Opinion ID: 187172
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Commission's FOIA regulation

Text: Venetian next argues the Commission's policy is arbitrary and capricious because it is inconsistent with the agency's regulations regarding requests made under the FOIA. Those regulations, which implement Executive Order 12,600, 52 Fed.Reg. 23781 (1987), require the Commission to provide a submitter with explicit notice of a FOIA request for confidential commercial records whenever ... the submitter previously, in good faith, designated the records as confidential commercial information. 29 C.F.R. § 1610.19(b)(3). They further oblige the Commission to afford the submitter the opportunity to provide it with a detailed statement of objections to disclosure, id. § 1610.19(d), to consider carefully the objections of a submitter, id. § 1619.19(e)(1), and, when it decides information should be disclosed notwithstanding such objections, to provide the submitter with a written statement briefly explaining why the objections were not sustained ... in order that the submitter may seek a court injunction to prevent release of the records if it so chooses. Id. Venetian and the two amici contend Section 83 of the Compliance Manual constitutes a back door that allows the Commission unlawfully to avoid the requirements of its own FOIA regulations. According to Venetian, the Commission can decline to notify the submitter of confidential information when it discloses the information to a third party as long as the disclosure is styled disclosure under Section 83 rather than disclosure under the FOIA. In its brief before this court, the only justification the Commission musters in response is the question-begging statement that because the EEOC has not received a FOIA request ... for the Venetian's information ... the [FOIA regulations] do[] not ... apply to this case. [] With this as the only cognizable justification for the Commission's policy, we cannot but agree with Venetian that the policy is arbitrary and capricious. To maintain two irreconcilable policies, one of which the Compliance Manual section relating to the Privacy Actapparently enables the agency or, for that matter, any person asking for information, to circumvent the other, viz., the regulation implementing the FOIA and requiring pre-release notification, is arbitrary and capricious agency action. See INS v. Yang, 519 U.S. 26, 32, 117 S.Ct. 350, 136 L.Ed.2d 288 (1996) ([A]n irrational departure from [a governing] policy ... constitute[s] action that must be overturned as `arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion' within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act (alteration omitted)). We do not say the disclosure policy is necessarily contrary to law; perhaps the EEOC can yet supply a reasoned reconciliation of Compliance Manual § 83.1 and its regulations governing FOIA requests, preferably accompanied by a definitive explanation of exactly when each applies. Until then, however, the agency may not maintain its policy to Venetian's detriment. Venetian is entitled to an injunction against the release of its confidential information in any manner other than that prescribed in the Commission's FOIA regulations.