation regarding specific FOIA requests to the NSC. See, e.g., Lisee v. CIA, 741 F.Supp. 988 (D.D.C.1990) (NSC made requisite showing of exceptional circumstances and exercise of due diligence in processing FOIA request to justify stay of further proceedings); Willens v. NSC, 726 F.Supp. 325 (D.D.C.1989) (requested NSC documents were within the FOIA exemption for documents authorized to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy); Halperin v. NSC, 452 F.Supp. 47 (D.D.C.1978) (same). The Supreme Court also appears to have assumed, without deciding the issue, that the NSC is a FOIA agency. See Kissinger, 445 U.S. at 156, 100 S.Ct. at 971 (stating that the FOIA requesters argued that certain documents which related to the [NSC] may have been [NSC] records and therefore subject to the [FOIA]. See H.R.REP. No. [876, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 8 (1974), 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6274], indicating that the [NSC] is an executive agency to which the FOIA applies.). But the issue has never been definitively resolved, and the record before us does not contain sufficient facts for us to make the determination. 91 Moreover, the cross-appellees suggest that the materials in question may not be subject to the FOIA--even if the NSC is an agency under the FOIA--because they are not official records of the NSC. See Brief for Cross-Appellees at 44-48. The factual record is also insufficient to resolve this issue on appeal. Thus, we remand to the district court for further proceedings to determine whether the guidelines under review inappropriately classify as presidential records materials that would otherwise be subject to the FOIA.