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Friday, September 04, 2009
Treasury Blocking Research, Suit Says
By Phil Parker
Journal Staff Writer
A Santa Fe research institute is claiming it was “stonewalled” by the United States Department of the Treasury and is suing in an effort to discover how well-managed the federal government's car-company bailout has been since it was executed earlier this year.
In a civil suit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Santa Fe, the Center for Sustainable Economy — a consulting group that specializes in economic and environmental policy decisions — claims its request for documentation under the Freedom of Information Act was denied on false grounds. At issue is a request for a fee waiver.
The bigger picture, however, is CSE's attempt to get documents detailing how well-run General Motors and Chrysler have become since $65 billion in taxpayer money was used to keep them in business.
“The federal government is paying billions to prop up the auto industry and we're looking at whether it makes sense,” said John Talberth, CSE's president and senior economist. “If it's bad economic policy, what can be done to make it good policy, to make the process lean and green?”
The company submitted a FOIA request in July in an attempt to compel the U.S. Treasury “to produce documents regarding the nature and extent of the federal government's involvement in the domestic automobile industry, and the federal government's compliance with pertinent environmental law....”
Steve Sugarman, CSE's lawyer, called the FOIA request “a friendly reminder (to the treasury) that you've taken on the function of making cars, so you have to make sure everything you do in the performance of that complies with environmental law.”
According to the lawsuit: “CSE is committed to starting public-private dialogue on issues of national importance with the intent of informing and guiding government decision making.”
The “friendly reminder,” however, has been met with red tape. As part of its request for records, CSE asked for a fee waiver. Sugarman said the Freedom of Information Act contains a provision that if the release of documentation is in the public's interest, and if the requester has no commercial stake in the information, then a person or group is entitled to it without making any payment.
In its response, the suit states, the Treasury declined to turn over any information until CSE agreed in advance to pay the fees it had asked be waived.
“Essentially they took no action at all,” Sugarman said. “We're hoping that somebody at Treasury will look at it and see that the way they are addressing their obligations under FOIA constitutes a clear and blatant violation of the law.”
Talberth said if his company can get its hands on the documents the next step may be to campaign for the government to take a more fiscally and environmentally conscious role as head of General Motors and Chrysler.
It could be weeks or months before any progress is made on the suit, he said.
He added that CSE has seen these sorts of tactics before.
“We're seeing the kind of stonewalling that the Bush administration used to engage in,” he said.
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