(a) Yes. CEQ may charge fees for processing your FOIA request.

(b) CEQ will determine whether to charge a fee and the amount of the fee by using the rules in this subpart and the Office of Management and Budget's Uniform Freedom of Information Act Fee Schedule and Guidelines, as amended. 1

1 52 FR 10016 (Mar. 27, 1987).

(c) CEQ will not charge fees for deciding whether to grant or deny your appeal. If CEQ grants your appeal, we will charge fees for any additional searching, reviewing, or duplication that we carry out as a result of your appeal. For instance, if you appeal our determination of how to conduct the search for records, and we grant your appeal, we will conduct a new search in the manner you requested and will charge you fees accordingly.

(a) CEQ will charge fees equal to:

(1) The basic hourly rate of pay for each employee who participates in searching for records, reviewing records, or duplicating records (including contract employees), multiplied by the total number of hours that the employee worked on your request (rounded to the nearest quarter of an hour), plus 16 percent (to account for employee benefits); plus

(2) The total direct costs that CEQ incurs in searching for, reviewing, or duplicating records, such as the cost of operating computers and other electronic equipment, but excluding overhead expenses such as the cost of office space, heating, and lighting; plus

(3) An additional fee equal to the total direct costs of any additional services that you and CEQ agree upon, such as providing multiple copies of a record.

(b) In determining the fee under paragraph (a) of this section, CEQ will use the following guidelines:

(1) “Searching for records” is the process of looking for and retrieving the records you requested (including by electronic search) and determining whether individual records contain the information that you seek. CEQ will charge fees for searching for records even if we do not locate any records that respond to your request, or even if we determine not to disclose any of the records that we locate.

(2) “Reviewing records” is the process of examining records to determine whether to withhold them, in accordance with § 1515.16, and preparing records for disclosure (for instance, by marking records to indicate which portions CEQ is withholding).

(i) “Reviewing records” also includes the time CEQ spends obtaining and considering the views of other government agencies under § 1515.17 and the time CEQ spends obtaining and considering formal objections to disclosure under § 1515.41.

(ii) “Reviewing records” does not include time CEQ spends resolving general legal or policy questions regarding the application of exemptions.

(iii) CEQ will charge fees for reviewing records even if we determine not to disclose any of the records that we review.

(3) “Duplicating records” is the process of reproducing records, including scanning or printing records as necessary, in order to provide you with a copy.

(4) CEQ may include employee costs and direct costs that another component of the Executive Office of the President incurs in assisting CEQ with your request.

(c) CEQ will not charge fees if the total is less than $25.00, or if we determine that the cost of collecting the fee would exceed the amount of the fee.

(d) If CEQ reasonably determines that you (or other persons acting in concert with you) have submitted multiple requests on related matters for the purpose of avoiding fees, we may aggregate those requests and charge fees accordingly.

(a) Yes. CEQ makes the following exceptions for special requesters:

(1) CEQ will not charge you fees for searching for records if you are an educational institution, a noncommercial scientific institution, or a representative of the news media. Otherwise, CEQ will not charge you fees for the first 2 hours of searching for records, unless you are a commercial requester.

(2) CEQ will not charge you fees for reviewing records, unless you are a commercial requester.

(3) CEQ will not charge you fees for the first 100 pages of duplication (or an equivalent cost for duplication in other media), unless you are a commercial requester.

(b) For purposes of applying the exceptions in this section:

(1) You are a representative of a non-commercial scientific institution if your institution operates solely for the purpose of conducting scientific research the results of which are not intended to promote any particular product or industry, and your request is in furtherance of scientific research.

(2) You are a representative of an educational institution if you work for or study at a school that operates a program of scholarly research and your request is in furtherance of scholarly research.

(3) You are a representative of the news media if you or your employer gathers information of potential interest to a segment of the public, uses editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience, and your request is in furtherance of these activities. For the purposes of this paragraph (b), news means information that is about events of current interest to the public.

(i) If you are a freelance journalist, CEQ will consider you a representative of the news media if you can demonstrate that you have a solid basis to expect that a news media entity will publish the work to which your request relates, such as a publishing contract or a strong record of past publications.

(ii) If you are a representative of the news media, CEQ will ordinarily presume that your request does not primarily further a commercial interest for purposes of this section and § 1515.34.

(4) You are a commercial requester if you do not qualify as a special requester under paragraph (b)(1), (2), or (3) of this section and your request furthers a commercial, trade, or profit interest or supports litigation in furtherance of those interests.

(c) If you claim to be a representative of a non-commercial scientific institution, an educational institution, or the news media, CEQ may require you to verify your status by providing reasonable documentation, such as a signed letter on official letterhead. If you claim that your request is non-commercial for another reason, CEQ may require you to explain why it is non-commercial.

(a) Yes. You can apply for a waiver of fees (or a reduction of fees) by submitting a written statement that explains why disclosing the information will meet the conditions in paragraph (c) of this section.

(b) You can apply for a fee waiver at any time before CEQ completes processing your request or an appeal of your request. You can apply for a fee waiver with respect to a part of the records you seek or with respect to all of them.

(c) CEQ will grant you a fee waiver if all of the following conditions are met:

(1) Disclosure of the requested information would shed light on the operations or activities of the Government. The connection between the subject matter of your request, on the one hand, and identifiable operations or activities of the Federal Government, on the other, must be direct and clear, not remote or attenuated.

(2) Disclosure of the requested information would likely contribute significantly to public understanding of those operations or activities, because it would satisfy both of the following criteria:

(i) Disclosure of the requested records would be meaningfully informative about Government operations or activities. (The disclosure of information that already is in the public domain, in either the same or a substantially identical form, would not be meaningfully informative if nothing new would be added to the public's understanding.)

(ii) The disclosure would contribute to the understanding of a reasonably broad audience of persons interested in the subject, as opposed to your own individual understanding. (CEQ will presume that your request satisfies this criterion if you are a representative of the news media; otherwise, we will consider your expertise in the subject area as well as your ability and intention to effectively convey information to the public.)

(3) Disclosure of the requested information would not primarily advance your commercial, trade, or profit interests.

(d) CEQ will determine whether to grant or deny your request for a fee waiver if and when we would otherwise charge you fees. If we determine prior to that time that we are unlikely to grant your request for a fee waiver, we may notify you of our determination so that you may modify your request.

(a) If CEQ determines or estimates that we will charge you more than $25.00 in fees, we will notify you of our determination or estimate, unless you have already told us that you are willing to pay fees equal to or in excess of the amount we have determined or estimated.

(1) If CEQ can only estimate a part of the fee, we will explain that in the notice.

(2) If you are entitled to 2 hours of searching and 100 pages of duplication for free for the reasons described in § 1515.33, CEQ will advise you of this and explain whether we have already provided these entitlements.

(3) CEQ may ask you to tell us the maximum amount you are willing to pay in fees in writing, in which case we will toll the period for processing your request until you respond.

(b) If CEQ determines or estimates that the fee will exceed the maximum amount you previously told us you were willing to pay, we will inquire with you about modifying your request or increasing the maximum, and we will toll the period for processing your request until you respond.

(c) If you have not provided a way to contact you regarding fee matters, or you do not respond to a fee-related inquiry within 30 calendar days, CEQ will deny your request.

CEQ will not charge search fees or duplication fees if we have failed to grant or deny your request within the period described in § 1515.13, unless:

(a) CEQ determines that unusual circumstances are present, as described in § 1515.13; and

(1) CEQ finishes processing your request within 10 working days of the original deadline; or

(2) Your request seeks more than 5,000 pages of records; CEQ has provided you timely written notice of the unusual circumstances; and we have discussed with you how you could effectively limit the scope of your request (or we made at least three attempts in good faith to do so); or

(b) A court grants CEQ additional time to process your request due to exceptional circumstances, and we finish processing your request within the period set forth in a court order.

(a) Ordinarily, CEQ will bill you for fees at the time we respond to your FOIA request.

(b) When CEQ determines or estimates that the total fee for your request will exceed $250, we may require that you pay all or part of the anticipated fee in advance before we will process (or continue to process) your request.

(c) If you have previously failed to pay a FOIA fee that was due to any Government agency within 30 calendar days of the billing date, CEQ may require you to pay the outstanding fee (including interest) and make an advance payment of the anticipated fee for your current request before we will process (or continue to process) your request.

(d) If CEQ requires you to make an advance payment under this section, we will toll the period for processing your request until we receive the payment. If you do not pay within 30 calendar days, we will deny your request.

(e) CEQ will inform you of how to make a payment at the time that we bill you or require you to make an advance payment.

If you do not pay a fee within 30 calendar days of the date of the bill:

(a) CEQ may charge interest, at the rate provided for in 31 U.S.C. 3717, from the 31st day following the date of billing through the date we receive your payment; and

(b) CEQ will follow the provisions of the Debt Collection Act of 1982 (Pub. L. 97-365, 96 Stat. 1749), as amended, including its administrative procedures, which provide for the use of consumer reporting agencies, collection agencies, and offset.