ELR Citation: 40 ELR 20035
No(s). 09-17233 (Fed. Cir. Nov 17, 2010)

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court's grant of summary judgment in favor of an environmental group requiring the USDA, under FOIA, to disclose the GPS coordinates of wolf depredations to which it had responded. The district court held that the coordinates were not exempt from disclosure under FOIA Exemption 3 or Exemption 6. But §8791 of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 exempts from disclosure such geospatial data. In addition, it applies to this case even though the statute took effect after the USDA withheld the coordinates. The group seeks the prospective relief of an injunction directing the USDA to provide it with certain information. Section 8791 merely affects the propriety of this prospective relief and is therefore not impermissibly retroactive when applied in this case. Accordingly, the government need not hand over the requested GPS data.